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 people accepted the realities of the virus, little white stickers began to appear in public around the world claiming COVID-19 was a hoax concocted by […]
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 be giving you the map to the fantastic shortcuts that mathematics has come up with over the last two thousand years to get to you […]
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 publish their opinion? How does Wikipedia work? And how can you make a difference?Even among skeptics Wikipedia is still looked at with scrutiny. Is it […]
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 a revolution in cinematic special-effects, but underlying the film’s narrative logic is a deeply rooted anxiety about the right uses of technology. Using the relationship […]
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 fear when facing anything to do with numbers. The root of the problem lies in the fact that no one is ever taught what maths […]
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 as psychologists, sociologists, and academics, he is uniquely equipped to explain the movement and its followers. In The Storm Is Upon Us, he takes readers […]
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 two pint bottle and sing inside it; and where a blond-haired European could write a book claiming that he was born in Taiwan. These hoaxes […]
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 crimes they didn’t commit, and suffering severe consequences. Aside from those who voluntarily confess, others are vulnerable to persuasive interviewing tactics, and some even come […]
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 own Michael Marshall who will be talking to us about Bad PR! “You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.” Everyone knows this, but […]
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. These alien worlds are often hot, massive, and perplexing to astrophysicists – just how do these objects form, and what processes make them different to […]
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 fiction and look at the science and technology of antimatter. Where does it come from? How is it made? How different is it from normal […]
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 on a relativist element. I argue that to defend evidence-based reasoning and knowledge against those attacks, we must understand the strategies by which the post-truth […]
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 across the world are put through their critical-thinking paces and challenged to entertain as well as inform. InKredulous has been a firm fan favourite at […]
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 is and how we can work towards a cure? Is a cure even possible? And how can we arm ourselves with the right information to […]
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 – even centuries – despite having little or no beneficial effects. One focus will be on how features of biology and psychology make figuring out what […]
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 common misconceptions about—and misuses of—the evolutionary framework as applied to human psychology. Dr. Lindsey Osterman is an associate professor of psychology at Roanoke College in […]
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. Since then I’ve moved on to study why babies have such a great time being babies. Anyone who has met a baby knows how much […]
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 media, many people came to believe that there was an international network of powerful individuals who regularly engaged in rituals involving Satan worship, human and […]
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 the Integrated Motivational-Volitional Model of Suicide. The talk will also include an overview of what we can do to support those who are vulnerable. Rory […]
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. A global collaboration including engineers and physicists from the Large Hadron Collider with International Cancer Expert Corps (ICEC), the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council […]
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 over the police killings of George Floyd and other African American citizens have refocused the nation’s attention on the problem of abusive policing and its […]
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 on social media. Families have been torn apart, lives lost and violence inspired. What’s it like speaking to the victims and leaders of these online […]
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 illumination to the statistics about the pandemic, illustrated with some examples of things that have gone fairly well, and communication disasters. Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter […]
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 Harry Cliff is mad that Sagan never followed up on the idea and so has spent the last two years attempting to write the ultimate […]
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 the FSB team that poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and uncovered a Russian domestic nerve agent assassination programme targeting multiple individuals, all from the […]
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 across the world are put through their critical-thinking paces and challenged to entertain as well as inform. InKredulous has been a firm fan favourite at […]
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 are they, how do they make their decisions, and why was Monty Python’s Life of Brian banned in Torquay until 2008? Jim Cliff explains the […]
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 a young woman: a campaign which only stopped when her brothers tracked the creature down to its resting place in a local crypt. The Beast […]
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 denial of Trumps election loss have become mainstream Debunking denialist claims is essential – yet also rarely effective. In this talk, Dr Keith Kahn-Harris will […]
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 other side supports viewing women as strategists who constantly must maximize opportunities to find quality mates and have healthy children, even at the cost of […]
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 black hole. There’s a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we […]
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 wrong is important, very little attention is paid to how and why this happens. In his new book, Psycho Logical, neuroscientist, author, and former Psychiatry […]
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 this talk will explore that problem. Darwin suggested music could be involved in sexual selection, used to flaunt genetic fitness to potential partners, but there […]
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 past. Flammable, toxic, radioactive and generally bad for you, we’ll look at products throughout history that killed, injured and poisoned, and the marketing campaigns that […]
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 more men and women. This reflects an ill-founded commitment to what became a cross-party mantra. In what sense does ‘prison work’? Does the claim stand […]
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 discoveries and masking the truth. According to them the monumental buildings of the past were created not by our ancestors but by aliens or extradimensional […]
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 anticipating the impacts of AI research, and how can they do so effectively? What changes, if any, need to be made to the peer review […]
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 the stars shaped who we are – our religious beliefs, power structures, scientific advances and even our biology. But over the last few centuries we […]
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 give us permission to rebroadcast her talk from July, which proved to be one of our most popular events The details for Noah’s talk were […]
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 class that future generations will be subjected to. In reality it’s kind of both (except that thankfully it’s not from Independence Day). I’m a space […]
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 Ockham Awards Michael Marshall will be hosting the Ockham Awards ceremony, find out who will win the coveted Award for Skeptical Activism and The Rusty […]
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 long-running comedy podcast where skeptics from across the world are put through their critical-thinking paces and challenged to entertain as well as inform.
