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QED skeptic conference

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QED skeptic conference

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QED is a skeptic conference held annually you may have heard about it on the Skeptics With a K podcast.

Tickets are £99 for the weekend

https://qedcon.org

QED

Question, Explore, Discover.

QED is a science and skepticism convention taking place at the Mercure Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester from the 14th-16th October 2016

Fantastic speakers from the worlds of science and entertainment will be joining us for a weekend celebration of science, reason and critical thinking.

Latest Update

This year, for the first time, we’re adding a third track of sessions! Alongside the main stage, and the usual breakout room of panel discussions, we’ll be adding a dedicated podcast room (https://qedcon.org/news/2016/the-qed-podcast-track-featuring-god-awful-movies), recording special live episodes of your favourite skeptical shows, including InKredulous and God Awful Movies. Tickets for QED are available now. (https://qedcon.org/tickets)

https://qedcon.org/images/qedcon.png (https://qedcon.org/)

Speakers (https://qedcon.org/speakers)

News (https://qedcon.org/news)

Tickets (https://qedcon.org/tickets)

Venue (https://qedcon.org/venue)

Schedule (https://qedcon.org/schedule)

Who is speaking at QED?

Matt Parker

Matt Parker is a stand-up comedian, part of the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, and an alumni of our very first QED in 2011. A former maths teacher, Matt brings his love of mathematics to his comedy, having toured the country with maths-themed stand-up shows in addition to presenting for maths-related topics on television and radio. His book ‘Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension’ was published in 2014, and he is the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London’s School of Mathematical Sciences. Matt will be our Master of Ceremonies for 2016.

Susan Blackmore

Susan Blackmore is Visiting Professor in psychology at the University of Plymouth and one of the most prominent early figures of the modern UK skepticism. Her personal encounters with perceived out of body experiences while studying at university led Susan to study the phenomena fully. She researched parapsychology, conducting studies for both the Parapsychology Foundation and the Society for Psychical Research covering topics such as out-of-body experiences and psychic twin phenomena.

Michael Blastland

Michael Blastland is a freelance writer and broadcaster, who created the popular BBC radio series ‘More or Less’, examining statistical errors in the news. His books ‘The Tiger That Isn’t’ and ‘The Norm Chronicles’ quantify the role of chance in our lives, issues with the public misunderstanding of risk, and the cognitive biases which often inhibit our understanding of probability. He currently presents ‘The Human Zoo’ for BBC Radio 4.

Petra Boynton

Petra Boynton is a Social Psychologist working in International Health Research; where she offers training and support to individuals, charities, universities, politicians and NGOs on finding, critiquing and using evidence in practice. Her research focuses on sex and relationships during pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and parenthood. She has been an Agony Aunt for the past 14 years, the last three of which have been at The Telegraph.

Alexis Conran

Alexis Conran is an actor and presenter whose show ‘The Real Hustle’ showed viewers how easy it is to be conned, and how to spot a scam. He has worked with the Office of Fair Trading in exposing fraud, and has presented consumer protection pieces for BBC1’s ‘Watchdog’ and ITV’s ‘This Morning’. His weekly radio show on talkRADIO takes listeners through all manner of current and past scams. His 2015 Channel 5 show ‘Secrets of the Scammers’ was one of the most viewed shows that year.

Captain Disillusion

Alan Melikdjanian, better known as his superhero alter-ego Captain Disillusion, is an independent filmmaker who examines viral videos and paranormal reports to identify and expose signs of hoaxes and special effects. With over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and over 8,000,000 cumulative views, Captain Disillusion has debunked some of the most widely spread hoax viral videos, demonstrating precisely the techniques involved in producing each hoax. Photo by Susan Gerbic (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21147138)

Timandra Harkness

Timandra Harkness is a comedian, writer and presenter whose work for the BBC has seen her presenting documentaries on the psychology of ideology, the role of technology in future-proofing our lives, and the challenges and opportunities of Big Data. Timandra has appeared at Edinburgh Fringe with QED alumni Matt Parker, and at the Cheltenham Science Festival. Her first book ‘Big Data: Does Size Matter’ will be out later this year.

Dr Karl

Karl Kruszelnicki, better known as Dr Karl, is one of Australia’s most recognisable broadcasters and science communicators. His weekly appearances on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Up All Night’ see him answering science questions from listeners on almost any topic, with particular focus on his specialisms of physics, medicine, surgery, and engineering. In 2002 he won an Ignobel prize for his research on the colour of belly button fluff, and in 2007 he named ‘Skeptic of the Year’ by the Australian Skeptics. Strange but true: the first recorded use of the word “selfie” was on Dr Karl’s website.

Sally Le Page

Sally Le Page is the host of ‘Shed Science’, a YouTube series exploring the world of biology, from genetics to behaviour, produced from her garden shed. Her video ‘Without Evolution’, won the national The Guardian and Oxford University Press Very Short Film Competition in 2013. Outside of the Shed, Sally regularly teaches life science to children at the Oxford Museum of Natural History and presented the pilot for a natural history programme for CBeebies.

Cara Santa Maria

Cara Santa Maria is a broadcaster, podcaster and science communicator whose podcast ‘Talk Nerdy’ features an in-depth interview each week with a figure from the world of science. She has written on science-related topics for the Huffington Post, contributes to ‘TechKnow’ for Al-Jazeera America, and co-hosts the Saturday morning television show ‘Fablab’ on Fox. In July 2015 Cara joined the cast of ‘rogues’ on the hugely-popular ‘Skeptics Guide to the Universe’ podcast.

Mark Stevenson

Mark Stevenson is a writer and comedian whose book ‘The Optimist’s Tour of the Future’ took him in search of the technological breakthroughs which could help tackle the biggest threats of our age, from climate change and disease to energy and food security. Mark is an advisor to The Virgin Earth Challenge and the Trillion Fund, and runs the League of Pragmatic Optimists. His second book ‘We Do Things Differently’ is scheduled for release in September 2016.

God Awful Movies

If there were really a god, would he inspire such god awful cinema? Noah Lugheons, Heath Enwright, and Eli Bosnick tackle some of the very worst offerings from Christian cinema, and will be appearing in their first ever live show outside of the US to pull apart yet another piece of pious propaganda.

InKredulous

What would QED be without our stalwart and much-loved InKredulous? See the satirical skeptical panel show that brought you Brian Thompson’s racist cat, Natalie Haynes live broadcast of the Murder She Wrote them tune, Andy Wilson’s trusty saxophone, Jon Ronson’s dog poo dilemma and Marsh’s Very Hungry Caterpillar pun.

All guests appear subject to work commitments.

About North West Skeptical Events

QED is organised by North West Skeptical Events Ltd, a volunteer-owned, non-profit organisation. Each year we aim for QED to break even, spending all funds raised by ticket sales on creating the best event possible. Any surplus is reinvested in future events or donated to good causes.

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Mercure Piccadilly Hotel
Portland Street Manchester M1 4PH · Manchester