Al Seckel

Throughout the 1980s, Al Seckel was active in the Freethought movement. In this capacity he authored a number of articles and pamphlets. He also edited two books on the English rationalist philosopher Bertrand Russell. In 1983, Seckel and John Edwards co-created the Darwin fish design, which was first sold as a bumper sticker and on T-shirts in 1983–84 by a southern California group called Atheists United.[3] Chris Gilman, a Hollywood prop maker, manufactured the first plastic car ornaments in 1990, and licensed the design to Evolution Design of Austin, Texas.[4] When the emblem evolved into a million-dollar business, Evolution Design threatened to sue distributors of look-alike and derivative products. Seckel in turn sued Evolution Design for copyright infringement. Seckel did not seek royalties, but wanted Evolution Design to allow free use of the design by anyone authorized by him. Although Seckel was able to produce examples of the design that predated Gilman's claimed 1990 copyright date, the suit was settled when it became apparent that Seckel and Edwards had allowed the design to fall into public domain.[3]

In 1984, Seckel started the Southern California Skeptics (SCS), and became a spokesperson for science and its relationship to the paranormal.[5] SCS co-sponsored and produced a monthly series of lectures, primarily held at the California Institute of Technology, with other meetings occasionally held on the campus of Cal State Fullerton, that explained alleged paranormal phenomena such as extra-sensory perception and firewalking.[6][7][8] Seckel also wrote about investigating various supernatural claims from the scientific perspective. One such investigation, led by James Randi, concerned faith healer Peter Popoff, who used a hearing transmitter to give the impression that he was psychic and hearing private information from God.[9] Seckel also wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times and the Santa Monica Monthly News from 1987–1989, explaining apparently amazing or paranormal phenomena in scientific terms.[10] An article published in New Scientist in 1985 states that the Southern California Skeptics were "the fastest growing chapter of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)".[11] Author George P. Hansen, in an article published in 1992, stated that incidents involving Seckel had embarrassed CSICOP because "he did not hold the academic credentials he claimed."[12]

In 1987, SCS and Seckel helped sponsor an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Edwards v. Aguillard, challenging the constitutionality of a Louisiana law calling for the classroom inclusion of creation science.[13] The brief was written by a group of attorneys led by Jeffrey Lehman (later president of Cornell University), and SCS board member and Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann recruited the signatures of 72 Nobel Laureates, 17 State Academies of Science, and 7 other scientific organizations.[8] It argued that "creation science" was counter not only to the study of evolution, but to all sciences. The court decided in a 7-2 vote that so-called "creation-science" was in fact, religion disguised as science, deliberately construed as such in order to circumvent the constitutional prohibitions of keeping Church and State separate, especially in the public science classroom. All of the opinions cited the brief, including the dissents.[14]

The Southern California Skeptics dissolved in the late 1980s. In 1992, Michael Shermer started a new Los Angeles-area skeptical group called The Skeptics Society, using SCS's old mailing list and involving several of the same board members.

Seckel was "a leading collector and popularizer" of optical illusions.[2]

In 1994, he created an interactive website on illusions.[15][16] He also developed visual illusion installations for museums.[17]

Seckel's books about optical illusions include several picture books for children such as Ambiguous Illusions (2005), Action Optical Illusions (2005) and Stereo Optical Illusions (2006).

His book, Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali, and the Artists of Optical Illusion (2004), collects the work of many visual illusion artists, including among others Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593), Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), M. C. Escher (1898–1972), and Rex Whistler (1905–1944). His book The Art of Optical Illusions placed first on the American Library Association's "Top 10 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers" list for 2001.[18]

He gave many lectures about such illusions, including an early TED talk (2004) and a talk at the World Economic Forum, Davos in 2011.[2]

During the late 1990s, Seckel and rare-book dealer Jeremy Norman purchased, collected, and organized the original papers of many of the pioneers in the history of the development of molecular biology, so that these papers would be preserved together for scholarly use.[19] At the time they were collected, the papers had no apparent market value and institutions were not interested in keeping the archives of their retired scientists. After the Wellcome Trust purchased the papers of Francis Crick for $2.4 million, Norman offered his collection for sale piecemeal through Christie's. Seckel brought forth a lawsuit against Norman and Christie’s to keep the collection in one piece. A settlement was reached where Norman through Christie’s was allowed to sell the collection in its entirety to preserve free access to scholars.[20] Former colleagues and associates of James Watson and Crick attempted to raise the asking price of $3.2 million so the collection could be donated to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where Watson and Crick had done their pioneering research, but were unsuccessful. The collection was eventually acquired by molecular biologist J. Craig Venter, who has said he will keep the collection at the J. Craig Venter Institute.[21]

Seckel was sued on several occasions after disputes over rare-book investment and sales.[2][22]

In a San Diego Reader article from 1994, Tom McIver (author of Anti-Evolution: An Annotated Bibliography) accused Seckel of failing to disclose financial information as leader of the Southern California Skeptics and misrepresenting his academic credentials.[23] Seckel later sued the author, Tom McIver, for libel over edits to his Wikipedia page. The suit was settled in 2007 under undisclosed terms.[2]

A 2015 profile of Seckel in Tablet Magazine by Mark Oppenheimer detailed several first-person accounts from individuals who reported that Seckel still owed them money including the widow of one of his mentors, his lawyer, a graduate student, and those who had engaged in rare book deals. The article stated that there were at least 25 cases involving Seckel from 1992 to 2015 in the Los Angeles Superior Court database.[2] Oppenheimer reported that Seckel cultivated a false image, both with personal contacts and within the media, of himself as a graduate from Cornell with degrees in physics and math, as an affiliate of and candidate for doctoral degrees at CalTech, and as a scientist conducting research in conjunction with colleagues at Harvard University. Some of these inaccuracies were published in media coverage of Seckel, including in the Los Angeles Times in 1985[7] and 1987.[2][8]

In 2009 Seckel was involved in organizing a science conference with financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Mindshift conference took place in early 2011 on Epstein's private island Little Saint James.[24][25] In attendance were scientists Murray Gell-Mann, Leonard Mlodinow, Gerald Sussman,[22] and Frances Arnold,[25] in addition to the actor and cryptocurrency proponent Brock Pierce.[24][25]

An interview between Jeffrey Epstein and Al Seckel discussing perception appeared on Epstein's science website on October 17, 2010.[26]