Glasgow Skeptics

The Myths and Realities of CCTV in the UK – June 12th

glasgowskeptic — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:14:51 +0000

It is often said that there are more Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) / video surveillance cameras per person in the UK than in any other country in the world. The UK’s ‘love affair’ with surveillance cameras has been fuelled by the widespread belief that they are effective in the ‘fight against crime’, including the ‘war on terror’, and because they foster a sense of safety in those being surveyed. The UK is therefore portrayed as the world leader in the provision of CCTV cameras and systems in public places – and the policy processes and governance structures associated with their introduction and deployment have been copied by many countries.

In this discussion Dr Webster will review the key features of the CCTV revolution in the UK and will question some of the key assumptions underpinning not only the deployment of CCTV in the UK, but also their subsequent transfer around the world. The assumptions that: CCTV works, that the cameras are popular and that they are ubiquitous will be challenged and refined. In doing so, the presentation will question the logic of the CCTV revolution and consequently the rationality of public policy-making processes.

Dr Webster is the Programme Director of the MBA in Public Service Management programme at the University of Stirling and the Chair of the Living in Surveillance Societies (LiSS) COST research programme, a 4 year European multidisciplinary social science research programme involving over 150 academics in 26 countries.

The Sex Myth – July 24th

glasgowskeptic — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:10:32 +0000

The Facebook page for this event can be found here.

What is a Sex Myth and how do we spot one? Where do our assumptions about sex and sexuality come from, and do they have merit? In a lighthearted ramble through the various dark corners of sex and the media, Dr Brooke Magnanti examines the data for widely believed truisms, like the one that adult entertainment – strip clubs, massage parlours, and the like – cause crime. Drawing both on her experience
as a sex worker and career as a scientist, she plumbs the depths of sexual myth-making and exposes that what we think we know, we often don’t know much about at all.

Dr Brooke Magnanti, perhaps better known as previously anonymous author Belle de Jour, wrote the award-winning blog ‘Secret Diary of a London Call Girl’ that inspired 5 books and a television series starring Billie Piper. She has a doctorate in forensic science, and has also worked in cheminformatics, genetic epidemiology, and cancer research. She lives and works in Fort William, Scotland. “The Sex Myth” is her first book under her real name.

http://www.sexonomics.co.uk

Does HIV Cause AIDS?

glasgowskeptic — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:02:36 +0000

HIV is the cause of AIDS. There is overwhelming evidence that this is true. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, a disorder of the immune system characterized by damage to, and loss of, a major subset of lymphocytes (white blood cells) the CD4 T cell. The disease first appeared in the 1980s and HIV-1, present in all patients, was discovered in 1983. The epidemiology of HIV and AIDS are linked, with HIV-1 appearing first in a population and death from AIDS later. We understand why there is a delay from HIV infection to overt disease. We know why CD4 T cells are infected and damaged by the virus. We know that if we control HIV with antiviral drugs, we can restore life expectancy of HIV infected patients to near normal. The drugs can also be used to prevent infection in those at very high risk. Not only does the knowledge of how HIV causes AIDS enable doctors to prevent that happening, but also it gives us a target for design of vaccines that will prevent infection.

Andrew McMichael qualified in Medicine in 1968 and obtained a PhD in Immunology at the National Institute for Medical Research. Since 1987 he has studied the T cell response to HIV, with a particular interest in virus escape from T cell recognition. For the last five years he has focussed on HIV vaccines; his group have designed and tested two candidate HIV vaccines in phase I clinical trials.

He is Director of the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford University and is Honorary Director of the Medical Research Council Human Immunology Unit. He was knighted in 2008 for services to medical sciences.

Can Prison Work?

glasgowskeptic — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 21:57:01 +0000

Way back in 1993, Michael Howard asserted that ‘Prison works’. Although we still live with the consequences of this claim, the evidence for it has become ever more disputed and, in Scotland at least, it no longer represents an orthodox position.

So can we now ask some better questions? For whom might prisons work, and to what ends? How different would they need to be from the prisons we have now in order to ‘work’ as we might want?

Richard Sparks is Professor of Criminology at the University of Edinburgh and a Co-Director of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research.
His published works include “Prisons and the Problem of Order” (with W, Hay and A. E. Bottoms, 1996) and “Public Criminology?” (with I. Loader, 2010). In 2010, he was involved in a research team evaluating the role of the arts in Scottish prisons.

The Gay Blood Ban

glasgowskeptic — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:44:12 +0000

In this talk, Dr Harpreet Kohli, Director of Public Health for NHS Lanarkshire, reviews the work of the Blood Donor Selection Steering Group convened by the UK Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (SaBTO).

The report was published in September 2011 and the changes to blood donation criteria were implemented in November in Scotland, England and Wales. The talk summarises the rationale for the donor deferral, the reasons for reviewing the criteria, the epidemiology of relevant infections, and the evidence for the recommendations.

Dr Kohli was a member of the Blood Donor Selection Steering Group whose recommendations the Scottish, English and Welsh governments recently implemented. However, this talk was given in an entirely personal capacity.

SpeedScience – How Chemists Trick You and You Will Never Break Free of Our Fe Grasp

glasgowskeptic — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:12:09 +0000

The first Glasgow Skeptics SpeedScience event saw eight candidate speakers try to convince the Glasgow Skeptics audience to vote to hear their talk, but only two could be successful. This is one of those talks.

Chemistry Tricks that fool the nation. Whether it’s in adverts on the TV or on the back of boxes of detergent, chemists are telling “Alkynes” of little white lies. Craig Rossborough gives a quick rundown of his favorite tricks and gives everyone tips on what to keep an “ion”, while looking at all things chemistry.

The Science of Porn

glasgowskeptic — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:43:33 +0000

Is pornography turning us all into sex offenders? What effect does it have on attitudes towards women? Is it taking over the internet? If certain recent books — such as ‘Pornland’ by Professor Gail Dines — are to be believed, porn is having all these effects and more, and is a hugely detrimental force in our society.

But what does the best scientific evidence say?

Stuart Ritchie, an almost completely blind and hairy-palmed PhD Psychology student at The University of Edinburgh, takes a skeptical look at the arguments for and against porn.