Skeptics In The Pub online

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 weren’t just written about extensively in newspapers and journals but also brilliantly and amusingly depicted by satirical artists such as William Hogarth and James Gillray. Based on his recently published book, Ian demonstrates how 18th century hoaxes are memorable not only for their imaginative nature but also because of the differing motives of the tricksters.

Ian Keable obtained a first-class degree from the University of Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, qualified as a chartered accountant and then became a professional magician. A member of The Magic Circle with gold star, he has won several awards for his unique brand of comedy magic. Keable has also performed on television and has written and presented programmes for BBC Radio. An accredited lecturer for The Arts Society, he gives talks on magic history, cartoons and eighteenth-century hoaxes. Keable’s other publications include Stand-Up: A Professional Guide to Comedy Magic and Charles Dickens Magician: Conjuring in Life, Letters and Literature. He lives in London.

What is SkeptiCal?

SkeptiCal is a one-day conference for curious, science-loving people to learn about science, scientific skepticism, and critical thinking in an informal setting, at an affordable cost.

Who Sponsors SkeptiCal?

The sponsoring organizations are the Bay Area Skeptics (BAS) , the Sacramento Area Skeptics (SAS), and the Monterrey Bay Skeptics. These are nonprofit organizations composed of scientists and non-scientists who are interested in science, critical thinking, and the public understanding of science. We are part of a national scientific skepticism movement begun in the 1970s and 1980s by Carl Sagan and other scientists who were concerned about the public embrace of various pseudosciences.

BAS and SAS remain focused on what Sagan called “extraordinary claims” (which require “extraordinary evidence,” as his adage reminds us) but we also seek to improve the general public understanding of science and critical thinking. Scientific skepticism is independent of other movements which sometime also claim the term “skeptic.” Scientific skepticism can be embraced by all, whether religious or non-religious, trained in science or new to the scientific method, or anyone interested in better understanding truth and reality.

Find out more about BAS at http://www.baskeptics.org/ and about SAS at https://www.meetup.com/sacskeptics/

Why Should I Go To SkeptiCal?

SkeptiCal is a great opportunity to hear accomplished and entertaining scientists and other critical thinkers speak about fascinating topics in an informal setting. Our conferences have considered a range of topics including GMOs, science denialism, climate change, science literacy, evolution, medical pseudoscience, extraterrestrials, astronomy, and others topics. At previous SkeptiCal meetings we have hosted local scientists from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, several California State Universities, Stanford, NASA, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, and many other notable local institutions. For our 2021 conference, we are going virtual, so we are not restricted to local talent. We have chosen speakers from far and wide!

Claus Larsen and Steen Svanholm, internationally renowned experts on 9/11 facts and myths, describe how the terror attack was planned and carried out by the terror organization al Qaeda, and what the catastrophe meant for the time following. Claus lived in New York City at the time, and shares his personal experience.

Claus and Steen will also talk about the most common conspiracy theories that are still propagated about the terror attack on September 11th 2001.

This will be an online event with opportunity for participants to send in written questions during the presentation, which will be answered in the Q&A afterwards. Instructions for how to do this will be given when the events starts.

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 animal sacrifice, group sex, paedophilia, forced abortions, cannibalism, and so on.

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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 (STFC), Daresbury Laboratory, Lancaster and Oxford University and users in Africa and other Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) is aiming to change the current status quo.

Professor Manjit Dosanjh is the Project Leader for STELLA (Smart Technologies to Extend Lives with Linear Accelerators), honorary CERN Staff, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland and Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford.

She holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the UK and her professional efforts in the fields of biology and the medical applications of physics span more than 30 years, during which she has held positions in various academic and research institutions in Europe and the U.S., including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at the University of California, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) in Italy. Dosanjh joined CERN in 1999 where she has worked to apply technologies originally developed for particle physics to the domain of life sciences, aiming to translate and transfer knowledge about physics to society at large. She played a key role in launching the European Network for Light Ion Hadron Therapy (ENLIGHT), a multidisciplinary platform that takes a collaborative approach to particle and radiation therapy research in Europe, and she is the coordinator of the network since 2006. https://enlight.web.cern.ch/

She is also actively involved in helping non-profit gender-related organisations in science and technology for development in Geneva and is a board of director for ICEC (International Cancer Expert Corps). https://www.iceccancer.org/

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 O’Connor PhD FAcSS is Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and a Past President of the International Academy of Suicide Research.

Rory leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory (Web: www.suicideresearch.info; Twitter: @suicideresearch) at Glasgow, one of the leading suicide/self-harm research groups in UK. He also leads the Mental Health & Wellbeing Research Group at Glasgow. He has published extensively in the field of suicide and self-harm, specifically concerning the psychological processes which precipitate suicidal behaviour and self-harm. He is also co-author/editor of several books and is author of When It is Darkest. Why People Die by Suicide and What We Can Do To Prevent It (2021). He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Suicide Research and Associate Editor of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. Rory acts as an advisor to a range of national and international organisations including national governments on the areas of suicide and self-harm. He is also Co-Chair of the Academic Advisory Group to the Scottish Government’s National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group.

SITP UK: The End of Policing – an introduction to the concepts of police defunding and police abolition – Alex Vitale

Protesty letošního léta proti úmrtím/zabitím/vraždám při zásazích policie proti Georgi Floydovi a dalších černochů znovu upoutaly pozornost na problematiku zneužívání pravomocí policie a její souvislost s dalšími otázkami rasové spravedlnosti.
Požadavky demonstrantů vyvolávají otázku: Je možné reformovat policii?

Alex Vitale se bude snažit na tuto otázku odpovědět na základě 30 let zkušeností s policií a v poradenství komunitních hnutí pro policejní reformu. Bude diskutovat o historické roli policie a jejím vztahu k soudobé policejní práci, bude se zabývat konkrétními politickými návrhy, které podporuje, včetně iniciativ zaměřených na snížení násilí páchaného se zbraní, zlepšování školství a řešení zneužívání návykových látek a krize duševního zdraví.