Since being founded at UGA in April 1998, the Sagan Society has taken pride in its diverse roster of speakers and topics.

2002-2003

• Nov. 21: Faye Girsh, past President and current Senior Vice President of The Hemlock Society USA, discussed various aspects of voluntary euthanasia, including physician-assisted suicide legislation and the threats to such legislation posed by the Religious Right - especially in the form of the movement's favorite son, Attorney General John Ashcroft.
• Feb. 5: RACE IN ATLANTA'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
  The trend towards resegregation and the death of Brown v. Board of Education.
  Sagan Society President Richard Butler presented his research on disturbing demographic trends in Atlanta area public schools. Are we entering a new era of de facto segregation? The numbers don't lie.
• Feb. 12: Professor Patty Gowaty, Faculty of Evolutionary Biology at UGA, took a critical look into the foundations of scientific theory and practice in a lecture titled "SEXUAL SELECTION, SEX ROLES AND NULL HYPOTHESES." What is a null hypothesis? It helps to remember that one supports a theory in science by trying very hard to prove it wrong and failing. A null hypothesis specifies what experimental results you expect if your hypothesis (theory) turns out NOT to be true. Picking an appropriate null hypothesis can be tricky, and all sorts of prejudices and expectations can distort it. Prof. Gowaty explored some of those how some of those prejudices and expectations have shaped and continue to shape research into sexual selection and the evolution of sex roles.
• Feb. 19: UGA Professor of Sociology Dean Rojek guided the audience through some of his research in a presentation titled "HOMICIDE AS AN AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE: Trends, Causes and Prevention." This eye-opening and disturbing discussion offered a clear and balanced perspective on the facts and causes of homicide that generaly get lost (or are ignored) in government reports and media hype.
• Feb. 26: UGA Philosophy grad student, Sagan Society officer, and all-around rabble-rouser George Felis presented a short lecture titled "Faith & Reason: Is religious belief fundamentally irrational?" followed by over an hour of lively Q&A.
• March 26: Panelists Mark Cooney, Ph.D. (Sociology), Dean Rojek, Ph.D. (Sociology) and Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., J.D. (Law) enlightened a diverse audience in a discussion titled "The War on Drugs: Costs and Consequences." The historical, sociological and legal facts of the matter were in and of themselves quite enough to convince the audience in attendance that this is a war in which everyone loses.

2001-2002

• Sept. 5: Carl Sagan - His Career and Ideals
  Sagan Society President Richard Butler offered a short presentation on the career of our organization's namesake and continuing inspiration.
• Sept. 19: Bioterrorism and Agriculture
  Dr. Corrie Brown of the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine discussed the dangers of bioterrorism, with a focus on the dangerous ease with which attacks aimed at U.S. agriculture could succeed.
• Sept. 26: Does Religion Undermine Morality?
  Third-year Sagan Society officer and philosophy graduate student George Felis argued that religious belief actually undermines a genuinely moral life - with a few more words about religious fundamentalism and fanaticism than originally planned.
• Oct. 4: Privacy as a Fundamental Human Right
  Privacy rights activist-lawyer and Sagan Society co-founder Chris Hoofnagle returned to his old haunts from the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C. to tell us how U.S. law fails to protect privacy, and how it might get worse after 9-11.
• Oct. 17: The Case for an American Parliament
  Every election year makes it more apparent that something has gone horribly wrong with democracy as practiced in the United States. Professor Christopher S. Allen of UGA's Political Science Department will argue that adopting a parliamentary system might be the change we need to fix what is broken.
• Nov. 8: The Heritability of Human Intelligence -  Why We Hardly Know Anything About It
  Sagan Society pal and Rationally Speaking columnist Massimo Pigliucci, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,   explained one fascinating and oft-misunderstood aspect of how our genes do (and do not) make us who we are.
• Nov. 14: The Effects of Global Warming on Tropical Disease
  As if the possibility of rising sea levels and unpredictable large-scale climate changes weren't enough, there is reason to think that global warming would have profound impacts on the spread of disease. The scary details were related by Dr. Julie Moore of UGA's interdisciplinary Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine.
• Jan. 30: Why we need a Bill Student Rights at UGA
  This presentation by Sagan Society President Richard Butler  focused on ways in which UGA policies governing student groups and campus events seem to conflict with basic consitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties.
• Feb. 13: Science and Religion: Is the Conflict Necessary?
  Many Americans seem to think that science is inherently hostile to their religion, but a clear majority of scientists - many of whom are themselves believers - say that there is no conflict at all. Some religious leaders also reject the conflict model: Pope John Paul II has clearly stated that evolution is compatible with the Christian faith. Sagan Society officer George Felis presented a short lecture and led a lengthy discussion on this topic.
• March 27: The Sagan Mentality in Traditional Churches
  Speaker Nelson Hitchcock, former schoolteacher and long-time Athenian, has been involved in church communities all his life without ever quite buying the party-line dogma of any church. How does a religious skeptic fit into a church community? How widespread is critical thinking about theology in the pews... and on the pulpit? Join us as Mr. Hitchcock shares his insider's perpsective on these and other religious questions.
• April 4: The Kept University: How Commercial Forces Are Transforming Higher Education (full text of this lecture available as a .pdf file)
  Speaker Jennifer Washburn is a freelance journalist and a fellow at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan public policy institute in Washington, D.C. Ms. Washburn’s journalism articles and opinion pieces have appeared in a range of publications, including the the Washington Post, American Prospect, Mother Jones, and Washington Times. In March of 2000 she co-authored with Eyal Press a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly titled "The Kept University," which explored the growing commercialization of higher education. This article was awarded a 2001 National Association of Science Writers' "Science in Society" journalism award. The Sagan Society of UGA is proud to co-sponsor this First Annual Graduate Student Association Ideas & Issues in Higher Education Lecture.
• April 10: A Critique of Intelligent Design
  The Sagan Society would rather never bother discussing Intelligent Design again, but recent state school board activity in Ohio reveals that this particular religiously-motivated pseudoscience refuses to go away, despite a complete absence of evidentiary support - or even the theoretical possibility of testing its claims. Sagan Society advisor Claiborne Glover, Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at UGA,  presented a lecture explaining the anti-scientific foundations of Intelligent Design theory.

