Al Seckel
Encyclopedia
Al Seckel is an American
authority on visual
and other types of sensory illusion
s, and how they relate to perception
. Seckel collects, researches, and experiments with illusions to understand what conditions are necessary for them to work, with particular focus on how they can be explained in terms of the electrophysiology
and neuroanatomy
of the retina
l and cortical
networks that mediate visual perception.
. 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. Chris Gilman, a Hollywood prop maker, manufactured the first plastic car ornaments in 1990, and licensed the design to Evolution Design of Austin, Texas. When the emblem evolved into a million-dollar business, Evolution Design began threatening to sue distributors of look-alike and derivative products (like a Jewish "gefilte" fish). 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
.
In 1984, Seckel started the Southern California Skeptics (SCS), and became a spokesperson for science and its relationship to the paranormal
. SCS co-sponsored and produced a monthly series of lectures held monthly at the California Institute of Technology, other meetings were also held on the campus of Cal State Fullerton, that explained alleged paranormal phenomena such as Extra-sensory perception
and firewalking. 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. 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.
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
. 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. It argued that "creation science" was counter not only to the study of evolution
, but to all sciences. The court decided 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 consititutional prohibitions of keeping Church and State separate, especially in the public science classroom. All of the opinions cited the brief, including the dissents.
In late 1990, due to a sudden onset of leukemia
, Seckel had to enter the hospital, where his health quickly deteriorated. The Southern California Skeptics folded. In 1991, Michael Shermer
started a new Los Angeles
-area skeptical group called The Skeptics Society
, using SCS's mailing list and involving many of its original board members. Seckel started to recover from his illness in 1994, turning his full attention to studying the human brain, specifically vision and how it relates to perception.
vision scientist Shinsuke Shimojo and computational neuroscientist Christof Koch. Seckel has written a number of books on visual illusions and has given invited talks at many universities around the world, and at many prestigious conferences, including TED
and the World Economic Forum
, Davos.
His book, Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali, and the Artists of Optical Illusion (2004), collects the work of many prominent international 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. Some of his other books on optical illusions and perception, which focus more on the science that mediates illusions and perception, have been used in college courses on visual perception.
In 1994, Seckel designed and put up the first free interactive website on illusions and has developed visual illusion installation for museums around the world. Seckel has also written a series of optical illusion picture books for children including Ambiguous Illusions (2005), Action Optical Illusions (2005) and Stereo Optical Illusions (2006). Seckel wrote a monthly column on illusions for National Geographic Kids
magazine.
In 2005, Seckel was one of the judges at the first "Best Visual Illusion of the Year" contest held in A Coruña
, Spain at the European Conference on Visual Perception. In 2006 he was listed as one of the contest's sponsors.
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 Christies to keep the collection in one piece. A settlement was reached where Norman through Christies was allowed to sell the collection in its entirety to preserve free access to scholars. Former colleagues and associates of 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
.
) is a classical composer. He has two older brothers. He was born in New Rochelle, New York
. and now resides in Malibu, California.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
authority on visual
Optical illusion
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
and other types of sensory illusion
Illusion
An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....
s, and how they relate to perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
. Seckel collects, researches, and experiments with illusions to understand what conditions are necessary for them to work, with particular focus on how they can be explained in terms of the electrophysiology
Electrophysiology
Electrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electric current on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart...
and neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy is the study of the anatomy and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defined nervous systems, and thus we can begin to speak of...
of the retina
Retina
The vertebrate retina is a light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye create an image of the visual world on the retina, which serves much the same function as the film in a camera. Light striking the retina initiates a cascade of chemical and electrical...
l and cortical
Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...
networks that mediate visual perception.
Freethought movement
Throughout the 1980s, Al Seckel was active in the freethought movementFreethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
. In this capacity he authored a number of articles and pamphlets. He also edited two books on the English rationalist philosopher Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
. 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
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
group called Atheists United. Chris Gilman, a Hollywood prop maker, manufactured the first plastic car ornaments in 1990, and licensed the design to Evolution Design of Austin, Texas. When the emblem evolved into a million-dollar business, Evolution Design began threatening to sue distributors of look-alike and derivative products (like a Jewish "gefilte" fish). 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
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
.
In 1984, Seckel started the Southern California Skeptics (SCS), and became a spokesperson for science and its relationship to the paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
. SCS co-sponsored and produced a monthly series of lectures held monthly at the California Institute of Technology, other meetings were also held on the campus of Cal State Fullerton, that explained alleged paranormal phenomena such as Extra-sensory perception
Extra-sensory perception
Extrasensory perception involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was coined by Frederic Myers, and adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and...
and firewalking. Seckel also wrote about investigating various supernatural claims from the scientific perspective. One such investigation, led by James Randi
James Randi
James Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation...
