The Stupid Species: Why Everyone (Except You) Is An Idiot – by Daniel Keogh
The Stupid Species is an over -18s science show involving hilarious experiments, films, animations and stories that show the science and psychology of why everyone is capable of incredible stupidity.
“We all like to think we’re special. In fact on average everyone thinks they’re above-average. Although we think we’re pretty smart our tendency towards irrational behaviour is what unites us all as humans – the stupid species,” says Daniel Keogh.
The show promises to show why stupid people are so confident, why money makes everything taste better, how different colours can cure the ill and when love will make you lose your mind – and maybe even your life.
“Science research is full of incredible stories just waiting to be told and they can be anything but boring,” says Daniel Keogh. “Exciting science is like a good stage trick; you think you know what to expect, until the twist comes and suddenly everything you believed turns out to be wrong”.
This was an excellent night out – particularly for elements that you *can’t* read about, as they’re part of the show and the surprise! So, I strongly recommend that you catch it in order to not only learn the twists but to get an informative, funny and engaging overview of some key concepts that everyone (not just the skeptics and science-keen) should learn.
While I’ve read about concepts like The Dunning-Kruger Effect and The Good Samaritan Study, it was great fun to hear them from a ‘Professor Funk‘ (the baggy-pants stage persona of Daniel Keogh, responsible for some of the outstanding pro-science segments on Hungry Beast). These topics and much more were presented in a new and refreshingly quirky way, illustrating we are all susceptible to cognitive biases… and I’m saying this as someone who has attended (and even presented myself) over a dozen lectures, seminars and workshops on the topic of ‘how we can all be fooled’. Better still, he had a range of new research findings incorporated into his presentation too, which is something I particularly enjoyed and clearly impressed the audience.
Some of the best aspects involved his confident and interactive style, and I assure you, after the free drinks break, some members of the audience were a little overly confident themselves about asking questions mid-show! He aptly answered on the spot some rather tricky comments. Also outstanding were the visuals involving experiments and a brilliant summary of the placebo / nocebo effect – I’ll certainly be in touch about getting a copy of that and some of his other promised films! For a show that was free and (a bonus addition) allowed us to play around the SciTech venue on all the displays, this was a must-catch event and I hope that it is similarly successful interstate.
Other dates available this month:
MELBOURNE - Wednesday 18 August Kaleide Theatre – Performance 8pm, Free Entry. Free Drinks.
CANBERRA - Thursday 19 August Tilley’s Cafe – Performance 6pm, Free Entry.
SYDNEY - Friday 20 August Powerhouse Museum – Performance 7pm, $10 Entry. Bookings Essential.
BRISBANE – Saturday 21 August Metro Arts – Performance 4 pm, Free Entry. Free Drinks. Bookings Essential.
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Bugger no Adelaide appearance.
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