Announcement List for the Virginia Atheists & Agnostics

[John Kubinski <>]

Hello VAA,

I'm very happy to announce that our meeting this week will be a lecture by Dr. Andy Thomson, entitled: "Piety, Plagiarism, and Placebo Effects: How Religions Hijack our Evolved Capacities for Self Healing." Expect a provocative and persuasive application of evolutionary psychology to the phenomenon of religion.

Dr. Thomson describes the talk like so:

My goal is to give folks an understanding of placebo effects. Science reveals several distinct kinds. They represent complex evolved machinery for self healing that date to our invertebrate ancestors and the earliest central nervous systems. Traditional religions, new age nonsense, homeopathy and other shams claim abilities to improve health. They actually rely on an unappreciated legacy of our evolution, a legacy medical science is now elucidating. 

Dr. Thomson is a staff psychiatrist at the University's CAPS, a trustee for the Richard Dawkins Foundations for Reason and Science, as well as the author of: Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith. 

If you are going to attend just one event of ours this semester, I suggest not missing this esteemed speaker. And...there's free pizza at the reception!

The time and location are a little different this week; the talk will be held at:

6:00 P.M., in Nau Hall 211, on Tuesday, March 5th

Join the facebook event.

Spread the flyer. (Attached)

Bring a friend.

See you then,

John Kubinski

VAA President

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