For our fourth episode we were joined by Ben King from the Grime and Reason blog to discuss skepticism and politics. You can listen back to the show here. However, I will say that myself and David were experiencing technical difficulties during this episode, so we will definitely be inviting Ben back in future!

In episode 5, David took over hosting duties to interview Geoff Whelan from the Greater Manchester Skeptics Society to talk about the case of James McCormack, who was recently imprisoned for selling bomb detectors that had no chance whatsover of working. You can catch up with that show here.

Episode 6 went off the beaten track of skepticism a little, as we were joined by Paula Kirby to cast a skeptical eye over the history of the GDR (commonly known as East Germany), where Paula lived for a couple of years in the late 1980′s. I really recommend this episode for anyone who has any interest in modern history, as some of Paula’s revelations, especially those concerning the Stasi, were very intriguing! We could have talked for a lot longer too, so we will endeavor to invite Paula back for a future episode. You can listen what has been our most popular show so far here.

For our seventh episode we were joined by Gavin Schofield of the Greater Manchester Skeptics and Just Skeptics podcast. I’d recently been on my stag night, so in honour of my best man and 9-11 conspiracy theorist brother (Hi Ed!) we had a discussion on conspiracy theories, ranging from 9-11 truthers to the moon landing hoax, all the way to the theory that Hitler currently resides in a base in Antartica. Be warned though, we do talk about the very real conpiracy of the attempted police cover up after the Hillsborough disaster. However, we also talk about the personal conspiracy theories of the owners of Amy’s Baking Company! You can listen back to the conspiracy laden show here.

So, our next show will feature evolutionary psychology graduate Kat Ford, who will be joining us to talk about the modern face of physiognomy (a word as hard to pronounce as it is to spell!). Kat recently presented her findings to great acclaim of the audience at the latest Ignite Liverpool, and she will be speaking at skeptic groups throughout the UK. It promises to be a fascinating discussion, so join us on Wednesday ay 22nd at 7pm. Listen live here!

In the latest episode of The Skeptic Canary Show, myself and fellow QEDcon attendee David James discussed the event with Paul Hopwood, who sadly for him didn’t get a ticket in time (hopefully next year Paul!). Keir Liddle from the Edinburgh Skeptics was kind enough to call in, as was Rob McDermott who made history by being the first person to swear on the show! Don’t worry though, the recorded version has some hasty censorship applied. Go and have a listen at the link below.

The Skeptic Canary Show Episode 3 – QEDcon

Incidentally, I couldn’t resist posting this pic of myself at Richard Dawkin’s table at dinner. Cheers to Richard Cooper for taking it!

Skeptic Canary Show Episode One

I am very happy to announce that Episode Two of The Skeptic Canary Show be be broadcast on BlogTalkRadio at 6:30pm UK time next Wednesday April 10th. Our guest will be Ed Clint, evolutionary psychology grad student at UCLA and co-founder of the Skeptic Ink Network. We are hoping for a lively and rewarding debate, so if you want to get involved with the show you can register for a free BlogTalkRadio account and call in via Skype! Be sure to bookmark the link below:

Skeptic Canary Show Episode Two

I was attracted to the Blog Talk Radio platform because each episode has it’s own URL. You can bookmark the show, listen to it and listen back to it all from the same link! You get a dashboard during recording so you can accept callers, and it plugs in with Skype.

The first show is entitled “Skepticism 101″ and will be a discussion on skepticism, what it is and what it means to people. Joining me will be Paul Hopwood and David James. You can call in via Skype! Just wait until the show starts and you will see a Skype icon. Clicking that will start a Skype call so you can be on the air!

If you would like to be a guest on future episodes you can pitch me an idea at tom at skepticcanary dot com.

Listen to Episode One of the Skeptic Canary Show at the link below!

Skeptic Canary Show Episode 01 – Skepticism 101

• Listen to the “Skeptics with a K” podcast
• Read the write up of the investigation

Once you have heard the podcast, hopefully you will understand why I got this t-shirt made!

Did we land on the Moon? Yes. Yes we did.

I’ve just spent the last hour launching a furious diatribe on Twitter having sat through one of the worst pieces of television it has ever been my misfortune to witness. Channel 5 have just broadcast a “documentary” (and I use the term very loosely) asking “Did we land on the Moon?”. They trotted out the same tired old arguments, let me just run through a few of them:

• How could the flag fly if there was no atmosphere? – They had a pole running through the flag
• How come shadows appeared at different angles? – Perspective. The moon is quite big.
• How could they have used those chest-mounted cameras? – They practised before they went.

I could go on, but pretty much every Moon hoax conspiracy has been debunked many times on clavius.org. However, this program went far beyond the usual shite, and got pretty damn sickening. In 1967, the Apollo 1 mission ended in tragedy when three astronauts (Gus Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee) died in a cabin fire. A terrible accident? Not according to the documentary. They went so far as to ask if the three astronauts could have been killed because they “knew too much”. Unbelieveable. I find that this kind of lazy sensationalism an afront to the memory of those brave, pioneering heroes.

I also find it incredibly distasteful of Channel 5 to broadcast such a shoddy and morally bereft program about the Moon just days after the death of Patrick Moore. If you really want to watch “Did we land on the Moon?” the page for the program on Channel 5′s website can be found here. There is talk on Twitter of complaining about the program to Ofcom. I don’t know what the grounds for complaint would be but I will certainly consider it.

At least Brian Cox has the right idea.

Oh for gods sake why have channel 5 conspired to fill my timeline with nob ends. #yeswelandedonthemoonyoufuckwits

— Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) December 12, 2012

• Just Skeptics episode 28
• wisdomofchopra.com
• Brass Eye on 4OD

This week has also seen the Good Thinking Society announce the shortlist for it’s very first “Golden Duck” award. I talk about both the MSS Psychic Challenge and the Golden Duck award nominees in my latest car vid, enjoy!

It’s a varient of the “name game”, where each person in turn has to say a name where the first letter of the first name starts with the first letter of the last name that the person before said. You have to think while you drink, and if you can’t think of a name you can pass but you have to drink. If someone says a name where the first and last name start with the same letter, the order changes. In our skeptics version, the names you can say are skeptics, scientists and anti-skeptics. Here’s the twist: if someone says a name and one of the players has been blocked by that person on Twitter, then everyone has to drink! So, here’s an example:

• James Randi
• Richard Dawkins
• Dan Dennett (change order)
• Dana Ullman (everyone drinks!)

We were getting a bit desperate at one point, allowing “Heinrich Himmler” as an anti-skeptic! Still, I had fun with this game, so why not give a go? Enjoy!