The 90s was a particularly liberal era in terms of personal freedom. But soon after the turn of the new century, new morality groups began to pop up in the UK. Perhaps the first to notice this trend were strippers in East London, who found pickets outside their workplaces, and lobbyists trying to close the … Continue reading "Porn Panic: The New Lefts War On Free Expression And How Liberalism Ate Itself"

The language of genes has become common in the media. We know they make your eyes blue, your hair curly or your nose straight. We're told that genes control the risk of cancer, heart disease, alcoholism or Alzheimer's. The cost of DNA sequencing has plummeted from billions of pounds to a few hundred, and gene-based … Continue reading "How Do Our Genes Work"

Socionics was formed in the 1970's and 80's by Lithuanian psychologist, Ausra Augustinaviciute and developed from the work of Carl Jung. It is a theory of personality type that focuses on the concept of information metabolism, i.e. that people finitely vary in terms of how they process different kinds of information. It details 16 different … Continue reading "Socionics"

THIS TALK WILL NOW BE ON THE 16TH OF MAY The dark net is an underworld that stretches from popular social media sites to the most secretive corners of the encrypted web. It is a world that frequently appears in newspaper headlines but one that is little understood, and rarely explored. For his book The … Continue reading "The Dark Net"

One of the most persistent edumyths is learning styles - the idea that there are a number of styles of learning, such as visual, aural or kinaesthetic - and that certain children respond better if teaching is directed towards their preferred learning style. Another used to be "brain gym" - the idea that rubbing key … Continue reading "Neuro Myths In Education"

Effective Altruism is the idea behind a growing movement of philosophy, science and evidence minded individuals with a passion to doing as much good as they possible can. Effective Altruism involves using a combination of the head (reason, logic and evidence) and the heart (empathy/compassion) to systematically fight towards making the world a better place … Continue reading "Effective Altruism- Giving with Reason"

John Broughall, (pronounced as in a pub "brawl"), will discuss the issue of why the antibiotic development pipeline has dried up: what are the problems and why the pharmaceutical industry is not investing in research and development to produce new compounds. Multi-drug antibiotic resistance has been recognised as a global threat to health yet the … Continue reading "Are Discovering New Antibiotics Fast Enough?"

Our systems are failing. Old models - for education, healthcare and government, food production, energy supply - are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world's population heads towards 10 billion, it's clear we need new approaches. Futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them, across four continents. From Brazilian favelas to high … Continue reading "We Do Things Differently"

The idea of having a social night was brought up, so to have a bit of a break in routine I thought it would be good to meet and chat and see what topics people might want to have talks on in the future. Free to attend so just come as you are :)

Alex Farrow is a philosophy teacher and stand-up comedian who will be exploring what he learnt from teaching philosophy in a 6th form college to Muslim and Christian teenagers in East London What place do philosophy and skepticism have in the school classroom? What is the "British values agenda" and are British values under attack? … Continue reading "Philosophy, Schools and British Values"