Skeptics in the Pub Online Podcast

October 31st is Halloween - traditionally the scariest night of the year (although we're a bit more scared about what might happen in the US election a few days later). All things considered, it’s pretty safe to say that this has been a slightly unsettling year for lots of people and the last thing we need right now is a bunch of ghosts and ghouls turning up and causing havoc on Halloween. Fear no...

One of the characteristics of language is that there is no relationship between the way that words sound and their meaning. For example, there is nothing window-like about the word window, and it is named with completely different sounds in other languages, from fenêtre in French to shubak in Arabic. In this talk, I will discuss cases where the sounds of words are not arbitrary. I will start by sh...

Naturopathy is scary! For three years, I practiced as a licensed “naturopathic doctor” in the United States. The overwhelming majority of naturopathic care relies extensively on dubious alternative therapies, rather than established protocols based on medical and scientific research. In this Halloween-themed talk, I share the experiences that led to my interest in natural medicine, some spooky nat...

Scientific approaches to understanding reproductive choice - the decision to have a child, the decision to terminate a pregnancy, etc. - typically position decision-makers as rational. Attention is paid to economic forces of change (e.g., industrialisation, rising costs of living, globalisation), to explain why people are having fewer children relative to previous generations. What is missing is a...

Skepticism and ethics are both essential features of a life of flourishing, but what should skeptics and critical thinkers know about ethics, and how should those beliefs motivate us to action? Philosopher Aaron Rabinowitz will put forward the case that skeptics should believe that ethics is real and free will is not, and will argue that adopting these two beliefs gives us the tools we need to imp...

Trauma, gaslighting, narcs, multiple personalities, and the rest of the human mind. Where better to learn about these things than TikTok, Instagram and Twitter? Carrie Poppy (Oh No, Ross and Carrie) takes you on a tour of some of the most popular social media pseudoscience, how to spot it, and what you can say when you see it. Carrie Poppy is an independent journalist who investigates fringe scien...

As the US Presidential election draws near, the world has become fascinated with the seemingly new phenomena of Qanon and other wide-ranging conspiracy theories taking over social media and mainstream politics. However, the genesis of these groups is years old and comes from a surprising place: the global anti-sex trafficking movement. Brooke Magnanti discusses what happens when well-meaning cause...

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a host of scientific triumphs but also numerous failures and declining reputations. One such example is the antiparasitic medication ivermectin, which had previously gained a reputation as a highly effective "wonder drug" but has since faced much controversy during the pandemic. Initially hailed as a potential miracle cure for COVID-19, further examination reveale...

Seth Andrews is best known as host of the popular website, podcast, and online community, The Thinking Atheist. He is a broadcaster, storyteller, author, activist, and public speaker. However, rewind a few years and you’d meet a very different Seth Andrews. As a former evangelical Christian he was once a captive of right-wing media, and Fox News in particular. In his new book he examines the Fox N...

In the last two years conspiracy theories seemed to have spread like a different kind of virus even to people, we would never have expected to be susceptible. Discussions have been unavoidable and ugly, we lost friends, saw family members drifting away and experienced an increasing radicalization. How to respond to conspiracy narratives? Why do people believe them in the first place? Are some more...

Recent global events have led many to ask how far right groups like the Proud Boys are linked to Qanon, Lockdown Protests, Save The Children, and other disinformation vectors. In "Take the Redpill" her latest publication with @GJIA_Online, Samantha Kutner answers a different question: How does the Proud Boys redpill entry into recruitment make them susceptible to conspiracy theories? Samantha Kutn...

Flags! They’re everywhere, from battlefields to Pride marches to the World Cup. But what secrets and mysteries do flags hold? Why do some people get upset if you say Union Flag instead of Union Jack? Are remainers right when they say they want their star back? Why do the bad guys have such well-designed flags? And just what does it mean to fly at half mast? Tom Williamson, whose fascination with t...

