Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
On the third Friday of every month Association for Science and Reason holds its Skeptics in the Pub event. We have guest speakers, play our ‘patented’ Skepardy game, and show movies. Show up at 7pm for dinner and/or drinks (moderately priced; most dinner menu items are between $9 and $15) and conversation. At about 8pm we get started with our speaker/game/film.
Date: Friday, August 20th, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: Peter Mosier presents his talk, “Legal Thuggery: Watch Tower vs. Skeptical Inquiry.” Thought only Scientology used lawsuits to silence critics? ASR’s own Peter Mosier was raised in a large Jehovah’s Witness family. Like many people raised religiously, he eventually left religion behind after a great deal of investigation, thought, and rational skeptical inquiry. As a result of this process, Peter published the raw data from his investigation on the web so others could benefit from his work and reach their own conclusions. Peter’s website caused his former “Spiritual Brothers” to bring suit against him in Ontario court, claiming he had caused them “irreparable harm” and demanding compensation for alleged copyright infringement, trade mark infringement, as well as $100,000 punitive damages. With the strange beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a backdrop, Peter will take you through the twists and turns of his legal battle. Q&A will follow.
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Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, July 16th, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: Join us for a free screening of the documentary Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus. This movie investigates who is winning the PR war between intelligent design proponents and evolution proponents. The title comes from the famous bird whose failure to change with an evolving environment ultimately led to its extinction. The film casts the scientific community as the not-yet-extinct dodos for (so far) failing to win the PR war. Filmmaker Randy Olson has made an extremely fun, funny, and interesting film (and even interviews famous ID warrior Michael Behe!) Dinner, drinks, and chatting at 7pm; the film will begin at 8pm and runs 84 minutes. This film is being screened with permission. For more information: www.flockofdodos.com.
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, June 18th, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: On June 18, 1178, five monks from Canterbury reported seeing “two horns of light” on the shaded part of the Moon. In 1976 geologist Jack B. Hartung proposed that they had witnessed the formation of the crater Giordano Bruno. On this 832nd anniversary of the monks’ sighting, ASR presents guest speaker Charles O’Dale, who has made a study of impact craters in Canada. (FYI, he flies his own Cessna 177 and will be flying into Toronto from Ottawa for this talk!) Charles is a retired electronic technologist who specialized in semiconductor failure analysis. He has combined his engineering skills with his hobbies of astronomy, geology, and flying to document his explorations of impact structures on this planet. Charles is a member of the Ottawa Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada where he served as Chairperson, President and is currently Ottawa’s Past President. This presentation will feature information on various meteor craters that Charles has visited, sampled, and photographed.
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, May 14th, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: Presenting “Reason vs. Prohibition,” our guest speaker will be Craig Jones, Executive Director of The John Howard Society of Canada, a Kingston-based charitable NGO that advocates to the federal government for “effective, just and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime.” Craig Jones is frequently consulted on criminal justice and correctional policy and is often quoted in national media on issues concerning effective crime control and optimal correctional policy. Before coming to the Society, he worked for the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University as a qualitative researcher on health policy (The Centre for Health Services and Policy Research) and managed a practice-based research network of 90 primary care doctors across eastern Ontario at the Centre for Studies in Primary Care. He has published on a range of topics including illicit drug policy and control, mental health service and delivery, regulation of self-regulating professions, and primary care research. Craig holds a doctorate in political economy from Queen’s Department of Political Studies.
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, April 16th, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: We’ll play Skepardy again this month, but we’ve got a great guest speaker lined up for May. Join us for fun, frivolity, and prizes!
At April’s Skeptics in the Pub event, ASR provided a cake to celebrate Simon Singh’s not-a-loss legal entanglement with the British Chiropractic Association (they withdrew their lawsuit after Singh won his appeal). The cake was monstrous. Really, really big. It was rich and sweet and yummy. We all ate big pieces—some more than one—because the cake was really, really big. Here are some photos of us raising glasses and thumbs to Singh:
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, March 19, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: We’re taking a month off from our popular guest speakers to bring back the beloved Skepardy. Join us for fun, frivolity, and prizes!
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, February 19, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: A slightly post-Darwin Day celebration with a special guest speaker Professor Spencer C.H. Barrett. Professor Barrett received his B.Sc. from the University of Reading (UK) and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently University Professor and Canada Research Chair in Evolutionary Genetics in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. He works on the reproductive biology and genetics of plants, particularly invasive species, and is an avid natural historian and plant explorer. He was elected to the Royal Societies of Canada in 1998, the Royal Society of London (U.K.) in 2004, and in 2009 he was made a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Prof. Barrett is currently President of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution. More information on his publications and lab group can be found at http://labs.eeb.utoronto.ca/barrett/. Having just returned from a month in Chile visiting some of Darwin’s haunts, Prof. Barrett will speak about poorly appreciated facts about Darwin with his talk, “Darwin and flowers: the beginnings of the adaptationist program.”
The Great Time Debate
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) Auditorium, Rm. G162. 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto.
Notes: ASR is co-sponsoring this event with Centre For Inquiry Canada. Cosmologist Dick Bond, physicist Lee Smolin, and philosopher James Robert Brown will discuss/debate the nature of time, while science journalist Dan Falk (author of In Search of Time ) moderates. Topics to be touched upon: How did the universe begin? Why does time have a direction? Could the flow of time be an illusion? Is time travel possible?
