One of the characteristics of language is that there is no relationship between the way that words sound and their meaning. For example, there is nothing window-like about the word […]
Scientific approaches to understanding reproductive choice – the decision to have a child, the decision to terminate a pregnancy, etc. – typically position decision-makers as rational. Attention is paid to […]
Trauma, gaslighting, narcs, multiple personalities, and the rest of the human mind. Where better to learn about these things than TikTok, Instagram and Twitter? Carrie Poppy (Oh No, Ross and […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a host of scientific triumphs but also numerous failures and declining reputations. One such example is the antiparasitic medication ivermectin, which had previously gained a […]
In the last two years conspiracy theories seemed to have spread like a different kind of virus even to people, we would never have expected to be susceptible. Discussions have […]
Flags! They’re everywhere, from battlefields to Pride marches to the World Cup. But what secrets and mysteries do flags hold? Why do some people get upset if you say Union […]
Sharks are some of the most fascinating, most ecologically important, most threatened, and most misunderstood animals on Earth. More often feared than revered, their role as predators of the deep […]
November 24, 2022 @ 19:00 (November 2022, check your local time)
We like to think of humans as rational creatures, who have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little […]
November 10, 2022 @ 19:00 (November 2022, check your local time)
After an incredibly exciting release of images this summer, JWST has settled into science mode. This talk will take you on a journey from our own galaxy to the beginnings […]
Find us in the Park Suite on the fourth floor of the Mercure, Manchester, and if you can’t make it, we’ll be livestreaming the event at twitch.tv/sitp from 11am UK […]
There’s a lot more to wasps than your stripy picnic friend: wasps matter to you and the world. There are five times more species of wasps than bees; there are […]
September 22, 2022 @ 19:00 (September 2022, check your local time)
There’s so much talk about the threat posed by intelligent machines that it sometimes seems as though we should surrender to our robot overlords now. But Junaid Mubeen isn’t ready […]
September 8, 2022 @ 19:00 (September 2022, check your local time)
We all use the term ‘luck’ every day, but do we know what we mean when we say it? Research suggests that people generally have nascent, internally inconsistent accounts of […]
How do we describe the world on a scale of atoms and molecules? The concepts underlying quantum mechanics seem to be at odds with common sense, but quantum theory describes […]
Are the brains of women and men the same or different? Or maybe it’s the wrong question? Does the binary division extend beyond the genitalia into the human brain and […]
Brenna Hassett explores how evolutionary history has shaped a weird and wonderful phenomenon that everyone on the planet experiences – childhood. Paleoanthropological science has revealed that we have one particular […]
Will breastfeeding save the planet? Are parents being hoodwinked by Big Formula? Join us on an infant feeding journey to determine fact from fiction around feeding our wee ones. Dr […]
Part 1: Using Paranormal Phenomena to Explain the Workings of Science. Horoscopes, ghosts, dowsing, psychics, tarot readers, the research of paranormal ability is so last century… for skeptics. To the […]
In the pursuit of knowledge, efforts in science have brought about some of the most disastrous, shocking, and even hilarious results. But how do we know!? Because… SCIENCE!Megan Crawford, PhD, […]
In 1441, Margery Jourdemayne was burned alive at Smithfield. She was a commoner cunning-woman – or witch – yet her social group contained the highest in the land. Join us […]
The Grand Unified Theory of Bullshit suggests that no matter where it’s from, all bullshit smells the same. From Alternative Medicine to the insurrection in Washington, the underlying cognitive biases […]
The Director of The Science Media Centre, Fiona Fox, examines some of the stories that hit the headlines for the wrong reasons – Frankenfoods, Climategate and more – but tells […]
Many studies have shown that where there is more economic inequality, there is often more violent crime. Some evolutionary psychologists have suggested that violence may be a functional response for […]
Since 2015, the long-running conspiracy theory of a flat Earth – that we live on a flat plane, under a flat dome, or on a planet circled by a ring […]
Racing Green is a fascinating exploration of how science in motorsport extends its reach far beyond the track. The efforts of engineers to go a hundredth of a second faster […]
February 24, 2022 @ 19:00 (February 2022, check your local time)
Social media is not an even playing field. It is a commonly held misconception among rationalists that scientific fact and reasoned argument should win out over conspiracy theories in the […]
February 10, 2022 @ 19:00 (February 2022, check your local time)
