Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2025, that happened in front of a live audience on October 24th 2025 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was live streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp/ About the talk: With stressful competition and very little actual evidence to go on, TV smash hit The Traitors is a masterclass of flawed reasoning and leaps of logic. In this talk, Jim will look at...

Chronic pain affects over 40% of the UK population, including around 18% of adolescents, with up to 6% of young people experiencing severe chronic pain. Despite its high prevalence, understanding and education around chronic pain remain limited. Long-term pain is strongly linked to reduced quality of life, increased healthcare use, and poorer long-term physical and psychological outcomes. In young...

Jack the Ripper is one of the most well-known serial killers in history, with stories of his gruesome exploits permeating popular culture to an unprecedented degree. Despite almost 150 years having passed since the appalling Whitechapel murders, we are still none the wiser about who he was, what drove his terrible crimes, or why they suddenly stopped. But could that be about to change? At the star...

Nearly one in four Britons has a disability, and many of them would benefit from a mobility aid or other piece of assistive technology. However, studies show a consistent trend of low compliance, sometimes as little as 50% depending on demographics. Non-use and underuse of needed aids has a host of negative impacts, including excess pain and disability for the individual, as well as social effects...

From biodynamic veggies to detox cures, our supermarkets are full of products that are pure woo. One moment you’re picking up cold medicine, the next you’re eyeing a bottle of homeopathic sugar pearls. You finally decide to get started with a skin care routine, a moment later your money ends up in the pocket of an anthroposophical brand. And those carrots … are they just organic or are they grown...

In this talk, Noah Lugeons combines two of his passions; video game history and terrible Christian media. In so doing, he explores both the history of Christian video games and the larger role that Christianity has played in the development of secular games. In a who’s who of the worst video games of all time, Noah will guide the audience through a half century of digital cross-gathering, Sunday s...

What adults do for children today is shaping how humanity will ultimately fare. How can parents and other adults leverage information and resources to oppose bigotry and do the best for kids? In this presentation, Kavin Senapathy will discuss their book, The Progressive Parent: Harnessing the Power of Science and Social Justice to Raise Awesome Kids. From protecting babies and children from harmfu...

We’re all members of a very strange species. But where lots of human peculiarities – from art to warfare and beyond – have analogues across the animal kingdom, we stand alone as the only religious species. Yet, within our otherwise religious species, atheism is currently flourishing in large parts of the world. I’ll discuss research highlighted in my recent book (Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: In spite of advancements in the field of forensic science, questionable practices and outright unproven methods still often get admitted into American court rooms. We'll explore some examples of this happeni...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: 1 in 8 people globally are affected by a mental disorder, yet despite research, knowledge and awareness efforts, mental health is still increasing at an alarming rate. Could there be something misleading us...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: The dubious rants of an aging teacher, regarding discipline and punishment in schools and why we've never had it so bad, or good, depending on who you listen to. About the speaker: Caradoc is returning to Sk...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: Last year prison lawyer Emma ran a long way to make an over-laboured point about prison conditions. The sequel calls for an even more ridiculous stunt... So Emma will be running in circles at a prison for 52...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: Proponents of AI promise that AI will lead to the the democratisation of knowledge, but it is ultimately owned by various companies and investors. Who are these people and what are their goals for AI? About...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: A talk about my experience literally losing the plot with Postnatal Psychosis and what it's like to experience psychiatric care on the NHS About the speaker: Karin is a artist/skeptic based in Liverpool. The...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: From where do the stories about sea serpents, draugr, and trolls originate? In the case of one of Europe's oldest lake monster, the story seems to originate from misinterpreting a historical artifact. So wha...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: Nearly 1 in 4 Britons has some form of disability and, at least in theory, has access to a system that is designed to get them the accommodations that they need. However, we know that many people underutiliz...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: In 1978, German pop group Boney M released their single Rasputin. The lyrics cemented the reputation of one Grigory Rasputin, one of the most loathed men in Russia, for all time. About the speaker: One half...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: Electrification is transforming transportation at a fast pace. With over 40 million electric cars on the roads as of 2023, and a growing number of electric trucks and buses, the shift towards greener travel...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: According to many, your handwriting, the way you draw your letters, says a lot about your personality. But what does science have to say about it? And what could it be useful for anyway? About the speaker: A...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: In a world where humans can literally fly, somehow the word "technology" has come to mean violating labour laws to undercut taxi firms and dressing it up as "innovation" by bolting on a phone app. The tech i...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: The rise in the number of stray dogs has sparked fierce reactions from conspiracy influencers. Between violent interventions like shooting strays and deporting volunteers who feed these “scary monsters,” som...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: No people ever called themselves “the Vikings” and the history of Scandinavian culture didn’t start with the raid of Lindisfarne. There were kings, well-established communities, and even countries in the geo...

This audio is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: A gramme of human excrement contains one trillion bacteria, so how can we selectively culture a poop sample to hunt for our most wanted faecal felons? Enter our intrepid Biomedical Scientist Laura Eggo to co...

This video is a part of the Skepticamp 2024 event, that happened on October 18th 2024 in Mercure Piccadilly Hotel, Manchester and was livestreamed at https://www.twitch.tv/sitp About the talk: Learn of the benefits of drinking your own urine! Marvel at how it treats conjunctivitis if you pour it in your eyes! Discover if you really should be peeing on your jellyfish sting! This talk considers whet...

The Voynich Manuscript is a handwritten book that probably dates back to the late Middle Ages. It is written in a script that no one can read. The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both the First and Second World Wars. Still, the manuscript has never been demonstrably deciphered, and the mystery of...