Last weekend as QEDcon 2013 in Manchester, and in addition to picking up an Editor’s Choice Award at the Ockham Awards (thanks!), we also had an hour slot in which we could showcase some interesting people talking about interesting things. Here’s a recording of that.
Full interviews from the Royal Holloway Science Festival 2013 – we interviewed people live in the bar!
Alan Gange – Fungal Biologist
Dave Cohen – Theoretical Computer Scientist
Enrique Lopez-Juez – Plant Biologist
Rafael Yanez – Gene and Cell Therapist
Jeanne Shinskey – Child Development Psychologist
Patrick Leman – Child Development Psychologist & Associate Dean
Here are some of the talks in full from the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies annual convention – held on 2nd March 2013 at Conway Hall in London.
Andrew Copson
Jim Al-Khalili
In his first speech as new President of the British Humanist Association.
Natalie Haynes
Polly Toynbee
Philosopher AC Grayling delivers a lecture to the Central London Humanist Group on the roots and fruits of humanism.
The British Humanist Association‘s annual Voltaire Lecture, this year delivered by psychologist and public intellectual Steven Pinker. The event was chaired by the Association’s new President, Jim Al-Khalili.
You can hear additional interviews with Steven and Jim on Episode 179 of the Pod Delusion.
Recorded at the Royal Institution, Helen Czerski was joined by Marcus Brigstocke, Bruce Hood, Barry Smith and Felicity Mellor to discuss what scientists should know about the dark arts of persuasion, and whether they should ever use them.
You can also hear Helen speaking about the debate on Episode 173 of The Pod Delusion.
Chaired by Dr Richard Dawkins, the 2013 British Humanist Association Darwin Day lecture was delivered by Sir Tom Blundell, Professor Emeritus and Director of Research, Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge on the topic of: ‘The emergence of drug resistance: Molecular evolution and new medicines for cancer and tuberculosis’.
You can also hear Sir Tom interviewed about his life and work on Episode 173 of The Pod Delusion.
What are we to make of the Leveson Report? Is the Leveson Report a threat to public interest journalism? This was the topic of a debate hosted by the Soho Skeptics and Conway Hall.
On the panel was:
Nick Cohen – British journalist, author and political commentator. He is a columnist for The Observer, a blogger for The Spectator, and Standpoint magazine. His most recent book You Can’t Read This Book is about free speech and censorship.
Suzanne Moore – Journalist and columnist who has written for The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Independent and others.
Evan Harris – Former Liberal Democrat MP and currently a prominent member of the Hacked Off campaign, which is campaigning for the implementation of the Leveson recommendations.
Natalie Fenton – Co-Director of the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre. She has written a number of books including “New Media, Old Media: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age”
The panel was chaired by Helen Lewis, deputy editor of the New Statesman.
Recorded on the 22nd September 2012, these were the speeches given at the 2012 National Secular Society conference in London. We’re still waiting for permission to broadcast from a couple of speakers but most are there!
Professor Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is a world famous Atheist, having authored several books and popularising Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. He studies ethology which is the study of animal behaviour and evolutionary biology. Dawkins was the Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 till 2008 at Oxford University. After retiring from this position, he now travels internationally giving lectures and making documentaries to increase Atheism awareness.
Nia Griffith MP
Nia Griffith is Member of Parliament for Llanelli, Shadow Minister for Wales and a campaigner for Lords reform. She is a firm believer in the need for the separation of church and state.
Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is a journalist, author, political commentator and eloquent supporter of secularism. He is a critic of the increasing role of religion in state education and of the Left’s tendency to pander to religious fundamentalists. His latest work,You Can’t Read This Book, is on freedom of expression.
Pragna Patel
Pragna Patel is a secular campaigner, founding member of Southall Black Sisters and co-founder of Women Against Fundamentalism. In 2010 Pragna received the Irwin Prize for Secularist of the Year on behalf of Southall Black Sisters.
Peter Tatchell
Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for human rights, democracy, LGBT freedom and global justice since 1967. Through the Peter Tatchell Foundation, he campaigns for human rights in Britain and internationally. In 2012 Peter was awarded the Irwin Prize for Secularist of the Year.
Maryam Namazie
Maryam Namazie is a secular campaigner and commentator, spokesperson for the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. In 2005 she was awarded the Irwin Prize for Secularist of the Year.
Professor Ted Cantle CBE
Ted Cantle is Professor at the Institute of Community Cohesion. His report into the northern riots of 2001 drew attention to the “segregated” ethnic and religious communities living ‘parallel’ lives. His new book confronts the failures of multiculturalism head on and establishes a new concept — interculturalism — for managing community relations in a world defined by globalization and super-diversity.
The following is a recording of the Central London Humanist Group meeting from August 22nd 2012, in which celebrated human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell gave a talk on how we can make human rights law enforceable worldwide.
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