Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History

by David Aaronovitch
When: Thu, Jul 15, 2010 8.00 – 11.00 PM
Where: The Vines (aka the Big House), 81 Lime Street, Liverpool

Summary

Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere – from Pearl Harbour to 9/11, from the assassination of Kennedy to the death of Diana.

In his book Voodoo Histories, writer David Aaronovitch entertainingly demolishes the absurd and sinister conspiracy theories of the last 100 years. Aaronovitch reveals why people are so ready to believe in them and the dangers of this credulity.

Meticulous in its research, forensic in its reasoning, hilarious in its debunking, Voodoo Histories will arm anyone who has found themselves at the wrong end of a conversation about moon landings or the twin towers.

David will examine the need, when iconic figures such as Kennedy, Monroe or Princess Diana are killed, to construct an overarching explanation that mitigates the pain and anxiety of their loss – showing what happens when, as in the case of Diana, conspiracy theories actually make it as far as a court of law.

Biography

David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and the media in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. He has previously written for The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent as well as having appeared on Have I Got News For You.

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However, there’s always room for more, and that’s where you come in. We’re interested in your ideas for skeptical events. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a brand new idea, it can be something you’ve just heard of and thought was a good idea. Either way, we want to hear your ideas.

So the Question of The Week is this: What new skeptical events can you come up with?

Maybe you’ve been nurturing the idea of starting up a Skeptics In The Sauna, or have an idea for the perfect skeptical holiday. It doesn’t have to be an event. Feel free to branch out. It’s common for skepticism to advertise itself in the form of podcasts – maybe you have an idea for a new skeptical outlet? Whatever it is, let us know. Then we can steal it and get all the credit…

Please leave your ideas in the comments field below.

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History – Cancelled

Apologies for the last minute notice, but after an unforeseen emergency eye surgery, our guest speaker David Aaronovitch has had to pull out of the event on Thursday. This is of course a huge shame, but we’ll be keeping the room for the date, so instead we’re hosting a social event in the Vines at 8pm. Please feel free to come along and chat to us about skepticism, conspiracy theory and other skeptical topics.

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by Dr Matthew Smith

When: Thu, Apr 15, 2010 8.00 – 11.00 PM
Where: The Vines (aka the Big House), 81 Lime Street, Liverpool

Summary

Can a scientist become a psychic and win a million dollars?

Do we all have hidden psychic powers? Can we learn to be psychic? Psychologist Dr Matthew Smith is determined to find the answers to these questions and see if he can discover and develop his own abilities and claim the $1 million offered by magician James Randi for anyone who can demonstrate psychic ability.

Biography

Dr Matthew Smith was an Associate Professor of Psychology at Liverpool Hope University until September 2009. His sceptical views on the paranormal have led to appearances on a number of television programmes broadcast throughout the world.

After nearly twenty years investigating the paranormal from a scientific perspective, he is embarking on a unique and ground-breaking experiment in which he becomes his own test subject.

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One Year Anniversary Bonanza at The Vines

It’s hard to believe, but come the end of this Month, the Merseyside Skeptics Society will have been going for just over a year. In that space of time we have gone from not existing at all, to hosting regular social events in Liverpool City Centre (at Doctor Duncan’s pub, for those interested), hosting regular Skeptics In The Pub nights with speakers such as Ariane Sherine, Chris French and Simon Singh, and to masterminding the 10:23 campaign, which went from strength to strength, spreading from Liverpool to other cities across England, Wales and Scotland, and then to numerous countries across the world! Amid all this we’ve also somehow managed to produce two popular podcasts, Skeptics With a K and InKredulous, and get name-checked in everything from the Pod Delusion and The Skeptic Zone to The Independent and The Guardian. Not to mention you could hear Mike and Marsh’s dulcet tones gracing the airwaves on more than one occasion, arguing with UFO enthusiasts, psychics and homeopaths to name but a few. You can also hear Marsh on the podcast Righteous Indignation.

It’s been overwhelming. So overwhelming that we almost forgot it had been a year since we started. When we did notice, we realised we should do something to celebrate this personal milestone, and so we organised a special Liverpool Skeptics In The Pub: One Year Anniversary Bonanza!

Professor Chris French at The Crown

Allan Callister

Our first Liverpool Skeptics In The Pub speaker was the psychologist Chris French and the blog of the event can be found here. Several months later, older but just as sceptical, we found ourselves in a new and bigger venue with no less than four speakers, plucked from the fertile ranks of the MSS itself: Michael Marshall, Mike Hall, Tom Williamson and Allan Callister.

Allan was first up, with a talk about the Emotional Freedom Technique. You can read Allan’s blog-posts on this subject here and here. Allan took us on a humourous journey through this particular piece of woo, successfully persuading the audience to join in as he tapped himself repeatedly at various parts of his body while reciting the EFT chants of “Even though I have this feeling… this feeling…” He even managed to persuade Marsh to come up onto the stage to be cured of his ‘narcissism’, although considering that one of the main phrases of the Emotional Freedom Technique is “I completely love and accept myself”, maybe it was the wrong woo to use?

I should probably add that I can’t remember the exact order of speakers from this point, so I’m just going to make it up from now on. Bwahaha!

Michael Marshall

Next up was Marsh, talking about PR and The Media. This was a funny and informative lecture on how PR has gained control over journalism and its overworked denizens. Listeners to Skeptics With a K won’t be surprised to hear that the Daily Mail was touted as one of the worst offenders! Marsh skilfully pointed out how to spot when a news article was simply a regurgitated press release instead of actual news. More often than not, the fourth paragraph of the article is the giveaway!

