Skeptics in the Pub, Reading

No formal talk, no agenda, just some skeptics hanging out, chatting and drinking. Come and join us.

We usually display a sign on our table. If you can't find us, ask the bar staff.

Whether we want to improve education or cut crime, to enhance public health or to generate clean energy, science is critical. Yet politics and public life occupy a science-free zone.

Just one of our 650 MPs is a scientist. Ministers ignore, and even sack, scientific advisers who offer inconvenient evidence. The NHS spends taxpayers' money on sugar pills it knows won't work, while public funding for research that would boost the economy is cut. Groundless media scares, taken up by politicians who should know better, poison public debate on vaccines and climate change, GM crops and nuclear power.

Politicians pay lip service to science for a very simple reason: they know they can get away with it. And that will change only when people who care about science get politically active. It's time to mobilise the geeks.

Something is stirring among those curious kids who always preferred sci-fi to celebrity magazines. As the success of Brian Cox and Ben Goldacre shows, geeks have stopped apologising for an obsession with asking how and why, and are starting to stand up for it instead.

In this talk Mark Henderson will build a case that science should be much more central than it is to government and the wider national conversation. It isn't only that scientific understanding is passed over as decisions are made; the experimental methods of science aren't applied to evaluating policy either.

The Geek Manifesto shows how people with a love of science can get political, to create a force our leaders can no longer afford to ignore.

The geeks are coming. Our countries need us.

Mark Henderson (@markgfh) is one of the UK's leading science journalists and commentators. He has worked at 'The Times' since 1996; he became its Science Correspondent in 2000 and was promoted to Science Editor in 2006. He was instrumental in founding 'Eureka', the newspaper’s monthly science magazine.

He has won several awards for his journalism: three prizes from the Medical Journalists' Association, the Royal Statistical Society's prize for statistical excellence in journalism, and the European Best Cancer Reporter prize from the European School of Oncology.

His first book, '50 Genetics Ideas You Really Need to Know', was published in 2009.

He is now the Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust in London.

http://geekmanifesto.wordpress.com/

History is used often as an argument for authority or policy but how accurate are many of the examples mentioned in the news? Diving back into skepticism's past, Liz will tell us about the tools used by skeptics and secular activists from the 19th and 20th centuries, the campaigns they fought and also how we can continue that legacy today.

Her love of European history and castles brought her over to the UK in 2006 and the beer, skepticism and doing an MA has made her stay. If you've ever heard Liz talking about history, you'll be familiar with her enthusiasm and extensive knowledge, which she'll be treating us to with a lesson in skeptical history.

Liz has a BA (hons) in History from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario and a MA in history from Birkbeck College, University of London in London.

In the meantime, listen to The Pod Delusion, a weekly news magazine podcast "about interesting things" and winner of Skeptic Magazine's 2011 Ockham Award for Best Podcast. The Pod Delusion is a submission-based podcast so if you have something interesting to say, we're sure they'd love to hear from you.

Maryam will be speaking about Sharia law in Britain and across the globe, its violations of rights and equality, and the need for One Law for All, secularism and equal rights.

Maryam Namazie is Spokesperson for the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain, for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and for Equal Rights Now - Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran. She is also an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and the NSS 2005 Secularist of the Year award winner and  was selected one of the top 45 women of the year 2007 by Elle magazine Quebec.

Alom Shaha is a science teacher, writer and film-maker. He is also the author of The Young Atheist's Handbook, an account of his journey from being raised in a Bangladeshi Muslim community to becoming an outspoken atheist. Along the way, Alom also attempts to share his ideas for how to live a good and happy life without god.

One of only a handful of high profile public "ex-Muslim" atheists, Alom believes that atheism should be a way of life that should be available to all, regardless of their background. He was inspired to write the book following his experiences as a school teacher and a conversation with A.C. Grayling in which the philosopher told him "you should write a book". The Young Atheist's Handbook is a celebration of atheism rather than an attack on religion and presents ideas from science, philosophy and theology in a way the author hopes is accessible to a wide audience and refreshingly different to the other books on atheism out there.

Website: www.alomshaha.com