For our September meeting, Ian Bushfield presented a talk entitled “Skeptics with an Eh: A view of the Canadian Skeptical movement”.
For the August meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Kat Ford presented her talk “The Modern Face of Physiognomy”. The talk looked at how we make judgements of people based on their face. Kat was an entertaining speaker and we really enjoyed hosting her.
The talk is also available to watch on Worfolk Lectures.
Earlier this month we welcomed BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney to present his talk “Oi! Scientology!”, a mini tour he is doing to support his book, Church of Fear. It was a bit of a shaky start when we couldn’t find John, but once resolved he gave us a highly entertaining insight into his experiences.
The discussions continued long after the event – indeed, it was nearly 2am by the time the last of us left the bar of Malmaison!
For the June meeting of Leeds Skeptics, we had magic boffin Oliver Meech present his show “When Magic and Science Collide”. It was a hugely entertaining show that received a ton of positive feedback.
One the tricks, named The Evolving Trick, changes every time he does it. You can see a clip of it below.
Last month, Dr Joely Black presented a history of tarot. Joely was an animated and interesting speaker who is well worth going to see. If you missed it, you can watch it online via Worfolk Lectures.
We also tried out the new Leeds Skeptics t-shirts, as James models in the photos.
At April, Dr Brooke Magnanti presented a talk on her book, The Sex Myth.
For the March meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Professor Barry Cooper from the University of Leeds presented a talk entitled “Alan Turing: The Building of a Brain”.
At this month’s meeting of Leeds Skeptics, Brian Quinn presented his talk “Superstition – The Odd Delusion.” We gave a similar talk at West Yorkshire Humanists in 2011, and I enjoyed it so much I thought it work booking for Skeptics too.
As Brian points out, superstition is actually far more common than religion. Many people touch wood, won’t open umbrellas in doors – or the most common of all – say good luck (though you could argue this could potentially have a psychological benefit).
I also really enjoyed his thoughts on religion, which after all is just a collection of superstitions. So, if you swap the word faith with the word superstition, you get to see just how silly some of the current issues in our society are – imagine talking about superstition schools, superstition communities or even inter-superstition dialogue.
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.
As you may be aware, the Humanist Action Group is currently staging its 2012 Holiday Food Drive for local homeless shelters in Leeds.
Next week, Leeds Skeptics hosts a talk entitled “Do we get the legal system we deserve?”, as part of their programme of monthly events.
Unlike a usual Leeds Skeptics event, though, we won’t be taking donations to help cover the cost of running the meeting – that is going to be covered by the organisers. Instead, all money donated will be given to the Holiday Food Drive.
So, if you fancy helping those a little less lucky than ourselves, in a way which simply involves you hearing an interesting talk in a great pub, then come along to the next meeting of Leeds Skeptics! Full details can be found on their website.