The event is free for CFI members and one guest. Tickets are $7 for non-members online or by calling 416-971-5676. Members are invited to a reception following the event at CFI, 216 Beverley St. For more information and to purchase tickets click here.
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, January 22, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: We don’t know how we’re going to top Professor Richard Wiseman, but I’m sure our guest speaker Steve Thoms will give it his best shot! Steve is the Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic North and Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic. A renaissance man, Steve is an amateur astronomer, an award-winning astro-photographeris, and a professional music teacher; and he studied recorded music production, political economy, and global politics. Steve has appeared as a guest on Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe.
ASR presents Richard Wiseman
Date: Monday, January 4, 2010
Time: 12:00pm until 1:30pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: ASR is privileged to present an exclusive talk by Professor Richard Wiseman while he is in Toronto promoting his new book 59 Seconds.
British psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman started his working life as a professional magician, has a doctorate in psychology from the University of Edinburgh, and currently holds Britain’s only Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He has written over 60 academic articles and several books, including The Luck Factor, Quirkology, and most recently 59 Seconds. A passionate advocate for science, Professor Wiseman has established an international reputation for his research into unusual areas of psychology, including deception, luck, and the paranormal. (Over 1 million people have taken part in his mass participation experiments.)
Professor Wiseman frequently appears in the media; his research has been featured on over 150 television programmes, including Horizon (BBC), Body Shock (Channel 4), 20/20 (ABC), and Dateline (NBC). He is regularly heard on BBC Radio 4, and articles about his work have appeared in The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian. A recent poll revealed that Professor Wiseman is the psychologist most frequently quoted in the British media. He has been invited to speak at The Royal Society, Microsoft, Caltech, and The Royal Institution, and his YouTube channel has received over 8 million views.
Professor Wiseman was the recipient of The CSICOP Public Education In Science Award in 2000 and the Joseph Lister Award For Social Science in 2002. In 2004 he was awarded a NESTA DreamTime Fellowship for his innovative work in science communication, and in 2005 served as President of the General Section of The British Association for the Advancement of Science.
59 Seconds exposes modern-day mind myths promoted by the self-help industry and describes hundreds of techniques that help people achieve in minutes, not months. Most people would like to be more creative, more persuasive, and more attractive. For years, gurus and ‘life coaches’ have urged people to improve their lives by changing the way they think and behave, but scientific research has revealed that many of their techniques, from group brainstorming to visualization, are ineffective. Fortunately Richard Wiseman is on hand to provide fast-acting, myth-busting scientific answers to a huge range of everyday problems. From job-hunting to relationships, and from parenting to self-esteem, personal and professional success may be less than a minute away.
http://59seconds.wordpress.com/
www.quirkology.com/USA/index.shtml
http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, December 18, 2009
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes:
In honour of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this month, we are happy to have Professor Danny Harvey of the University of Toronto speaking about climate change. Professor Harvey is an expert on climate modelling, climatic change, and energy and environment. He has written the books A Handbook on Low-Energy Buildings and District Energy Systems and Global Warming: The Hard Science, as well as various research papers. His latest book is Energy and the New Reality, Volume 1 (Energy Efficiency) and Volume 2 will be out in the spring of 2010. For more information: http://faculty.geog.utoronto.ca/Harvey/Harvey/publications.htm#pub.
ACTION: Natural Health Products Symposium @ University of Toronto
Date: Sunday, November 29, 2009
Time: 8:00am (or whenever you can make it)
Location:
Meet at the northwest corner of University and College @ 8am, or show up any time at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, 144 College St.
Notes:
The Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto is holding a Natural Health Products Symposium. Two of the sponsors are companies that produce homeopathic preparations, so pseudoscience is likely to be in the air. Association for Science and Reason would like your help to let them know that we oppose their quackery. Please join us to hand out brochures and carry signs—put your skepticism into action! For more information on the symposium, click the following link: http://www.pharmacygateway.ca/microsite/nhp/index.html.
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, November 20, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: This month there will be no Skepardy, but for good reason—we’ve got two great presentations for you: Umer Noor, who has a PhD in particle physics, will give a brief talk on (and demonstration of!) the Large Hadron Collider, which will have just become operational again. Also, November is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, so David Bailey will also give a brief talk on evolution myths and misinformation. Please join us for food, drinks, conversation, and merriment. Bring friends.
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, October 16, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: Toronto’s, first Skeptics in the Pub (SiP) in September was a huge success! Members and friends, old and new, packed the venue nearly to capacity and everyone enjoyed our ‘patented’ Skepardy game. Thank you so much for joining us, and please come to the next SiP on October 16th—if only to see our new and improved Skepardy!
Toronto Skeptics in the Pub
Date: Friday, September 18, 2010
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Fox & Fiddle, 27 Wellesley St., 3rd floor (across from Wellesley station).
Notes: Join us at Toronto’s first Skeptics in the Pub (SiP) for food, drinks, and conversation.
I can create a printable page that would allow you to print the “postcard” directly from the site. Would that do? It would automatically update as we add events.
Well I would have no objection if you wished to ‘cut and paste’ on to a document and print it out. Do you know of any such ‘doo-hickeys’ that we could use?
Finally getting around to replying to this.
Any JPEG with graphics and explanatory text would do. Should be quite easy for webdude. Check out what the Ambient Ping folks do on their site: http://www.theambientping.com/index.html
Would it be possible to create a postcard-size doo-hickey for events that could be printed out and posted on workplace bulletin boards? I’d love to put them under the one for the Christian Fellowship meeting here.
Thanks for the consideration.