Cork Skeptics

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Climate Change with John Gibbons

Our next talk features environmental writer and commentator John Gibbons who will discuss the global climate change crisis, with a focus on the role Ireland has played.

About The Talk: An unprecedented global crisis involving biodiversity collapse, water and soil depletion, planetary climate destabilisation and pollution of land, sea and atmosphere threatens to reverse the dramatic gains in wealth, health and well being that humanity has enjoyed over the past two centuries. We live in dangerous times.

But what is truly extraordinary is how this existential crisis has been studiously ignored by our politicians, business and social leaders as well as our media. How this has come to pass is itself one of the most extraordinary stories of our times. In this talk, John Gibbons will attempt to shine some light into the dark corners of the greatest communications failure in human history.
John Gibbons

John Gibbons

About the Speaker: John Gibbons is a specialist environmental writer and commentator with a special focus on Climate Change. He wrote a weekly column in the Irish Times on climate change for nearly three years, and is now a regular contributor on TV, radio and in print on environment, energy and climate-related issues. He maintains a blog at ThinkorSwim.ie

A graduate of UCC and DCU, he is also MD of healthcare publishing and communications organisation MedMedia Group which he co-founded 24 years ago. Married, he has two daughters in primary school and lives in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

This talk begins at 8:00pm on Friday 17 April. The venue is Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork.

It is free to attend and all are welcome—we look forward to seeing you there!


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Ongoing Adventures In the World of Pseudoscience with Michael Marshall

Marsh_Pseudoscience_Poster_600pxOur next talk will feature Michael Marshall of the Merseyside Skeptics Society recounting his ongoing adventures in the world of pseudoscience! This talk will take place on Thursday 5th February at Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork.

About the Talk:  It’s easy to think of pseudoscience as existing in a glass case at a museum – something to be examined and critiqued from a safe distance, but not something to touch and to play with. Using examples taken from his own personal experiences in skepticism, Michael Marshall will show what happens when you begin to crack the surface of the pseudosciences that surround us – revealing the surprising, sometimes shocking, and often comic, adventures that lie beneath.

About the Speaker: Michael Marshall is the Vice-President of the Merseyside Skeptics Society and Project Director of the Good Thinking Society. He regularly speaks with proponents of pseudoscience for the Be Reasonable podcast, as well as co-hosting the Skeptics with a K podcast. His work with the MSS has seen him organising international homeopathy protests and co-founding the popular QED Conference. He has written for the Guardian, The Times and New Statesman.

This talk begins at 8:00pm on Thursday 5 February. The venue is Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork.

It is free to attend and all are welcome—we look forward to seeing you there!


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Mindfulness with Karen Murphy

Mindfulness_Poster_600px

On Friday 21st November we are hosting a talk by Cork-based counsellor and psychotherapist Karen Murphy, who will deliver a detailed appraisal of the meditative practice of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is growing in popularity as a way of improving mental health, coping with pain, reducing stress and now is even being introduced into the Junior Cert cycle. From the cover of Time Magazine in February this year to companies like Google developing their own in house mindfulness programme it is hard to escape the mindfulness explosion. But what is mindfulness? How does it work? Why do we need it? What evidence is there that it works? Our speaker will explore these topics as well as why, very often, people react with scepticism towards mindfulness.

About the Speaker: Karen Murphy is a Counsellor and Psychotherapist (BA (Hons) Counselling and Psychotherapy) working in private practice in Cork City. She gives workshops on mindfulness to organisations and business as well as running regular mindfulness courses.

This talk begins at 8:00pm on Friday 21 November. The venue is Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork.

It is free to attend and all are welcome—we look forward to seeing you there!


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The 12 Steps with Danny Strickland

On Saturday 20th September we are hosting Danny Strickland, co-founder of Newcastle Skeptics, who will deliver a first-hand critical examination of the 12-Step Programme of addiction counselling.

With millions of members and over 200 organisations world wide, the 12-step programme of recovery has been used to help people recover from addiction and dependence since 1935. The most well known of the 12-step groups is Alcoholics Anonymous, which claims to have in excess of 2 million members.

In his talk, Danny will discuss what exactly the 12 steps are, what they really mean and just how effective they are in tackling addiction.  He will also explore questions such as are 12-step groups cults, is a belief in “God” central to the 12-step programme and if so, can atheists really use the 12-steps?

Danny spent almost three years as a member of a 12-step fellowship. Six years after attending his last 12-step meeting, Danny remains free from addiction. Just for today.

Danny was co-founder of Newcastle Skeptics and helped run it for four years. You can follow him on Twitter: @dts1970

 

This talk will begin at 8:00pm on Saturday 20 September. The venue is Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork. It is free to attend and all are welcome.


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Retweet Offenders – A Talk by Geoff Lillis on Hacking Twitter

Did you know that the most popular sporting figure among Twitter followers of Youth Defence is the former American footballer Tim Tebow? Or that the majority of followers of @Women4Shariah are men? Or that most @ProLifeAtheists describe themselves as Catholic?

In this talk Geoff Lillis will show how most “Irish” pro life groups are supported from the States, how most Intelligent Design fans are more interested in apologetics than science, how you can hack Twitter, and why skeptics should look at the metadata, not just the data.

Geoff Lillis is a programmer and blogger whose work has been featured in print media like the Independent (UK), the Atlantic, and discussed in books such as Savita: The Tragedy That Shook A Nation (Kitty Holland, 2013) and Everyday Sexism (Laura Bates, 2014). He specialises in pulling hard to find information from Twitter accounts and presenting it in a manner that can reveal some surprising trends.

 

This talk will begin at 8:00pm on Saturday 14 June. The venue is Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork. It is free to attend and all are welcome.


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How To Find Love On The Internet • Dr Martin Graff

MartinGraff_CorkSkeptics_650pxFriday 2 May at Blackrock Castle Observatory

Are there gender differences in attraction?  Can you really find true love on the Internet?  How do people actually portray themselves online?  Can you have a virtual affair?

In this talk, Dr Martin Graff will examine all of these issues and will draw on current empirical studies on online relationships.  He will cover some of the major research work on the online disinhibition effect, which suggest that we disclose more personal information, and do this more quickly in online environments.

Dr Graff will also give some factual advice on how to construct dating site profiles, and the way to approach an online liaison with a potential dating partner.  With the explosion in the provision of online dating sites, including those dedicated to finding partners for affairs, this will also draw on some of the speaker’s own research on online infidelity, asking whether it is possible to have a virtual affair.

 

About The Speaker:

Dr Martin Graff is Reader in Psychology at the University of South Wales. He is an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Chartered Psychologist.

Over the years he has carried out research in the areas of cognitive processes in web-based learning, individual differences in website navigation, online interaction and the formation and dissolution of romantic relationships online and offline. He has also carried out research in the areas of online persuasion, and online disinhibition, and has supervised several doctoral degrees in this area.

He is a member of the British Psychological Society Undergraduate Education Committee, which oversees the running of Psychology degree programmes at British Universities.  In April 2013, he was invited as a visiting research professor to Cortland University, New York, USA April 2013.

Dr Graff has published widely in the field of Internet behaviour, and has also written for The Psychologist in the area of Online Infidelity.  He has also presented this work at numerous International Conferences.

 

This talk will take place at Blackrock Castle Observatory at 8pm — directions can be found on our information page. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers, and all are welcome at this free event. We hope to see you there!