, concerned faith healer Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff
Peter Popoff is a German-born American faith healer and the president of Peter Popoff Ministries. He conducts revival meetings and has a national television program...
, who used a hearing transmitter to give the impression that he was psychic and hearing private information from God. Seckel also wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
and the Santa Monica Monthly News from 1987–1989, explaining apparently amazing or paranormal phenomena in scientific terms.
In 1987, SCS and Seckel helped sponsor an amicus
Amicus
Amicus was the United Kingdom's second-largest trade union, and the largest private sector union, formed by the merger of Manufacturing Science and Finance, the AEEU agreed in 2001, and two smaller unions, UNIFI and the GPMU...
brief before the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in the case Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
, challenging the constitutionality of a Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
law calling for the classroom inclusion of creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
. The brief was written by a group of attorneys led by Jeffrey Lehman
Jeffrey S. Lehman
Jeffrey Sean Lehman is an American scholar, lawyer and academic administrator who is currently serving as the chancellor and founding dean of the Peking University School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China...
(later president of Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
), and SCS board member and Nobel
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
Laureate Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann is an American physicist and linguist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles...
recruited the signatures of 72 Nobel Laureates, 17 State Academies of Science, and 7 other scientific organizations. It argued that "creation science" was counter not only to the study of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, but to all sciences. The court decided 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 consititutional prohibitions of keeping Church and State separate, especially in the public science classroom. All of the opinions cited the brief, including the dissents.
In late 1990, due to a sudden onset of leukemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
, Seckel had to enter the hospital, where his health quickly deteriorated. The Southern California Skeptics folded. In 1991, Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...
started a new Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
-area skeptical group called The Skeptics Society
The Skeptics Society
The Skeptics Society is a nonprofit, member-supported organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs. The Skeptics Society was originally founded as a Los Angeles-area skeptical group to replace the defunct...
, using SCS's mailing list and involving many of its original board members. Seckel started to recover from his illness in 1994, turning his full attention to studying the human brain, specifically vision and how it relates to perception.
Visual illusions
Seckel collects, researches, and experiments with visual and other types of sensory illusions. Up through 2005, Seckel was affiliated with California Institute of TechnologyCalifornia Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
vision scientist Shinsuke Shimojo and computational neuroscientist Christof Koch. Seckel has written a number of books on visual illusions and has given invited talks at many universities around the world, and at many prestigious conferences, including TED
TED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
and the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
, Davos.
His book, Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali, and the Artists of Optical Illusion (2004), collects the work of many prominent international visual illusion artists, including among others Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books – that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of...
(1527–1593), Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
(1904–1989), M. C. Escher
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher , usually referred to as M. C. Escher , was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...
(1898–1972), and Rex Whistler
Rex Whistler
Reginald John 'Rex' Whistler was a British artist, designer and illustrator.-Biography:Rex Whistler was born in Eltham, Kent, the son of Henry and Helen Frances Mary 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. Some of his other books on optical illusions and perception, which focus more on the science that mediates illusions and perception, have been used in college courses on visual perception.
In 1994, Seckel designed and put up the first free interactive website on illusions and has developed visual illusion installation for museums around the world. Seckel has also written a series of optical illusion picture books for children including Ambiguous Illusions (2005), Action Optical Illusions (2005) and Stereo Optical Illusions (2006). Seckel wrote a monthly column on illusions for National Geographic Kids
National Geographic Kids
National Geographic Kids is a children's magazine published by the National Geographic Society. Its first issue was printed in September 1975 under the original title: National Geographic World .The magazine was published for twenty-six...
magazine.
In 2005, Seckel was one of the judges at the first "Best Visual Illusion of the Year" contest held in A Coruña
A Coruña
A Coruña or La Coruña is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country...
, Spain at the European Conference on Visual Perception. In 2006 he was listed as one of the contest's sponsors.
Other activities
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. 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 TrustWellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
purchased the papers of Francis Crick
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson...
for $2.4 million, Norman offered his collection for sale piecemeal through Christie's
Christie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
. Seckel brought forth a lawsuit against Norman and Christies to keep the collection in one piece. A settlement was reached where Norman through Christies was allowed to sell the collection in its entirety to preserve free access to scholars. Former colleagues and associates of Watson
James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick...
and Crick attempted to raise the asking price of $3.2 million so the collection could be donated to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. The Laboratory has a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences. It...
where Watson and Crick had done their pioneering research, but were unsuccessful. The collection was eventually acquired by molecular biologist J. Craig Venter
Craig Venter
John Craig Venter is an American biologist and entrepreneur, most famous for his role in being one of the first to sequence the human genome and for his role in creating the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J...
