social media | Cork Skeptics

June 13, 2018
by Cork Skeptics 1 Comment

Paranoia For The People • Friday 22 June

Dr David Robert Grimes presents Conspiracy Theories in the 21st Century

8:00pm • Friday 22nd June • Blackrock Castle Observatory

Conspiratorial ideation (e.g., the moon landings were faked; climate-change is a hoax; vaccination is dangerous) is the tendency of individuals to believe that events and power relations are secretly manipulated by certain clandestine groups and organizations. Public acceptance of these ostensibly explanatory conjectures remains high, even when they are non-falsifiable, lacking in evidence, or demonstrably false.

To exacerbate the problem, social media provides fertile ground for conspiracy theories to rapidly propagate, and dedicated echo-chambers can insulate these beliefs from critical examination.

In this talk, we’ll examine what makes conspiracy theories so virile, including recent mathematical models that aim to understand the viability of such beliefs, and models of how they spread. And we’ll see how much damage such claims can cause, and why in our hyper-connected era its more imperative than ever before to combat false narratives.

About The Speaker: Dr David Robert Grimes is a physicist and cancer researcher, currently based at the Queens University Belfast and a visiting researcher at University of Oxford. His research focuses chiefly on the application of radiotherapy physics, and oxygen modelling, and academic work on factors influencing public perception and understanding of science.

He is also a science writer and frequently contributes to the Guardian, Irish Times and BBC on a wide spectrum of science, society and philosophical topics. He was joint recipient of the 2014 Nature / Sense about Science Maddox Prize for Standing Up for Science.

David can be found on Twitter @drg1985

This talk takes place at Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork at 8:00pm on Friday 22nd June. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend!

June 2, 2018
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Odd Numbers with Darren Dahly

Darren Dahly, Principal Statistician of the Clinical Research Facility Cork, Presents A Skeptic’s Guide To Common Statistical Paradoxes & Biases

8:00pm • Friday 8th June • Blackrock Castle Observatory

There are lots of ways to fool ourselves with data. This talk will help you defend yourself against the most common statistical paradoxes and biases. Examples will include how regression to the mean can explain most placebo effects, and how collider bias can lead us to think that smoking during pregnancy is actually good for small babies.

About The Speaker: Darren Dahly is the Principal Statistician of the Clinical Research Facility Cork, and a Senior Lecturer in Research Methods at UCC.

Darren can be found on Twitter @statsepi

This talk takes place at Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork at 8:00pm on Friday 8th June. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend!

November 2, 2017
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You Are What You Tweet with Niamh O’Connor

Niamh O’Connor, a.k.a. the Nutri-Babble Slayer, Puts Online Health & Nutrition Claims Under The Microscope

8:00pm • Friday 24th November • Blackrock Castle Observatory

Having immersed herself in Twitter for the past 7 years, dietitian & consultant nutritionist Niamh O’Connor has seen first-hand the power of social media in healthcare. In that time, Niamh has become a leading voice on social media for Irish dietitians, as an unwavering nutribabble-slaying thorn in the side of opportunistic quacks, celebrities and charlatans, who post misleading, false and incorrect health and nutrition information online!

In this talk, Niamh will chronicle her online odyssey through the world of bogus health and nutrition claims and those that peddle them, as well as providing practical advice on what to look out for and how best to assess these claims.

About The Speaker: Niamh O’Connor qualified with BSc (Hons) in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from TCD & a Diploma in Dietetics from DIT in 1993.

In 1999 she founded Cork Nutrition Consultancy, which was the very first of its kind in Cork, and in 2012 she went on to launch NutriCount® Ireland, which provides professional nutritional analysis, allergen labelling, staff training & mentoring on health and nutrition claims for the hospitality sector.

Niamh is an active member of the Irish Nutrition & Dietetic Institute (INDI), the professional body for dietitians and clinical nutritionists in Ireland. She advocates for her patients and for her profession, and is a regular contributor to local and national radio, television, print media and social media on all things nutrition.

Niamh can be found on Twitter @CorkNutrition

This talk takes place at Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork at 8:00pm on Friday 24th November. Admission is free and all are welcome to attend!

May 25, 2014
by Cork Skeptics 3 Comments

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.