Tom Williamson

Tom’s talk was on How Science Works: what is science, how do we do it and how do we know it works? It was essential listening for anyone with an interest in science and/or skepticism. If any of the audience had previously been unsure of the definitions of ‘hypothesis’, ‘theory’ or ‘law’, this talk will have cleared up any misconceptions. This was the bedrock of Skepticism. It was also great ammunition for arguing with Creationists, too.

Mike Hall

And finally, Mike was up, with his talk on Bad Logic, focusing particularly on the logical failures of religious apologetics. This talk successfully went through the shortcomings of logical arguments for God, showing up the errors in everything from the cosmological argument to Pascal’s wager, all emphasised by an impressive and entertaining powerpoint presentation, which went down very well with the audience.

It was a full program to say the least, but it wasn’t over yet! To conclude the evening we held a special first-ever live recording of Skeptics With a K, hosted by Mike Hall, with Michael Marshall and myself, Colin Harris. You can download this episode here, or on iTunes. As Mike admitted to the audience beforehand, this would either go really well or we’d bomb spectacularly! You can judge for yourself in the comfort of your own home! For my money, despite being full of adrenalin the entire time and therefore having no objective stance on this whatsoever, I think it went very well. All three of us enjoyed ourselves, and there was a pleasant atmosphere with lots of laughter at the hoped-for moments. The audience, too, were enthusiastic and participatory, and seemed to enjoy it, even though we over-ran last orders at the bar and broke all our pre-stated rules about profanity and off-colour humour live on stage!

Skeptics With a K in full flow

The entire night was fantastic, and not just because it was a special anniversary. The Liverpool Skeptics in The Pub nights are always great fun and thought-provoking in equal measure. I hope that anyone reading this who has been thinking about coming to one of our speaker events, but who has been worried about what to expect, will realise what great fun we always have. There is nothing to fear, and despite all the cliches, Skeptics do not hate everything! We have a wide range of interests as you can see from the lectures on this night, have a keen sense of fun and are very welcoming. We’ve all been first-timers at Skeptics in The Pub at some point. At the end of the day it’s all about having fun and rational conversation with like-minded people, so please come down to one of our future events, such as Daniela Rudloff in March, or come to our regular informal social on the first Thursday of every month at Doctor Duncan’s pub in Liverpool City Centre. It’s people like you who made the MSS what it is, and who are our reason for existing in the first place. You all help make the world a better, more rational place, and you have fun while you’re doing it!

Happy Birthday Us!

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances our guest speaker for this week’s Skeptics in the Pub – Andy Lewis – has had to cancel. Perhaps there are quacks that desperately needed -ometering, or perhaps he had unexpected work commitments that he really couldn’t get out of (the latter). Andy’s assured us we’ll reschedule the event in the future, but it left us with a space in our calendar…

…and that’s when we remembered we’re one year old as of this Thursday! Hooray, hurrah, they grow up so fast, etc! So, to commemorate this wondrous occasion, and to fulfill our venue obligations, we thought we’d put on something of an anniversary bonanza – as skeptical pick’n'mix, if you will. The evening will consist of four short talks on a variety of topics, as well as a special live edition of our Skeptics with a K podcast.

First off, MSS blogger Allan Callister will be talking Emotional Freedom Technique, something of an interest of his of late. Next, our great and glorious president Mike Hall will be examining Bad Logic, with examples from the world of religion. I’ll be taking to the mic next to explain How PR Took Over Journalism, and where we go from here, before MSS member and PHD Tom Williamson will be telling us all What This Whole Science Thing Actually Is Anyway, how it works, how we know it works and why it’s the bees knees. And then it’s a live, audience-participation-y recording of Skeptics With A K.

So, join us for a jam-packed evening this Thursday from 8, at the Vines Hotel, Liverpool, L1.

>> Further details.

by Daniela Rudloff

When: Thu, Mar 18, 2010 8.00 – 11.00 PM
Where: The Vines (aka the Big House), 81 Lime Street, Liverpool

Summary

Can we really trust our eyes? Why does a footballer’s performance usually drop right after they’ve been sold to a high-paying football club? What exactly is “anchoring”, and why are we doing it in a pub?

Daniela Rudloff will answer these and other questions by giving an introduction to the everyday mental shortcuts and biases we often employ, arguing that even though they might be misleading, they are also necessary – and almost impossible to avoid.

Biography

Daniela has always had a profound interest in critical thinking, leading her to join the German Skeptics in 1994. In 2006 she commenced a PhD in Psychology to find out what keeps Joe Bloggs from being a rational, reasonable and skeptical person.

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Professor Christopher C French, Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London

When: Thu, September 17, 2009 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Where: Crown Hotel, 43 Lime Street Liverpool, L1 1JQ

Summary

Ever since records began, in every known society, a substantial proportion of the population has reported unusual experiences many of which we would today label as "paranormal". Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. Either the paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community which currently rejects such claims, or else belief in and experience of ostensibly paranormal phenomena can be fully explained in terms of psychological factors. Anomalistic psychology attempts to provide non-paranormal explanations for anomalous experiences in terms of known psychological factors. This approach will be illustrated with examples relating to a range of ostensibly paranormal phenomena.

Biography

Chris French is a Professor of Psychology and Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has published over 100 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics within psychology. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. He is the editor of The Skeptic magazine.

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