2000-2001

• September 6: TSS officer George Felis will present his Freedom From Religion Foundation prize-winning short essay titled "Simply Unbelievable" and lead a discussion on belief, doubt, and the power of everyday rationality.
• September 13: TSS Advisor and Astronomy Professor J.P. Caillault  will talk about Life, The Universe, and Nothing. In his own modest words, "I will discuss the various astronomical and physical arguments that are used to show that 'life' cannot be eternal."
• September 20: Screening of the classic cinema recreation of the Scopes Trial, Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March and Gene Kelly.
• September 27: Speech Communications Professor Celeste Condit will answer the question, "What Does the Public Know About Race and Genetics?"
• October 4: Ecology Professor Patty Gowaty will lecture and lead discussion on the topic "Evolutionary Psychology is Important, and That's All the More Reason to Do It Well."
• October 11: UGA Eminent Scholar Steven Stice will speak on the use of stem cells in biological research.
• October 24: The Sagan Society was proud to skip our weekly event and encourage our members to attend the Fall Charter Lecture by Jared Diamond, an eminent scientist in an array of fields whose book Guns, Germs & Steel won a 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.
• January 17: UGA Professor of Social Work Bruce Thyer delivered a terrific overview of "Pseudoscience in Psychotherapy."
• January 24: TSS officer and Philosophy graduate student George Felis did his darnedest to answer the question "What Is Life?"
• January 31: Emory Professor of Anthropology George Armelagos delivered an eye-opening lecture titled "The Myth of Race and the Reality of Racism."
• February 28: ID: Intelligent Design or Intellectual Dishonesty?
  As a follow-up to a visit to campus by neo-Creationist William Dembski, TSS gathered a panel of evolutionary biologists and philosophers of science will explain why Intelligent Design is a pseudoscience structured by theology and ideology rather than scientific evidence. Panelists were Professors Claiborne Glover (Molecular Biology and Genetics), Barry Palevitz (Botany) and Scott Kleiner (Philosophy), along with TSS officer George Felis (Philosophy).
• March 14: Frankenfood Fight: Or, Waiter, there's a gene in my soup!
  Dr. Wayne Parrott, Professor of Crop & Soil Science at UGA, will discuss various aspects of the media-hyped debate over genetically modified foods: Which risks are real and which are myth? What are the costs of NOT using the technology? What are the alternatives?
• March 22: Debate: Does the Christian God Exist?
  Scientist, author and rationalist par excellence Massimo Pigliucci debated famed Christian theologian and philosopher William Lane Craig on the titled topic before an audience of 400+.
• March 28:  Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage: What's Loving got to do with it?
  UGA Philosophy Professor Clark Wolf believes that the legal status of same-sex marriage was established long ago by legal precedent in the Loving vs. Virginia anti-miscegenation law case. Will it stand up in court? Come listen and find out more.

