Apologies to all of you who were looking forward to hearing Dr. Mosley’s talk. I know a lot of you are very interested in what he has to say, us included. We will try and reschedule him later on in the year.

However we can find out what Professor Jim has been up to recently. He has a new book out called Paradox – The 9 Greatest Enigmas in Science that you can get from Amazon if you click the link. He’s also been having some interesting conversations with assorted homeopaths who think that quantum mechanics is they key to how homeopathy ‘works’.

Spoiler alert : Homeopathy is bollocks. It doesn’t work and it’s actually dangerous if used instead of actual medicine.

Whilst at the moment we don’t know what Jim’s talk will be about you can be certain that it’s going to be enlightening and entertaining. So make sure you’re there to give Jim the welcome he deserves and to find out the latest from one of the UK’s foremost physicists and the newly minted President of the British Humanist Association.

NOTE : This event is on the 2nd of May not the 25th of April due to a booking conflict. Only applies to this SitP. 

 It's been a short two years since the Advertising Standards Authority started to regulate marketing claims made on the Internet. In that time, the Nightingale Collaboration has given the ASA possibly their most serious challenge yet: curbing the misleading claims made on CAM websites. Many practitioners have realised their responsibilities and taken down long lists of 'what homeopathy can help with...', etc.

Martin S Taylor became interested in hypnosis when he was studying for a PhD at Imperial College, and soon became well known on the student circuit with his science based lecture-demonstration. At first he believed in the traditional view that hypnosis is a special induced state of mind, but discussions with friends and his experience with his own hypnotic subjects led him to subscribe to the 'social-compliance' view, namely that hypnosis is best explained by normal, well-understood psychological principles.

He now makes a living as a lecturer and consultant on hypnosis, talking and demonstrating at schools, universities, and anywhere else they'll pay him. It was at one of Martin's lectures that Derren Brown was inspired to take up his career, and Martin has worked with Derren on a number of recent television shows. Recently he has been a hypnosis consultant for Paramount Pictures, helping them make promotional videos for horror films.

In tonight's talk, Martin will give an explanation of his skeptical outlook on traditional hypnosis, illustrated with clips from his stage show - and possibly some live demonstrations on the audience.

With Michael Gove and the coalition approving new Steiner Schools to open under the Free School Programme, it is timely to look closely at the origins and beliefs of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the occult movement of Anthroposophy.

Steiner was a mystic who believed he had direct clairvoyant access to cosmic knowledge. As such he developed an esoteric belief system based on karma, reincarnation, astrology, homeopathy and gnomes. His visions gave insights into architecture, art, dance, agriculture, medicine, education, science and diet. His racial hierarchy of spiritual developmental resonated in Germany in the early 20th Century turning a personal belief into a worldwide movement. Today we find hundreds of anthroposophically inspired organisations in the UK alone: everything from Steiner Schools, Biodynamic farms to banks, pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, charities and cheese makers.

Andy Lewis has been trying to lift the veil on the inner secrets of the movement and will discuss how this secretive movement has direct impact on public life.

You can follow Andy on Twitter @LeCanardNoir and see his website Quackometer. 

A superb evening of music, comedy, science and magic on the 13th of December!

We are incredibly lucky and honoured to be able to be joined by science magician, comedian and scientist, Oliver Meech! Science comedian and scientist, Steve Mould! (Yes, that one off Blue Peter). Science chanteuse and scientist, Helen Arney! And holding the entire evening together with super-strength ooey gluey will be the peerless science programme presenting, big animal dissecting, ugly animal representin’, evolutionary biologist, Simon Watt! 

UPDATE

We have just had confirmation that we will be adding Dr. Suman Biswas from the Amateur Transplants to the bill

BOOKING

This will be a ticketed event. To get your tickets you can click this link: Winchester Skeptics Christmas Bumper Fun Pack to get to the WDC website where you’ll see a big green button on the right hand side at the top that says Buy Tickets Online.
If you click that you’ll be taken to the events list. Select the month and date on the calendar on the right (Thursday December 13th) and the events will appear. You’ll see our event there.

Bubbles in liquids are a fascinating and important part of our everyday world, but we still associate them mostly with having baths. After dealing with why there are bubbles in the bath in the first place, we'll look at what bubbles do and why they're important in our world. And then we'll get to why a snail would blow a bubble, how penguins use them to go faster and why bubbles are a champagne connoisseur's best friend.

My research is on bubbles formed by breaking waves in the ocean, and there's lots to say about the most up-to-date ocean bubble discoveries and how bubbles affect weather and climate. I'll show how we study the ocean surface in practice (often not elegant), and why it matters.

This talk will give an overview of the ways that bubbles affect our lives, both the ones we can see if we know where to look and the ones that are more remote but still important. Hopefully the audience will leave with new eyes for bubbles and some great ways to play with bubbles at home. Sadly, I can't promise a recipe for the perfect bubble bath !

Nick Cohen is a secularist, atheist and columnist for the Observer. His latest book You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship in an age of freedom looks at how religion, the wealthy and the state threaten freedom of speech.

And if you’d like a copy of Nick’s book, local independent booksellers P&G Wells will be there to help you. 

The Nobel Prizes may have been created at the turn of the last century, but they still make headlines today. Part of the reason is that from its very beginnings it has been surrounded by secrecy, myths and controversies. I’ll explore a selection of the most interesting and debated stories over the decades – from Alfred Nobel’s will itself to the three-person selection dilemma in the world of big science projects – and show how they reveal as much about the evolving nature of scientific progress as they do about the nature of the prize.

Simon Frantz is the science and technology features editor at BBC.com, creator of the Nobel Prize Watch blog and until recently was a senior editor of Nobelprize.org and Nature Publishing Group.
The Nobel Prizes are announced in the next few weeks following Simon’s talk.

How can children brought up in religious families reconcile the different ‘truths’ they are told about the world? And to what extent should we discuss these issues in schools: what exactly should science teachers say when asked about the ‘truth’ of science by religious students?

In this talk, Alom Shaha will describe his personal experiences growing up in a Bangladeshi Muslim community in London, what role his science education played in his journey towards atheism and how, as a Physics teacher, he responds to the apparent conflict between science and religion in the classroom.

 Professor David Nutt is the current Edmond J Safra chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and was a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and was President of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology but it was during his chairmanship of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and his refusal to fudge the issue of perceived drug harm that brought him into the public spotlight.

It is with great pleasure that we welcome Professor Nutt to Winchester Skeptics in the Pub and we hope you can join us too.

There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons. 158 have a background in business, 90 have been political advisers or organisers, and 86 are lawyers. Only one of them is a scientist. Is it any wonder that politics so often lets science down, and fails to exploit its skeptical methods to design policies that are fit for purpose?

In the Geek Manifesto, to be published by Bantam Press in May 2012, Mark Henderson explores this disconnect between science and politics, and charts the emergence of a new force that is promising to mend it. From the Simon Singh libel case to the sacking of David Nutt and the Science is Vital campaign, people who care about science are starting to stand up to be counted. The geeks are coming -- and our country needs us.

Martin Robbins of the Guardian's Lay Science talks about dangerous pseudo-medical practices outside the Western world, from homeopaths in East Africa to flat earthers and anti-vaccine campaigns in Nigeria .

As part of the talk, Martin will be showing video clips from a trip to visit homeopathic projects in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania last year, shot for a film he's making with Michael Story, with support from the Wellcome Trust.

Please note that Martin's talk has been rescheduled from March to May due to filming commitments.