Pod Delusion Extra James O'Malley

Greek journalist Yiannis Baboulias talks about the resurgence of fascism in Europe.

In the 10th Anniversary Year of the Science Council Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve gave the lecture on the topic of "Why Science needs Ethics: why science cannot and should not aspire to be value free" on Tuesday 8th October. The lecture explored how decisions are made in science and what influences them, an important issue for all scientists and science users, and an especially relevant question for the professional practice of science.

The battle is about an idea: Gender. What is it? Is it socially constructed? Is it an innate male or female self that exists separately from one’s biological sex? Most importantly, who will get to define it? Also, are trans* activists biological essentialists? Or is it the radical feminists who are the biological essentialists? What the hell is biological essentialism anyway? And finally, can we just agree that we all hate Richard Littlejohn and get on with getting on?

Soho Skeptics attempted to find some common ground in a night of personal stories, discussion and comedy.

Magic as metaphor; metaphor as the reality ingredient of literature; a rational approach to the fantastic. Presented by the award winning author of The Prestige, which was later adapted into a successful Hollywood movie directed by Christopher Nolan, Priest will explore another way of seeing – exploring magic as a metaphor in literature and lifting the veil on taking a rational approach with the fantastic.

With ongoing discussions between neuroscientists and philosophers on the existence, or not, of free will, and with so many people in the so-called ‘enlightened’ West still believing that their fate is somehow linked to the movements of the stars and planets, what does modern physics have to say on the matter of determinism and chance? Indeed, is our future preordained? This lecture will be a whistle-stop tour of Einsteinian relativity, quantum indeterminacy and whether, according to our current understanding of the nature of time, the future is knowable.

Our tiny blue planet is the only place we know where life can exist – a precious oasis in the vast desert of space. But throughout Earth’s history everything from exploding stars to impacts with giant asteroids have all left their mark on our planet – with profound consequences for its cargo of plants and animals. Public Astronomer Dr Marek Kukula explores how the world around us has been shaped by events in space, and how life on Earth has adapted to survive them.