Skeptics in the Pub, Leicester

What is the make up of the sex industry in Britain today? How prevalent is trafficking? What is the point of the law on sex work? What does it aim to do, and does it work? Belinda Brooks-Gordon will be talking about the myths and stereotypes that surround sex work by examining the evidence base, case studies, and policy to show how the law is working, and where it isn’t.

Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon C.Psychol, is a Reader in Psychology and Social Policy at Birkbeck, University of London. A chartered psychologist with a PhD from the University of Cambridge Law Faculty, Belinda’s research focuses on the safety, health, welfare and human rights of vulnerable workers. Belinda’s book The Price of Sex: Prostitution, Policy and Society  was short-listed for the British Society of Criminology Book Prize 2007. Other books include: Death Rites and Rights; Law and Psychology: Current Legal Issues; and Sexuality Repositioned: Diversity and the Law. She also writes in the mainstream broadsheet press and sometimes on legal blogs.

Hypnosis is associated with some truly remarkable phenomena. To mention just one, total anaesthesia can be induced in susceptible hypnotic subjects, so that major dental or internal surgery can be performed without any sensation of pain at all, and there’s plenty of experimental evidence, to be reviewed in the talk, that this is a genuine effect. But its interpretation is highly controversial, and the same applies to all phenomena of hypnosis and even the nature of hypnosis itself. This is the longest-running controversy in the entire history of psychology, with its origins in the 18th century when Franz Anton Mesmer was performing miraculous “cures” on members of the dissolute French nobility, and it is still deadlocked. The sceptical view, in its most extreme form, is that there is no such thing as a hypnotic trance or special hypnotic state of consciousness, and that the phenomena of hypnosis are effects of social influence. After more than two centuries of scientific research, some of the more bizarre claims that have been made for hypnosis, including its alleged usefulness in uncovering repressed memories, can be firmly rejected, but the extreme sceptical interpretation is also hard to swallow. Brain imaging is beginning to throw some new light on the nature of hypnosis, but don’t hold your breath for a resolution of the debate in this talk.

Crispian Jago is one of the founding members of the Hampshire Skeptic Society, and co-founder & co-organiser of Winchester Skeptics in the Pub.

He was recently longlisted for the 2011 Orwell Prize for his satirical skeptic blog Science, Reason and Critical Thinking, where he "hurls ad hominem attacks at passing woo mongers and takes random pot shot at supernatural, paranormal and pseudoscientific bullshit."

How to Point and Laugh at Irrational Nonsense will review many of the topics covered in the Science, Reason and Critical Thinking blog over the past couple of years and ponder whether or not ridicule is an appropriate method for sceptical activism.

In his day job, Crispian is a freelance IT consultant specialising in the design and management of software test strategies in order to ensure the successful deployment of complex IT systems.

Mark Stevenson has been to the future a few years ahead of the rest of us – and came back believing we still have everything to play for. His voyage of discovery took him to Boston to visit a robot with mood swings, to an underwater cabinet meeting in the Indian Ocean, and Australia to question the Outback’s smartest farmer, had his genome profiled, and glimpsed the next stage of human evolution … then he tried to make sense of what’s in store.

The result was An Optimist’s Tour of the Future, which is finding fans from schoolchildren through to Nobel Peace Prize winners. Mark will talk of the future of humanity and how technology will help remedy some of these problems.

Mark combines two careers – one as a successful writer and comedian and as co-founder and director of the cultural learning agency Flow Associates and the science communication agency ReAgency, Roving Learner at The Age of Smart, a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and Nibmaster General for the Ministry of Stories.

http://anoptimiststourofthefuture.com/

There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons. 158 have a background in business, 90 have been political advisers or organisers, and 86 are lawyers. Only one of them is a scientist. Is it any wonder that politics so often lets science down, and fails to exploit its skeptical methods to design policies that are fit for purpose?

In the Geek Manifesto, to be published by Bantam Press in May 2012, Mark Henderson explores this disconnect between science and politics, and charts the emergence of a new force that is promising to mend it. From the Simon Singh libel case to the sacking of David Nutt and the Science is Vital campaign, people who care about science are starting to stand up to be counted. The geeks are coming -- and our country needs us.

The present coalition government may have broken the mould of British politics, but Parliament now has the poorest representation of science for very many years. So far, despite promises that things would be different, health ministers are maintaining the irrational stance taken by the previous administration. Andrew Lansley refuses to stop wasting money on homeopathy, and refuses to have alternative medicine evaluated by NICE. Dialogues with politicians and other public figures can be hugely entertaining and revealing, as this talk will show.

Les Rose is a freelance consultant clinical scientist, and has worked for over 30 years in managing clinical trials, training and advising clinical researchers, and evaluating results of trials. He coordinates a group of experts associated with Sense About Science, who are working in support of evidence-based medicine. This group was responsible for the letter which was sent to NHS trusts in May 2006, requesting them to avoid treatments which lack evidence of efficacy and safety. He regularly writes and broadcasts on this and related topics. Les is a Fellow of both the Institute of Clinical Research, and of the Society of Biology. He serves on the editorial boards of `The Biologist', `Focus on Alternative and Complementary Medicine' (FACT), and the`Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine'.

How can children brought up in religious families reconcile the different 'truths' they are told about the world? And to what extent should we discuss these issues in schools: what exactly should science teachers say when asked about the 'truth' of science by religious students?

In this talk, Alom Shaha will describe his personal experiences growing up in a Bangladeshi Muslim community in London, what role his science education played in his journey towards atheism and how, as a Physics teacher, he responds to the apparent conflict between science and religion in the classroom.