1999-2000

• September 22nd Keith Lankford, Chris Hoofnagle and Shannon Daspit present: HOPE for Whom? Probability and the ethical issues surrounding the lottery-funded HOPE scholarship.
• September 29th TSS in conjunction with SEA, the GGF, SGA and UGA present: the Environmental Programs Enhancement Committee (EPEC) student forum.
• October 6th UGA professor Alex Rosenburg presents: Science and Philosophy.
• October 20th Kirk Bertram and Lanny Davis present: Y2K Readiness Forum.
• October 27th Sagan Society Halloween Social at the Globe.
• November 3rd UGA student Patrick Power presents: Science & Objectivism.
• November 10th UGA professor and Sagan faculty advisor Francis Assaf presents: Voltaire and the Callas Affair.
• November 17th UGA professor Victoria Davion presents: Science & Feminism.
• December 8th UGA professor and Sagan faculty advisor Barry Palevitz presents: NOVA special on Richard Feynman.
• January 19th Dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences presents Wyatt Anderson presents: Genetics as a historical tool: DNA typing, Thomas Jefferson, and the Czar's family.
• February 2nd UGA student Chris Hoofnagle presents: Two private threats to Freedom of the Press: Mass advertising and media concentration.
• Thursday February 3rd in association with TSS, the University Union Cinematic Arts presents the film Contact at the Tate Center theater.
• February 9th the Associate Chairman and Director of Undergraduate Degree Programs in biology Professor William Barstow presents: The Life of Darwin.
• February 15th Atlanta Freethought Society member Ed Buckner presents: Skepticism Regarding Belief in God.
• Wednesday February 23rd Georgia State Professor William Evans from CSICOP's Council for Media Integrity presents: Science & Reason in Film and Television.
• Wednesday March 22nd Natalia Ferrando from the Society for the Ethical Treatment of Animals presents: Should Animals be used for Experiments?
• Wednesday March 29th UGA Psychology Professor Jennifer Vendemia presents: Cult Psychology.
• Wednesday April 5th Athens' Unitarian Universalist Minister Terre Balof presents: The dangers of religious extremism in a multicultural community.
• Thursday April 13th in the Peabody Hall Lecture Room at 8 PM Freedom from Religion Foundation member Dan Barker presents, "Losing faith in faith: from preacher to atheist."
• Monday April 17th at 3:30 PM in the UGA Chapel Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights and visiting professor of law at Yale presents, "Will the death penalty remain alive in the 21st century? International norms, discrimination, arbitrariness, and the risk of executing the innocent."
• Wednesday April 26th in the Law School Auditorium at 8 PM, UGA law professor Donald Wilkes presents, "Rehnquisition and Beyond: The war on the Bill of Rights."

1998-1999

• 17 April 1998 Sagan Society is founded at UGA 
• 27 May 1998 UGA professor, and Sagan Society advisor, Claiborne Glover presents: What Can We Deduce from What We Don't Understand? A Reply to the Biochemical Creationism of Darwin's Black Box
• 23 September 1998 UGA professor, and Sagan Society advisor, JP Caillault presents: Extraterrestrial Life: Are We Alone?
• 21 October 1998 Atlanta Freethought Society VP for Internal Communications Ed Buckner presents: This is a Free Country Not a Christian Nation
• 4 November 1998 Editor in Chief of Skeptic Magazine Michael Shermer presents: Why People Believe Weird Things
• 2 December 1998 UGA professor, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Dr. Ed Larson presents: Anti-Scientism and the Scopes Trial
• 25 January 1999 Former FDA Chief, and Dean of the Yale Medical School, David Kessler presents: The Tobacco Wars (The Sagan Society was invited to host this event on behalf of the Charter Lecture Committee of UGA.)
• 3 February 1999 Sagan Society President Keith Lankford hosts a viewing of ABC's "The Power of Belief"
  
• 10 February 1999 University Eminent Scholar in Animal Reproductive Physiology Steve Stice presents: Cloning Animals for the Benefit of Mankind
  
• 17 February 1999 UGA professor JP Caillault presents: Cosmological Antigravity
  
• 23 February 1999 Sagan Society Keith Lankford participates in point/counterpoint debate with CFA representative Jay Budziszewski debate topic: Can We be Good Without God
• March 1999 Sagan Society Hosts UGA's Student Government Association presidential runoff debate (Sagan Society vice president Shannon Daspit moderates the debate)
  31 March 1999 UGA professor, and author, Eugene Odum presents: Ecological Vignettes
• 28 April 1999 UGA professor, and Sagan Society advisor, Francis Assaf presents: Common Fallacies and Other Unsound Reasoning.