The intriguing title of the talk pretty much speaks for itself, and absolves us of not knowing any more. However, if you've ever wondered which of them would win in a fight, then you'll finally get an answer! Iszi Lawrence is the Author of The Unstoppable Letty Pegg (Bloomsbury), presenter of BBC Radio 4's Making History, The British Museum Membercast, Terrible Lizards and The Z List Dead List Pod...

If you believe the rumours, Mark Zuckerberg is about to take over the world, thanks to Facebook's billions of users and the power of his algorithm. But Facebook is ultimately just one company and just one service – what about the actual internet: the servers, the routers, and the thousands of miles of fibre-optic cables that cross the world? Who controls them? And who makes the rules that govern h...

We like to think of humans as rational creatures, who have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little to do with cold, hard facts and a lot to do with feelings. Join Richard Firth-Godbehere explores a fascinating and wide-ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around...

Most of us know the basics of how to take care of our physical health, but what about the brain? Brain health is curiously neglected from public health campaigns, especially considering that dementia is now the leading cause of death in the UK and depression is rapidly becoming the leading cause of global disease burden. What’s driving the rising rates of mental illness and neurodegeneration and w...

After an incredibly exciting release of images this summer, JWST has settled into science mode. This talk will take you on a journey from our own galaxy to the beginnings of the Universe via images from this incredible new telescope, highlighting some interesting scientific discoveries along the way. Emma is a STFC Webb Fellow, which means she has been hired to do science with Webb, but also to ta...

Dr Suzi Gage is a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool, researching links between recreational drug use and mental health. In 2016 she started the award-winning Say Why to Drugs podcast with rapper and actor Scroobius Pip, exploring the science around drugs, and busting the myths that exist around them, from alcohol to LSD, MDMA to heroin. In 2020 she published Say Why To Drugs the book...

There’s a lot more to wasps than your stripy picnic friend: wasps matter to you and the world. There are five times more species of wasps than bees; there are wasps that have sex inside plants; there are wasps that turn cockroaches into zombies. Wasps taught us how to make paper; wasps are architects, guardians of microorganisms, invaders, pollinators, seed dispersers and predators. They are natur...

Engaging someone on a belief they hold in an effective manner is rarely easy, particularly if that belief is tied to one’s identity. So, imagine approaching strangers in public and attempting to engage them in a calm, respectful exploration of that belief, using a conversational technique known as Street Epistemology. You’ve also got to seek their permission to film the encounter, and post it to Y...

There’s so much talk about the threat posed by intelligent machines that it sometimes seems as though we should surrender to our robot overlords now. But Junaid Mubeen isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. As far as he is concerned, we have the edge over machines because of a remarkable system of thought developed over the millennia. It’s familiar to us all, but often badly taught and misrep...

Many of us think of cancer as a contemporary killer, a disease of our own making caused by our modern lifestyles. But that’s not true. Although it might be rare in many species, cancer is the enemy lurking within almost every living creature. Cancer has always been with us. It killed our hominid ancestors, the mammals they evolved from and the dinosaurs that trampled the ground before that. Why? B...

We all use the term ‘luck’ every day, but do we know what we mean when we say it? Research suggests that people generally have nascent, internally inconsistent accounts of luck, and that accounts vary significantly across individuals and cultures. This variation and lack of consistent usage could have significant impacts on research about belief in free will and moral responsibility, as well as ho...

The production of food has more negative impacts on the planet than any other human activity. Over the next thirty years, we desperately need to make huge changes to the way we produce and consume food, otherwise, the effect on the natural world will be devastating. This talk will explain how misinformation is one of the most powerful forces preventing this from happening and explore a series of c...

How do we describe the world on a scale of atoms and molecules? The concepts underlying quantum mechanics seem to be at odds with common sense, but quantum theory describes reality on the atomic scale. Dr Steve Barrett is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Liverpool. His research interests have centred around the applications of imaging and spectroscopy to f...