NEWS: our first ever Summer session – apply now!
Our event on Saturday 20th June will be our first ever Summer Sessions: anyone and everyone is welcome to propose a 10-minute talk on anything you think people should know more about!
Debunking myths is fun but not mandatory, and it can be silly or serious, just as long as it’s something that you’re passionate about! Fill in our application form below or email David, Remy & Andrew at: sitp.ncl@gmail.com with a suggested title and brief description of your talk!
March social
Join us from 7.30 pm on Tuesday 3rd March in the Library at the Town Wall on Pink Lane, near Newcastle Central Station, to meet fellow skeptics and to shape the future of skepticism in the North East.
Come for drinks, casual debunkings and maybe even some skeptical gaming!
March event: “Recognized More and More: Frederick Douglass and Newcastle’s role in ending slavery in the United States”
Saturday 14th March at 3pm
1867 café bar (Tyne Theatre & Opera House)
“Recognized More and More”: Frederick Douglass and Newcastle’s role in ending slavery in the United States.
Everyone knows that Newcastle had a strong tradition of reform in the nineteenth century, from land reformer Thomas Spence to political reformer Lord Grey, to the campaigning editor Joseph Cowen, and the city has made much of its connection to the abolitionist Frederick Douglass in recent years. But Newcastle’s connection to the campaign to end American slavery was in place long before Douglass arrived, and it included a range of actors, both local and visiting. This talk will give a sense of who those people were, what they did, and what difference it made to the end of slavery in the United States.
Bruce E. Baker is Professor of American History and African American Studies at Newcastle University and has written widely on the history of the American South. Since 2020, he has worked closely with Fionnghuala Sweeney, an expert on Frederick Douglass, to research the life and career of Moses Roper, a fugitive slave from North Carolina, who came to Britain and campaigned against American slavery several years before Douglass.
April event: Robin Ince – A Monkey Escaped
What happens when a monkey escapes the Infinite Cage? Robin Ince – multiple award-winning presenter, poet, and a stand-up human – will delight us for an afternoon of stories, interesting science anecdotes, introspection, and general monkey business.
Robin Ince is a comedian, actor and writer. He was a presenter of the BBC Radio 4 show The Infinite Monkey Cage with from 2009 to 2025.
Past events archive
| 10 Oct 2024 | Nikolas Lloyd – How your body lies to you about pain |
| 14 Nov 2024 | Michael Marshall – Using data to counter quackery and alternative medicine |
| 12 Dec 2024 | Professor Anqi Shen – When blessings turn to curses: scammers’ exploitation of supernatural beliefs |
| 09 Jan 2025 | Dr Rebecca Woods – What’s a question to start with?: Why interrogatives are so weird (in English) |
| 13 Feb 2025 | Dr Tom Nicholson – “We’re all just a little bit ADHD, right?!” – How the world makes life harder for neurodivergent adults |
| 13 Mar 2025 | Dr Alex Niven – How to Get a Rise out of the North-East: A History of the Future in the Deep North |
| 10 Apr 2025 | Brian Eggo – The Truth is Nowt There |
| 15 May 2025 | Professor Richard Wiseman – How to Transform a Tea Towel into a Chicken and Other Mysteries |
| 12 Jun 2025 | Dr Joel Wallenberg – Stealing money from old people slowly, or How We Came to Charge for the Future |
| 10 Jul 2025 | Shayna Weisz – What’s wrong with me? How mental health awareness might actually be making us feel worse |
| 14 Aug 2025 | Maeve Hanan – When healthy eating turns harmful: How ultra-processed food panic fuels anxiety and disordered eating |
| 11 Sep 2025 | Professor Jamie Tehrani – The Natural History of Narratives: how stories evolve, spread and survive, and how they decay and die |
| 09 Oct 2025 | Dr. Darrel Ray – Sexy Evolution: What the Pope Doesn’t Know About Human Sexuality |
| 13 Nov 2025 | Dr Jane Stewart – XX/XY: not always what you think |
| 4 Dec 2025 | Dr George Locke – Apostasy in the UK: on leaving a high-control religion |
| 14 Feb 2026 | Heidi Mounsey – The Woo of Wee |