Look what you missed
in 2006!
(2007 programme coming soon)
SCIENCE PURE & SIMPLE:
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Friday Feb 24th
Celebrating 30 years of Dawkins' life-changing book, THE SELFISH GENE
The Meme Machine
6.00pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Sue Blackmore tells of 'memes', our genetic inheritance - but not from our genes!
tickets £4.50 / £2
The term meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Memes are habits, skills, songs, stories, or any other kind of information that is copied from person to person. Memes, like genes, are replicators. That is, they are information that is copied with variation and selection. Because only some of the variants survive, memes (and hence human cultures) evolve. Memes are copied by imitation, teaching and other methods, and they compete for space in our memories and for the chance to be copied again.
Memetics has been used to provide new explanations of human evolution, including theories of altruism, the origins of language and consciousness, and the evolution of the large human brain. The Internet can be seen as a vast realm of memes, growing rapidly by the process of memetic evolution and not under human control.
The field of memetics is still a new and controversial science, with many critics, and many difficulties to be resolved. Sue's talk, and the other talks this evening, will answer many questions, but ask many more.
A Life Stripped Bare
6.00pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Leo Hickman on the hilarious difficulty of living the ethical lifestyle.
tickets £4.50 / £2
Is it possible, in the twenty-first century, to lead a normal life - to have a job, kids, a mortgage, holidays in the sun - but at the same time be respectful to the planet and the people who share it? Most people fight shy of giving up their cars, their toxic household products, their cheap washing machines, or dodgy, unethical bank accounts to make the world a better place. Could Leo live a more 'ethical' existence? As your average male consumer, he is no green warrior and an innocent abroad when it comes to 'ethical' living but he approaches the experiment with real enthusiasm. Is it possible to live a life that is western but also aware, or is the 'Good Life' the preserve of the eco-warriors, new-age spiritualists and the organic-product endorsing Hollywood set?
The Brain - The Final Frontier?
6.00pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Professor Michael O'Shea; an easy introduction to the brain
tickets £4.50 / £2
Can we ever understand how the human brain works? Or, is it futile for the brain to attempt to understand the brain? Certainly understanding how the brain generates perceptions, emotions, memories, thoughts and consciousness represents a prodigious scientific challenge. This talk will discuss how far we have come in providing scientific explanations for these properties of the brain and how far we still have to go.
Sex Crimes and Video Tape
7.15pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Dr. Harry Witchel, Big Brother body language expert, reveals our micro-gestures.
tickets £4.50 / £2
What will people do to become a B-list celebrity? On the most recent series of Big Brother they had live sex on television and even committed a crime on the show. The production makes a big fuss that these are taboo, but really they all increase audience figures. The show's big secret is that there is only one real taboo: libel. Dr. Harry Witchel, a commentator on the 2005 series of Big Brother, takes you on an interactive, behind the scenes look at what the real taboos of television are. By using slowed action films of body language, he shows you how much you can learn about the things people are trying to hide from you, just by watching carefully - it's all in their micro-gestures!.
Introduction to Genetics
7.15pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Mark Machonochie gives a simple outline of genes and Dawkins' famous book The Selfish Gene
tickets £4.50 / £2
Lonesome George
7.15pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
How a Galapagos giant tortoise became a conservation icon?
Henry Nicholls presents a swashbuckling tale of combat and collecting on the high seas.
tickets £4.50 / £2
Lonesome George is a 5ft long, 200lb tortoise aged between 60 and 200. In 1971 he was discovered on the remote Galapagos island of Pinta, from which tortoises had supposedly been exterminated by buccaneering whalers and seal hunters. He has been at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz island ever since, on the off-chance that scientific ingenuity will conjure up a way of reproducing him and resurrecting his species. Meanwhile a million tourists and dozens of baffled scientists have looked on as the celebrity reptile shows not a jot of interest in the female company provided.
Today, Lonesome George has come to embody the mystery, complexity and fragility of the unique Galapagos archipelago. His story echoes the challenges of conservation worldwide. It is a swashbuckling tale of combat and collecting on the high seas, Darwin, sexual dysfunction, hostages, moonlit escapes, culture clashes, cloning, DNA fingerprinting and eco-tourism.
Why do Balls Bounce?
8.30 pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
A rare chance to see the TV presenter Adam Hart-Davis live, and very, very lively.
tickets £4.50 / £2
No, really - why does a ball bounce? Popular TV scientist Adam Hart-Davis has the answer to this and many other intriguing questions about life and the Universe - everything from spider's webs to a match igniting - and explains the sometimes complex science behind them in a remarkably uncomplicated way, combining his passion for science with his love of photography.
Critical Mass
8:30pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Philip Ball, Aventis prize-winner - Does human society actually follow the laws of physics?
tickets £4.50 / £2
Is there a 'physics of society'? Philip Ball shows how much we can understand of human behaviour when we cease to try to predict and analyse the behaviour of individuals and look instead at the impact of hundreds, thousands or millions of individual human decisions. Examining circumstances in which human beings co-operate or conflict, when their aggregate behaviour is constructive and when it is destructive, Philip Ball causes us to examine our own behaviour whether in buying the new Harry Potter book, voting for a particular party or responding to the lures of advertisers.
Viral Marketing
8:30pm
City College, Pelham St. BN1 4FA
Paul Marsden shows how new advertising techniques use infectious 'memes'.
tickets £4.50 / £2
Paul Marsden is a world expert on "viral", "buzz" and "word-of-mouth" marketing, a powerful and subtle technique for driving demand. Imperceptible signals and cleverly placed casual conversations can make a dramatic difference to our view of a product and can send sales rocketing. This could be a dramatic new way to influence the consumer's mind - exciting or dangerous, depending on your point of view
The Chinese Whisper Generative Drawing Project is an artwork using the methodology of a science experiment. Volunteers are invited to copy and name drawings. The material will be subjected to scientific analysis. The results could reveal something about how we interpret what we see. Rachel Cohen is working in collaboration with Neuroscientist Michael O' Shea of CCNR at Sussex University and Dr Andrew Philippedes computer scientist.