SPEAKER CHANGE: Unfortunately Kato Mukasa will be unable to join us. We’ve got a (reasonably) decent replacement though:Just over fifty years ago we landed on the moon … or did […]
We are surrounded by stickiness. From the bike tyre that grips the road and the Post-it note that’s become an office mainstay, to your non-stick frying pan, and the ice […]
Featuring: Announcement of the 2021 Ockham Award and Rusty Razor When 2020 brought with it a new strain of coronavirus, the world was plunged into confusion and uncertainty. While most […]
November 25, 2021 @ 19:00 (November 2021, check your local time)
You have a choice. There’s the long way: boring, repetitive, hard work. Or the shortcut: a cunning, less intuitive path to your goal. In this talk, Marcus is going to […]
November 11, 2021 @ 19:00 (November 2021, check your local time)
Wikipedia is known as an international encyclopaedia. But is it also a worldwide network with secret members, seeking to influence humankind? Or is it a web forum, where one can […]
Why must Luke Skywalker turn off his targeting computer at the climactic moment of George Lucas’s iconic film Star Wars (1977)? Star Wars is celebrated in part because it started […]
We have a problem with mathematics. Half of the UK’s adults live with nothing more than the mathematical skills they learned at primary school, and many people experience a tangible […]
September 30, 2021 @ 19:00 (September 2021, check your local time)
Mike Rothschild, a journalist specializing in conspiracy theories, has been collecting stories about the deadly QAnon movement for years, and through interviews with QAnon converts, apostates, and victims, as well […]
September 16, 2021 @ 19:00 (September 2021, check your local time)
The 1700s was a period when the people of England seemed to be especially gullible. They believed a woman could give birth to rabbits; a man could climb inside a […]
September 2, 2021 @ 19:00 (September 2021, check your local time)
It is difficult to imagine admitting to something that you didn’t do, especially something so serious as committing murder. There are however numerous documented cases of innocent people confessing to […]
Due to unforeseen circumstances Mike Rothschild is unable to join us for this event, so we will be bringing him back at a later date. Instead we have our very […]
We have now discovered thousands of exoplanets around stars that are not our Sun, and we have now realised that our own solar system may be far from the norm. […]
Despite being as old as matter itself, antimatter remains a mystical subject for many and is a hot topic in science fiction. In this talk, we will separate fact from […]
We are said to live in a “post-truth” era in which “fake news” has replaced real information, denial has compromised science, and the ontology of knowledge and truth has taken […]
Join host Andy Wilson for another live-streamed episode of the skeptical-themed panel show InKredulous. InKredulous, a production of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, is the long-running comedy podcast where skeptics from […]
One in two of us will suffer with cancer in our lifetime and almost all of us have some experience of the disease. But do we really know what cancer […]
For most of human history, an average patient meeting an average doctor was probably harmed rather than helped. This talk will explore how medical treatments can persist for decades – […]
While evolution acceptance is generally high among the skeptically-minded, evolutionary psychology is far less widely accepted. Lindsey explores some of the good scientific work in this area, as well as […]
What is the meaning of life? I once wrote to every philosopher in the UK to ask them. Their answers were meagre and dispiriting. One even included a death threat. […]
Back in the 1980s, alarm spread throughout the world with respect to claims that Satanic abuse was not only real, it was widespread. Fuelled largely by pressure groups and the […]
Based on his new book, Professor Rory O’Connor will try to dispel myths around suicide and to describe the complex set of factors that can lead to it, drawing from […]
If you have cancer and you live in a low or middle-income country, you’re unlikely to have access to the radiotherapy treatments that patients in higher-income countries take for granted. […]
an introduction to the concepts of police defunding and police abolition, with Alex S. Vitale, professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of The End of Policing.This summer’s protests […]
The BBC’s first-ever specialist disinformation and social media reporter, Marianna Spring, has spent the past year down the online conspiracy rabbit hole, investigating the real-world impact of disinformation being shared […]
The current pandemic is notable for the vast traffic in official and unofficial information and claims. David will offer some personal insights into the challenges of trying to bring some […]
In the 1980 smash-hit science documentary series Cosmos, Carl Sagan quipped that “if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”. Particle physicist […]
Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins explains how Bellingcat investigators uncovered the real identities of the Skripal suspects, linked their team to another European assassination attempt, uncovered Russia’s secret Novichok programme, exposed […]
Join host Andy Wilson for another live-streamed episode of the skeptical-themed panel show InKredulous. InKredulous, a production of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, is the long-running comedy podcast where skeptics from […]
For over a hundred years, a small, secretive group of people in Soho have decided what you can see in UK cinemas and, more recently, on video and DVD. Who […]
In 1875, a flame-eyed creature picked at the lead in a window pane to let himself in to a remote farmhouse in Cumberland. Thus started a campaign of menace against […]
Covid denialism is currently a global threat, but denialism has been around for years: Holocaust denial, global warming denial, anti-vaxxers, 911 conspiracism, creationism and more. Recently though Covid denialism and […]
Evolutionary perspectives of mothering create a dilemma. One side suggests that women invest so heavily in their children that there may be an ‘instinct’ that drives their maternal behavior. The […]
February 25, 2021 @ 19:00 (February 2021, check your local time)
Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe’s history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies, and even to visualising an actual […]
February 18, 2021 @ 19:00 (February 2021, check your local time)
Mental health awareness is a very big concern in 2021, particularly with the impact of the pandemic and lockdown. But while being aware that mental health can and does go […]
February 11, 2021 @ 19:00 (February 2021, check your local time)
What’s the point in making music? Is there a point? Although music surrounds us for a large proportion of our time it doesn’t seem to serve an obvious purpose, and […]
The societal and scientific consensus says only irrational people fear things like WiFi, artificial sweeteners, and fluoridated water, but there have been legitimately dangerous products sold as safe in the […]
Since Michael Howard’s pronouncement that ‘Prison Works’ the prison population in the UK has doubled with the current Government planning to build several more multi-occupancy ‘Titan’ prisons to incarcerate thousands […]
Light bulbs in antiquity? UFO landing sites in Peru? Giant pyramids in the Balkans? Authors like Erich von Däniken or TV shows like “Ancient Aliens” accuse archaeologists of hiding important […]
As AI becomes increasingly advanced, it promises many benefits but also comes with risks. How can we mitigate these risks while preserving scientific inquiry and openness? Who is responsible for […]
December 10, 2020 @ 19:00 (December 2020, check your local time)
For most of human history, we have led not just an earthly existence but a cosmic one. Celestial cycles drove every aspect of our daily lives. Our innate relationship with […]
POSTPONED Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, Noah Lugeons will not be able to give a talk this evening. In place of his talk, past speaker Angela Saini has very kindly […]
November 26, 2020 @ 19:00 (November 2020, check your local time)
What is planetary protection? Is it even important? Because it sounds like it’s either an incredibly exciting space battle strategy from Independence Day or an exceedingly dull health and safety […]
November 19, 2020 @ 19:00 (November 2020, check your local time)
This is a special show as not only do we have Pixie Turner talking for us, we will also be hosting The Ockham Awards on behalf of The Skeptic. The […]
November 14, 2020 @ 19:00 (November 2020, check your local time)
As part of QED 2018… again!, join host Andy Wilson for another live-streamed episode of the skeptical-themed panel show InKredulous. InKredulous, a production of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, is the […]
November 12, 2020 @ 19:00 (November 2020, check your local time)
As a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Physics, my research interests span all aspects of imaging, image processing and image analysis. This includes medical imaging (biophysics), scanning probe […]
When was the last time you read a grand statement, accompanied by a large number, and wondered whether it could really be true? Statistics are vital in helping us tell […]
Charity! For this event we are going to be raising money for the Centre for Effective Altruism, so please, please give generously and show how amazing our community is. Please […]
Naturopathy is scary! For three years, I practiced as a licensed “naturopathic doctor” in the United States. The overwhelming majority of naturopathic care relies extensively on dubious alternative therapies, rather […]
Skepticism and ethics are both essential features of a life of flourishing, but what should skeptics and critical thinkers know about ethics, and how should those beliefs motivate us to […]
As the US Presidential election draws near, the world has become fascinated with the seemingly new phenomena of Qanon and other wide-ranging conspiracy theories taking over social media and mainstream […]
