Posts Tagged ‘sitp’

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.

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.

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.

Back in 2010, we created the annual Worfolk Lecture for public understanding of science. If you have missed any, or all of them, you can find them on the Worfolk Lectures website. This year’s talk, delivered by Leeds Skeptics, saw Paul Hopwood present “You Know Less Than You Think“.

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.

This month’s meeting of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub welcomed Dr Neil Cooper from the University of Bradford’s Peace Studies department to talk about arms regulation.

It certainly captured the interest of the audience as the talk itself was followed by one of the longest question and answer sessions we have ever had at Leeds Skeptics!