Moordown Community Centre, Coronation Avenue, Moordown Bournemouth BH9 1TW
With Richard Wilson, skeptical activist and author of ‘Don't Get Fooled Again: The Sceptic's Guide to Life’.
Skeptics try to take a rational, evidence-based approach to life, yet a cold hard appraisal of the evidence suggests that, for most human beings, rationality is a constant struggle.
Even those disseminating wholly bogus ideas, from corporate pseudo-science to paranoid conspiracy theories, have sought to appropriate the language of rational inquiry with increasingly disastrous results. But what are the hallmarks of bogus skepticism, and how can we distinguish it from the genuine article? In this presentation, Richard highlights the problems that can arise when peddlers of myth and quackery succeed in portraying themselves as skeptics.
Richard’s book ‘Don't Get Fooled Again: The Sceptic's Guide to Life’ highlights the extent to which we are all vulnerable to deception and delusion, and proposes practical ‘rules of thumb’ to minimise the risk of being fooled in future. ‘Don’t Get Fooled Again’ has been praised by George Monbiot as “rigorous, witty and beautifully-written”, slammed by Spiked Online for failing to be sceptical enough about climate change, and cited by the High Court in a strike-out of a defamation case against the Health and Safety Executive by one of those named in the book.
"Join us to hear author and skeptical activist Richard Wilson explain how to protect ourselves from the dangers of bogus skeptics”
Free entry (donations appreciated). Everyone welcome!
Richard Wilson is a writer and activist with a particular focus on scepticism, corruption, human rights and freedom of expression. He studied philosophy at University College London, and has written for the New Humanist, New Statesman, Prospect Magazine and Comment is Free. His first book, Titanic Express, recounts his search for the truth about the death of his sister Charlotte, who was killed in Burundi in 2000.
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