Posts Tagged ‘Leeds Skeptics’

Yesterday saw Tom Williamson speaking at Leeds Skeptics in the Pub on “The Scientific Method: Uses and Abuses.” He was a really good speaker and I really enjoyed the talk. I was also quite pleased that even though it was August there was good attendance. Good times all round really.

With Mr Foley’s looking like our home for the moment, we had a great Skeptics in the Pub meeting in July with a really strong turn out despite it being in the middle of summer. Perhaps due to the excellent quality of talk delivered by Jonni on “The Mind, Illusion and the Need for Science.”

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.

With Rich having been doing research for his book on the Bermuda Triangle (the book isn’t about that, he’s just writing a section which it makes an excellent case to reference) he volunteered to give Skeptics in the Pub a talk on the topic.

It was really interesting even if the answers are somewhat mundane compared with the mystery. It was also interesting to know that statistically no more ships have actually disappeared in that area than any other similar size body of water – there is actually no mystery at all.

Steve also did an excellent job filling in for Daryl in the news segment.

At the recent meeting of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub Mike Granville delivered us the talk The Catholic Church: Big Church or Big Business? It was fascinating to learn that at the start of the 20th century the Catholic Church was actually on it’s knees and it was only alliances formed around World War II that restored it to power. Another interesting twist in the story of the Catholic Church.

Yesterday saw a nationwide protest against the sale of homeopathic remedies at Boots. At cities across the UK, and indeed some in Australia and Canada too, people gathered to take a homeopathic overdose to show that there was in fact nothing in the pills at all.

At Leeds we managed to get 32 people down to the event most of which, including myself, downed an entire bottle of homeopathic arsenic and yet somehow survived. We also got a reporter from ITV’s Calendar news come down and featured us on their evening segment – I’ve yet to see it but I’ve heard a mixed reaction so far.

The response from Boots was a predictable one – homeopathy is recognised by the NHS (something which is in the process of changing as the government inquiry is quickly dismantling the case for it) and that many people use homeopathic remedies – of course many people read horoscopes that doesn’t mean there is any truth in them. But of course we knew they would just ignore the science and just try and insist that lots of people bought it so it must be true.

Most of the major papers have run stories about it today so we’re chalking this one down as a big success for the skeptics movement. A big thank you to everyone from Leeds Skeptics who came down to take part, Daryl for organising the Leeds event and the guys at Merseyside Skeptics for putting it all together.

At Leeds Skeptics we recently celebrated our first birthday with a talk by Steve Wade on big foot and other urban legends entitled “What’s That Coming Over the Hill?” The talk was reasonably well attended given the weather outside though we didn’t get anyone working on the bar which was a little disappointing. Still plenty of drinks from the bar downstairs later and everyone was enjoying themselves so the good times continued.

Yesterday we re-launched the Leeds Skeptics in the Pub group with a new venue, new format and new speakers. The event went quite well despite Ariane have cancelled us on due to illness earlier the week – we got a better than average turn out and it was thumbs up all round for the new venue. We also took a lot of feedback about how we can improve in the future so we will continue to improve from here.

On Sunday evening I got a phone call from Daryl informing me he had accidentally booked Atheist Bus Campaign creator Ariane Sherine to speak at the next Skeptics in the Pub meeting.

So on Monday I headed over to Batley (where Daryl resides into what is essentially a small castle) to discuss ideas of how we could re-launch the group with more exciting speakers and a better format. We began hunting for venues and next thing we knew we were driving back to Leeds to check out The Living Room on Greek Street.

By the end of the evening we had a new venue lined up, a new format in development and a plan to make Leeds Skeptics bigger and better than ever. Win.

I also have to say that Daryl has a very impressive collection of comics. I can’t say I know that much about them but he has box after box of them and all of them looking fancy and collectable. Top marks to anyone who has a replica Lightsaber in their lounge too.

Today I delivered a talk which sounded ominously like a Channel 4 documentary to Leeds Skeptics in the Pub. It went reasonably well and discussions went on well into the afternoon so over all a good event. From now on we’re back to proper guest speakers too so things are looking quite good for Skeptics at the moment.