Posts Tagged ‘skeptics in the pub’

For the January meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Anna Semlyen spoke on why Leeds should have a blanket twenty mile an hour speed limit.

I thought it was a fascinating topic as it is one that really challenges us to think about our views (as opposed to Big Foot, that is just us basically laughing at stupid people). She made some great points about safety, though the other points about public health benefit (people walk more when the speed limit is lower) remain unproven. It invoked some engaging debate and I really enjoyed the event.

You can find out more about the campaign on their website.

This month at Leeds Skeptics, John Wilson, founder of Wilsons Solicitors, presented a talk “do we get the legal system we deserve?”

He argued that the legal profession was in need of a shake up. He used an analogy of the opticians industry, that thirty years ago was hidden away in offices, where nobody really knew how much anything cost, everything was slow and customer service was just shockingly bad. Today, after reform, you can walk into an opticians on the high street, get an eye test and select from a huge range of glasses, should you need them. Shouldn’t be going to see a solicitor be just as simple?

John argues that it should, and I imagine most of us will strongly agree with him! It was a great talk to round out the year, and one that I found extremely interesting.

This month, Alex Gabriel travelled all the way up from Devon to discuss his experiences at Soul Survivor, the biggest Christian evangelical festival for young people, in the UK.

As many of you will know, we’ve recently spent a great time of time bickering with each other over whose attitude towards equal rights for women is the most equal. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia continues to cut out the genitals of their women before forcing them to walk behind the men.

At Leeds Skeptics we wanted everyone to have their say, so we held a debate “How should Skeptics deal with controversy?” Tom Williamson summed up his thoughts on his blog. Ophelia then wrote a piece about the blog post.

The original talk was entitled “Why aren’t their more women in the boardroom?” Seems like a sensible topic title, and one that fits very well into Ophelia’s suggestion that topics should be specific and useful. However, some of her commentors decided to suggest alternative titles.

“Precisely how stupid and misogynistic are male skeptics?” would make a good discussion. I look forward to Leeds Skeptics discussing this.

What?

The answer is a million. So, that’s settled.

Well, I have a question:

Are Tom Williamson and Steven Moxon REALLY equal to a pile of hog shit?

What? I’m just being skeptical!

I’m not sure they’re quite the same…

For the June meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Rob Lyons, deputy editor of Spiked and author of Panic on a Plate: How Society Developed an Eating Disorder, joined us to discuss his book.

I had invited Rob up after seeing him give a similar talk at Leeds Salon and have previously blogged about it. It’s an excellent book and I highly recommend giving it a read – grab yourself a copy from Amazon.

At the September meeting of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub, Arthur Chappell presented a talk entitled “Brainwashed! A Cult Survivor’s Tale” describing his experiences as part of the The Divine Light Mission, a cult centred around the worship of Guru Maharaj.

In August, Simon Wellings delivered a talk to Leeds Skeptics in the Pub entitled “All you wanted to know about the credit crunch (but were too afraid to ask)” looking at the problems with the economy and how money reform could help.

Last Tuesday, I headed down to Nottingham to present a talk to Nottingham Skeptics in the Pub.

Nottingham seems to be a lot like Leeds – a reasonable sized city with a confusing one-way system running through the middle and a few gems hidden away inside it, such as our venue, Fellows Morton and Clayton, a traditional Victorian pub, with a traditional Victorian fruit machine by the door.

I got down there in plenty of time to grab some food beforehand (and because you never know with the M1) and found the place easily enough. The food was OK, the grilled chicken was excellent though the ribs were somewhat disappointing. However, given the last time I had ribs was at Cattle Grid, my standards are probably simply still tuned too high.

I also met Andy, who runs the group and is an absolutely lovely guy. He also works with computers so we managed to squeeze in a few minutes of geek talk before the event!

The talk itself went pretty well, at least from my perspective lol, and I hope the audience enjoyed it too. I think the questions and discussions afterwards lasted until nearly 10pm, which from a 7:30pm start is quite a lot of discussion.

In general, I think the talk was well received by the audience. They certainly weren’t as critical as when I spoke to Hull Humanists – not that I didn’t very much enjoy the tough questions I took there!

In general, a really enjoyable evening and a big thanks to Andy for inviting me down.

Last Saturday saw the April meeting of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub. There was no speaker this month but never the less it was a very involved meeting with an hour of news and discussion kicking things off.

Indeed, it was almost a feature length meeting given the in depth discussion we had about the future energy needs of the world and whether nuclear was a safe option or not.

Interestingly, one of the points brought up was that one of the most dangerous ways in which power can be generated is actually hydroelectricity. While it’s a very green way of generating power, a dam failure can lead to 100,000’s of people dying¹.

The June Skeptics in the Pub meeting was held at Mr Foley’s on The Headrow. It’s interesting that when you describe it as “opposite the art gallery” nobody really knows where you mean but as soon as you say “next door to Wildcats” everyone knows exactly where it is!

For the innocent of you, Wildcats is one of Leeds’ many strip joints.

June’s talk was by Stewart Richmond who is the man that proved magnetic bracelets are of course a load of nonsense. Good times.