, who has said he will keep the collection at the J. Craig Venter Institute
J. Craig Venter Institute
The J. Craig Venter Institute is a non-profit genomics research institute founded by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D. in October 2006. The Institute was the result of consolidating four organizations: the Center for the Advancement of Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research, the Institute for...
.
- Seckel is a member of the Edge FoundationEdge Foundation, Inc.The Edge Foundation, Inc. is an organization of science and technology intellectuals created in 1988 as an outgrowth of The Reality Club. Its motto is 'To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together and have them ask...
, an international think tank. - Seckel has been a member of the American Academy of Achievement.
- Seckel is one of the organizers and contributors to the Gathering for Martin GardnerMartin GardnerMartin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
conference. - He has directed the X Prize FoundationX Prize FoundationThe X PRIZE Foundation is a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind....
(Ocean) and has served on the Board of the Pete ConradPete ConradCharles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. was an American naval officer, astronaut and engineer, and the third person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. He set an eight-day space endurance record along with command pilot Gordon Cooper on the Gemini 5 mission, and commanded the Gemini 11 mission...
Foundation.
Family
Seckel has one daughter Elizabeth, born in 1987. His father is an artist and his mother (Ruth SchonthalRuth Schonthal
Ruth Schönthal was a pianist and contemporary composer.-Early years:...
) is a classical composer. He has two older brothers. He was born in New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state.The town was settled by refugee Huguenots in 1688 who were fleeing persecution in France...
. and now resides in Malibu, California.
Published articles (partial list)
- "What I Admire About Albert Einstein", Discover Magazine, December 2004
- "Rather than Just Debunking, Encourage People to Think", The Skeptical Inquirer, vol. 13, Spring, 1989
- "Couch Potato Dog Convinces Hard-Core Skeptics", Skeptical Eye, Los Angeles Times, 1989
- "Dalmatian's Counting Goes to the Dogs", Skeptical Eye, Los Angeles Times, 1989
- "A New Age of Obfuscation and Manipulation", in Robert Basil, ed., Not Necessarily the New Age: Critical Essays by Carl Sagan, J. Gordon Melton, Martin Gardner, etc., Prometheus Press, 1988.
- Spontaneous Human Combustion: No Longer a Burning Issue Santa Monica Times, 1988
- "Nostradamus: The California Earthquake", Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1988
- "Nancy Reagan's Astro-Logic", Santa Monica News, July 29, 1988
- "Quacks: Health Criminals", Santa Monica News, May 20, 1988
- Mere Puffery: Confessions of a Leading Psychic Santa Monica News, May 6, 1988
- "Recognizing Destructive and Manipulative Groups", Santa Monica News, April 22, 1988
- "Surgery as Magic", Santa Monica News, February 26, 1988
- "Remembering Richard Feynman", Santa Monica News, February 2, 1988
- "Pinocchio Science: The Truth about Lie Detectors", Santa Monica News, Jan 17, 1988
- "Tabloid Psychics Failed to Predict '87 Would be a Bad Year for Them", The Skeptical Eye, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1988
- The Man Who Could Read Record Grooves The Skeptical Eye, Los Angeles Times, October 19, 1987
- "Sensing Just How to Help the Police", The Skeptical Eye, Los Angeles Times, 1987
- "Keep Creationism out of Public Schools!", Freethought Today, Vol. 3, no. 8, 1986
- The Revolt Against the Lightning Rod (co-authored with John Edwards), Free Inquiry, Winter, 1986
- Robert Ingersoll's Views on Religion (co-authored with Gordon Stein), Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1985
- "Russell and the Cuban Missile Crisis", Journal of the Bertrand Russell Studies, Vol. 4, no. 2, Winter 1984
- The Shroud of Turin (co-authored with John Edwards), Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1984
- History's Judgment on Religion Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1984
- Christianity Versus Women (co-authored with Julia Hernandez), Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1984
- Equal Time for Creationism? (co-authored with John Edwards), Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1983
- Thomas Paines' Age of Reason Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1982
- Albert Einstein's Views on Religion Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1982
- Charles Darwin's Views on Religion (co-authored with John Edwards), Atheists United, Freethought Leaflet, 1982
- "Scientists Crucified: Hypatia", The Humanist, May 1981
External links
- Seckel's Home Page of Illusions, Perception, and Cognitive Science
- Jeffrey Epstein Interviews Al Seckel on Science, Thinking Skills, Physics, and Perception
- The Interactive Section of Seckel's Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali, and the Artists of Optical Illusion, Sterling Books, 2005
- Recollections of Richard Feynman
- Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest
- TED:Talks