Seth Andrews is best known as host of the popular website, podcast, and online community, The Thinking Atheist. He is a broadcaster, storyteller, author, activist, and public speaker. However, rewind a few […]
Recent global events have led many to ask how far right groups like the Proud Boys are linked to Qanon, Lockdown Protests, Save The Children, and other disinformation vectors. In […]
September 24, 2020 @ 19:00 (September 2020, check your local time)
The intriguing title of the talk pretty much speaks for itself, and absolves us of not knowing any more. However, if you’ve ever wondered which of them would win in […]
September 17, 2020 @ 19:00 (September 2020, check your local time)
If you believe the rumours, Mark Zuckerberg is about to take over the world, thanks to Facebook’s billions of users and the power of his algorithm. But Facebook is ultimately […]
September 10, 2020 @ 19:00 (September 2020, check your local time)
Most of us know the basics of how to take care of our physical health, but what about the brain? Brain health is curiously neglected from public health campaigns, especially […]
September 3, 2020 @ 19:00 (September 2020, check your local time)
Dr Suzi Gage is a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, researching links between recreational drug use and mental health. In 2016 she started the award-winning Say Why to […]
Join host Andy Wilson for the first ever live-streamed episode of the skeptical-themed panel show InKredulous. InKredulous, a production of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, is the long-running comedy podcast where […]
Engaging someone on a belief they hold in an effective manner is rarely easy, particularly if that belief is tied to one’s identity. So, imagine approaching strangers in public and […]
Many of us think of cancer as a contemporary killer, a disease of our own making caused by our modern lifestyles. But that’s not true. Although it might be rare […]
The production of food has more negative impacts on the planet than any other human activity. Over the next thirty years, we desperately need to make huge changes to the […]
The spread of harmful misinformation is a defining characteristic of this pandemic. It has led to deaths, financial loss, increased stigma, health policy challenges, and added to the chaotic information […]
Science writer and broadcaster Dr Adam Rutherford will talk about his new book, How to argue with a racist: History, Science, Race and Reality, a vital manifesto for a twenty-first […]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism) was founded in 1830 by New Englander Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon, the foundational scripture authored by Smith, claims to […]
Perhaps now more than ever, the skeptics’ movement can’t afford to ignore racism and race pseudoscience. Kavin Senapathy learned this firsthand during her stint with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry […]
Brazil has surpassed the UK in the number of confirmed cases and deaths of Covid19. Still, the federal government refuses to acknowledge reality and relies on magical thinking and denialism, […]
As ethnic nationalism and the far-right become stronger, race science is experiencing a revival, fuelled by the abuse of data and science by politically-motivated groups. The story of who humans […]
Cara Santa Maria is a Los Angeles Area Emmy and Knight Foundation Award winning journalist, science communicator, television personality, author, and podcaster.Cara is the science correspondent on National Geographic’s popular […]
The universe literally encompasses everything we were, are and will be, everything we knew, know and can know. When we decide to understand the universe as a whole, new truths […]
Two of the most pervasive myths that I spend my time deconstructing are (1) that humans have a specific part of their brains devoted to sex and (2) that humans […]
The skeptical movement rightly suggests that people should place more faith in peer-reviewed scientific articles than in YouTube videos or written claims made by random people on the Internet. However, science […]
The UK has declared a ‘climate emergency’ and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050. So how do we get there? Drawing on actions, policies and technologies already emerging around […]
Alternative medicine proponents have become really good at building a body of research that looks more and more like good science to the casual observer. In the face of positive […]
Cornerstones of modern medicine are at risk due to drug-resistant infections, with routine surgery, common illnesses and minor injuries becoming potentially life-threatening. People are already dying from drug-resistant infections, and […]
Join journalist and science historian Kit Chapman on an adventure across chemistry as he shares the bizarre stories behind the names of the building blocks of science. Which element got […]
Where does theoretical physics stand at the end of the second decade of the 21st century? Are we finally approaching the end of physics, when the rich tapestry of the […]
