Friday, July 12, 2013

Skeptics in the Pub Roundtable

Last night I hosted a roundtable discussion for the Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub. I was one of several previous speakers invited back for the evening. Other tables included discussion of philosophy, atheism and more.

Back in March I had spoken about Galaxy Zoo to  this group, and they asked me to come back to demo the new SpaceWarps site (a sister to Galaxy Zoo and part of the Zooniverse).

So I made some slides about what gravitational lensing was





And I raised some eyebrows by asking for an empty wine glass (as well as a full one!) so I could pretend to be Phil Marshall (one of the SpaceWarps scientists, and a good friend):



I also ran SpaceWarps on my iPad.

I think it went down pretty well, and I certainly had a pleasant evening talking about my favourite topics (space and astronomy) with some interested skeptics.


Being a MOND Skeptic for the Naked Astronomy Podcast



Here's me being a MOND skeptic and debating MOND proponents on the Naked Astronomy Podcast. Interesting experience.

Link to podcast (MOD debate starts 08.40)