The ECSO Symposium 2008, organised by the Observatoire Zététique, was held on September 20-21, 2008, in Grenoble. The full programme is available here.

More than 30 people from 7 countries gathered in Grenoble to attend the symposium. Six interesting presentations dealt with a variety of topics.

The British hypnosis expert, Michael Heap, explained the two major approaches to hypnosis. According to the first, hypnosis is a special trance-like state of consciousness, according to the second, which is now held by the majority of psychologists, it is nothing that transcends normal psychology: it is just a motivational kick so to speak. Wim Betz, professor of medicine in Brussels, talked about the many harmful effects of alternative medicine, refuting the popular idea that it is a soft way of treating patients. These harmful effects range from poisonous ingredients of alternative medications to the epidemiological effects of the anti-vaccination movement. Nicolas Vivant from the French skeptics group OZ gave a report about their test of an alternative healer who claimed to be able to detect a human energy field. Of course, the healer´s results could not be distinguished from chance...

On Sunday morning, the Italian skeptic Francesco Grassi talked about the history of the crop circle fad, illustrated by plenty of photos and video clips. Despite all other attempts to explain crop circles by natural physical causes like plasma vortices, the most plausible explanation has always been that crop circles are simply hoaxes. No, the UFO explanation has never been even remotely plausible... The Belgian anthropologist Johan Braeckman analyzed the various possibilities of how to teach and not to teach evolution in secondary schools. He recommended that biology teachers deal with questions about evolution and religion if asked by students; they should not try to avoid the topic by deferring it to their colleagues from the religious faculty. Students should feel that their concerns are taken seriously, not brushed away. The final talk by the Hungarian biologist Gábor Hraskó introduced the participants to the manifold activities of the new Hungarian skeptics society, which is going to host the next European Skeptics Conference 2009 in Budapest.