I’m heading out tonight for a Science Week event with some friends (and really very glad about the opportunity – after being on the road for qualitative research in the north of the state, I thought that I’d miss everything that was going on) – here’s a teaser before I write a review:
National Science Week Comedy Sketch Revue
A funny thing happened on the way to the lab – a sketchy history of Science.
National Science Week Comedy Sketch Revue presented by Scitech in partnership with Spontaneous Insanity.
Celebrate National Science Week 2008 with an inventive night of sketch comedy from the team that brought you the Scitech Comedy Debate. Examining the history of science under the comedic microscope, Perth’s best comic actors and local scientists will explore the complete spectrum of science fact (and fiction) from the Big Bang to last Tuesday. It’s sure to cause a positively charged reaction of irrepressible laughter. Don’t miss it! Written by Glenn Hall and Steve Browning.
“A relatively good night out.” – Albert Einstein
I’ll be back later tonight and let you know how it goes – probably with a cappuccino in me, since it’s being held in Fremantle.
Speaking of celebrating Science Week (for longer than a week, this year!) I know that I should remind those in Perth of the tour of Michael Shermer and how the Perth Atheists are planning to go as a group – I’ll be in London at the time, but you really should catch up with this great group of people for what is bound to be a great lecture:
Why Darwin Matters – Aug 20, Wed 5:30 PM
Location: UWA’s Octagon Theatre
Evolution, Intelligent Design, and the Battle for Science and Religion
Speaker: Dr. Michael Shermer
FREE public lecture
Evolution happened, and the theory describing it is one of the most well-founded in all of science. Then why do half of all Americans reject it?
There are religious and political reasons, and in Why Darwin Matters, historian of science and bestselling author Dr. Michael Shermer diffuses these fears by examining what evolution really is, how we know it happened, and how to test it.
Shermer then discusses what science is through a brief history of the evolution-creation controversy from the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 through the creationism trials of the 1960s and 1970s, to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of 1987, to the Intelligent Design controversies of the 1990s and 2000s demonstrating clearly how and why creationism and Intelligent Design theory are not science.
Dr. Shermer builds a powerful case for evolution as the theory that most closely parallels the Christian model of human nature and the conservative model of free market economics.
Dr. Shermer was once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, and is now one of the best-known public intellectuals defending evolutionary theory, so Why Darwin Matters provides you with an insiders guide to the evolution-creation debate, in which he shows why creationism and Intelligent Design are not only bad science, they are bad theology, and why science should be embraced by people of all beliefs.
The Perth Atheists plan to meet outside the Octagon Theatre at 5.30pm, with details on their Meetup.com site.
Oh, if people are free, there is also another opportunity for students and public who can attend during the day for another Michael Shermer talk on August 21st – a lecture that I’ve heard before and know is well worth catching, with some places reserved for the Perth Atheists:
Why People Believe In Weird Things – Aug 21, Thursday, 12.30pm.
Location: UWA’s Octagon Theatre
Free Public Lecture – Special school’s presentation for National Science Week 2008
Ever wonder why people believe in UFOs and alien abductions, mind-reading and psychics who talk to the dead, reincarnation and life after death, out-of-body and near-death experiences, urban legends and satanic panics, not to mention Intelligent Design creationism and the pernicious myth that the Holocaust never happened? Dr. Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American, is a genuine ghost-buster, a relentless crusader against junk science, bad science, voodoo science, pathological science, pseudoscience, and plain old nonsense.
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Damn, I moved away from Perth five years ago and I think this is the first time I wished I still lived there. I’d love to see the weird things lecture.
Shame he’s not touring the regions (he’s not, I assume?).
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