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 microscopy of atoms, molecules and surfaces (nanophysics), microscopy of earth materials (geophysics) and astrophotography.
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 stories – we see them in the papers, on social media, and we hear them used in everyday conversation – and yet we doubt them […]
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 spare what you can at https://www.gofundme.com/f/i-aint-afraid-of-no-ghosts As skeptics, we value reason and evidence. We also want to do good in the world. But with so […]
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 than established protocols based on medical and scientific research. In this Halloween-themed talk, I share the experiences that led to my interest in natural medicine, […]
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 action? Philisopher Aaron Rabinowitz will put forward the case that skeptics should believe that ethics is real and free will is not, and will argue […]
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 politics. However, the genesis of these groups is years old and comes from a surprising place: the global anti-sex trafficking movement. Brooke Magnanti discusses what […]
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 years and you’d meet a very different Seth Andrews. As a former evangelical Christian he was once a captive of right-wing media, and Fox News […]
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 “Take the Redpill” her latest publication with @GJIA_Online, Samantha Kutner answers a different question: How does the Proud Boys redpill entry into recruitment make them […]
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 a fight, then you’ll finally get an answer! Iszi Lawrence is the author of The Unstoppable Letty Pegg (Bloomsbury), presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making […]
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 just one company and just one service – what about the actual internet: the servers, the routers, and the thousands of miles of fibre-optic cables […]
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 considering that dementia is now the leading cause of death in the UK and depression is rapidly becoming the leading cause of global disease burden. […]
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 Drugs podcast with rapper and actor Scroobius Pip, exploring the science around drugs, and busting the myths that exist around them, from alcohol to LSD, […]
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 skeptics from across the world are put through their critical-thinking paces and challenged to entertain as well as inform. InKredulous has been a firm fan […]
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 attempting to engage them in a calm, respectful exploration of that belief, using a conversational technique known as Street Epistemology. You’ve also got to seek […]
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 in many species, cancer is the enemy lurking within almost every living creature. Cancer has always been with us. It killed our hominid ancestors, the […]
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 way we produce and consume food, otherwise, the effect on the natural world will be devastating. This talk will explain how misinformation is one of […]
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 environment. We must counter this “infodemic” with evidence-based communication strategies. Despite concerns about the “backfire effect” and debunking works, if done well! Timothy Caulfield is […]
In an age where fake news and viral videos have gone international, attorney Andrew Torrez helps break down where and why the law still matters. You’ll learn how sharpening the tools in your skeptical toolbox is more important than ever to help us navigate potentially existential threats to human life and flourishing. P. Andrew Torrez […]
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 century understanding of human evolution and variation, and a timely weapon against the misuse of science to justify bigotry. In his characteristically robust style, Adam […]
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 be a history of Christian Israelites who settled the American continents from 2500 BCE – 420 CE. Within a decade of creation, Mormonism established extensive […]
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 (CSI) and its parent organization the Center for Inquiry (CFI) speaking at its conferences, writing a column, and hosting the Point of Inquiry podcast. As […]
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, promoting miracle cures, withholding information, spreading lies and inciting riots. Join Natalia Pasternak for a look at the Brazilian response to the pandemic, and what […]
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 are and how we evolved is being rewritten to suit their agendas. Even well-intentioned scientists, through their unconscious use of old-fashioned categories, betray some suspicion […]
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 television series Brain Games as well as the creator and host of the weekly science podcast Talk Nerdy with Cara Santa Maria. In addition to […]
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 come to light, and unexpected perspectives illuminate our take on life. 30-Second Universe explains all the tantalising concepts, principles and theories that make up our […]
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 have an innate “drive” to be sexual. Neither of these things are true, and it’s important that people understand that. When folks believe these misconceptions, […]
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 is not always particularly reliable either. In this talk, I will give some examples of how peer-reviewed scientific work that may attract a lot of public […]
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 the world, Chris Goodall sets out the ways to achieve this. His proposals include: -Building a huge over-capacity of wind and solar energy, storing the […]
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 randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, the skeptic’s approach has to become more sophisticated to crack this façade of believability. We will go through […]
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 as more drugs stop working, more lives will be put in danger. Everyone is at risk. Sian Williams will discuss the causes behind this major […]
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 its name thanks to a D&D monster? Why couldn’t a German team call the discovery after the nearby town? And how did Lemmy from Motorhead […]
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 universe will be revealed to us and we will finally understand the true nature of reality? If we are honest then we must admit that, […]
