You can still make it, you just have to get yourself to St Louis, it’s free.
In addition to the fabulous named people on the Skepticon schedule, I’m going to be doing one of the workshops on Friday, at 1pm. That’s the only one I know so far, which is a shame, because all the others will be far more interesting, I’m sure. I’m planning to introduce attendees to cladistic terminology and have them build phylogenetic trees from some data…oh god, you’re already falling asleep. Then don’t come! There’ll be lots of fun and intellectually stimulating activities and talks going on! Go to the comedy show, or the dance!
I’ll just sit my lonely hotel room and think about evolution, very deeply. Or maybe I’ll go spider-hunting around the venue. Maybe I should do a spontaneous spider workshop, alone, outside, just for me — don’t be alarmed if you see a strange man lurking in the bushes outside your room.
Be sure to include at least one character in your “cladistics” data set that doesn’t fit the proposed tree, that requires a state to arise at least twice. Otherwise you’ll be giving the impression that data is always perfectly clean. Examples in textbooks and museum displays usually give that unfortunate impression. One can resolve conflicts with parsimony, but that is not the only possible criterion, and often it’s inferior to more statistically-based criteria (don’t get me started).