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Richard Wiseman
Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal Society, The Swiss Economic Forum, Google and Amazon. He is a fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a patron of Humanists UK. Wiseman is also the creator of the YouTube channel Quirkology. Early life and education Wiseman was born and raised in Luton. His mother a seamstress and his father an engineer, he learned his trade as a teenage magician working the crowds in Covent Garden. At 18 he continued as a street performer and went to University College London to study psychology, partly because it "was right around the corner". He shared accommodation as a student with Adrian Owen, later also to become a psychologist. In his years as a street performer he learned how to adapt or get out of what you are doing because "Someti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CSICon
CSICon or CSIConference is an annual skeptical conference typically held in the United States. CSICon is hosted by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), which is a program of the Center for Inquiry (CFI). CSI publishes the magazine ''Skeptical Inquirer.'' History 1983–2005: CSICOP conferences CSICon's current format stems from 2011, but similar conferences by CSI (until 2006 known as CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) go back as far as 1983, when the first was held at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY). The second international CSICOP conference, themed "Paranormal Beliefs: Scientific Facts and Fictions", was held at Stanford University in 1984. The third, the first European CSICOP conference, was held at University College London in Britain, themed "Investigation and Belief". Throughout the 1980s, the European readership of the ''Skeptical Inquirer'' was increasing, while CSICOP members James Randi a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its parent company, JPIMedia, also publishes the ''Edinburgh Evening News''. It had an audited print circulation of 16,349 for July to December 2018. Its website, Scotsman.com, had an average of 138,000 unique visitors a day as of 2017. The title celebrated its bicentenary on 25 January 2017. History ''The Scotsman'' was launched in 1817 as a liberal weekly newspaper by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren in response to the "unblushing subservience" of competing newspapers to the Edinburgh establishment. The paper was pledged to "impartiality, firmness and independence". After the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1855, ''The Scotsman'' was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circulat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humanist Society Scotland
Humanist Society Scotland is a Scottish registered charity that promotes humanist views and offers humanist wedding, funeral, and baby-naming ceremonies. It is a member of the European Humanist Federation and Humanists International. In the 21st century, the HSS has grown in tandem with the rapid pace of secularisation in Scotland. Since 2016, it has been the largest provider of weddings in Scotland, performing more marriages each year than the Church of Scotland, Catholic Church in Scotland, or any religious group. History and aims The Humanist Society of Scotland was formed in 1989 out of an association of local humanist groups around Scotland, the Society's objective is "to represent the views of people in Scotland who wish to lead good and worthwhile lives guided by reason and compassion rather than religion or superstition", and to provide a distinct Scottish voice in complement to the British Humanist Association. In 2018, the Society reported having over 15,000 member ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People
''Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People'' is a Christmas stage show celebrating a view of science. It was first run in 2008 at the '' Bloomsbury Theatre'' and re-run as ''The Return of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People'' in 2009, then televised on BBC Four as ''Nerdstock: 9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People''. It was initially organised by the Rationalist Association and the journal ''New Humanist''. It is now produced by Trunkman Productions and is part of The Cosmic Shambles Network and in 2018 changed titles to become ''Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People''. It was described by the host, Robin Ince: "If the Royal Variety Show was put in a matter transportation machine with the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, this is what you'd get". 2008: Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People The 2008 event was staged at the Bloomsbury Theatre, with a second date being added, and a third at the Hammersmith Apollo. Acts include Richard Dawkins, Dar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermione Cockburn
Hermione Anne Phoebe Cockburn (born 1973, Sussex, England) is a British television and radio presenter specialising in scientific and educational programmes. She is currently Scientific Director at Our Dynamic Earth. Biography Cockburn grew up in Cuckfield in Sussex. She has a PhD in geomorphology from the University of Edinburgh, and has worked at various academic institutes including a two-year post-doctorate at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She has carried out extensive fieldwork in Antarctica, Australia, and Namibia. In 1999, Cockburn helped establish the education service at Our Dynamic Earth, a science centre and visitor attraction in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2002, she won BBC Talent's Science on Screen competition and co-presented the ''Tomorrow's World'' Award Show on BBC One. Then, in 2005, Cockburn co-presented '' What the Ancients Did for Us'' with Adam Hart-Davis for BBC Two, exploring the scientific legacy of ancient civilisations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zita Martins
Zita Carla Torrão Pinto Martins (born 1979), OSE, is a Portuguese astrobiologist, and an associate professor at Instituto Superior Técnico. She was a Royal Society University Research Fellow (URF) at Imperial College London. Her research explores how life may have begun on Earth by looking for organic compounds in meteorite samples. Early life and education As a child, Zita Martins studied classical ballet from the age of four and was encouraged by her teacher to progress to the National Ballet School in Portugal, which would have put her on track to become a professional dancer. Instead, at the age of 15, she decided she wanted to pursue science, gave up ballet and taught herself Russian. At secondary school, she filled in a careers test, which advised her strengths were in science and art, which Zita Martins says was not very helpful. As an undergraduate studying chemistry, at Instituto Superior Técnico, Martins was unsure how to direct her education towards a career in s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial College
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cultural area that included the Royal Albert Hall, Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum and royal colleges. In 1907, Imperial College was established by a royal charter, which unified the Royal College of Science, Royal School of Mines, and City and Guilds of London Institute. In 1988, the Imperial College School of Medicine was formed by merging with St Mary's Hospital Medical School. In 2004, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Imperial College Business School. Imperial focuses exclusively on science, technology, medicine, and business. The main campus is located in South Kensington, and there is an innovation campus in White City. Facilities also include teaching hospitals throughout London, and with Imperial College Heal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World's Funniest Joke
The "world's funniest joke" is a term used by Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire in 2002 to summarize one of the results of his research. For his experiment, named LaughLab, he created a website where people could rate and submit jokes. Purposes of the research included discovering the joke that had the widest appeal and understanding among different cultures, demographics and countries. The History Channel eventually hosted a special on the subject. The jokes The winning joke, which was later found to be based on a 1951 ''Goon Show'' sketch by Spike Milligan, was submitted by Gurpal Gosal of Manchester: Other findings Researchers also included five computer-generated jokes, four of which fared rather poorly, but one was rated higher than one third of the human jokes: The joke that was submitted to LaughLab the most times was: References Further reading *{{cite book, title=Laughlab: The Scientific Search for the World's Funniest Joke (Humour), date=2002 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luck
Luck is the phenomenon and belief that defines the experience of improbable events, especially improbably positive or negative ones. The naturalistic interpretation is that positive and negative events may happen at any time, both due to random and non-random natural and artificial processes, and that even improbable events can happen by random chance. In this view, the epithet "lucky" or "unlucky" is a descriptive label that refers to an event's positivity, negativity, or improbability. Supernatural interpretations of luck consider it to be an attribute of a person or object, or the result of a favorable or unfavorable view of a deity upon a person. These interpretations often ''prescribe'' how luckiness or unluckiness can be obtained, such as by carrying a lucky charm or offering sacrifices or prayers to a deity. Saying someone is "born lucky" may hold different meanings, depending on the interpretation: it could simply mean that they have been born into a good family o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in this part of his philosophy, in which phenomenon and noumenon serve as interrelated technical terms. Far predating this, the ancient Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus also used ''phenomenon'' and ''noumenon'' as interrelated technical terms. Common usage In popular usage, a ''phenomenon'' often refers to an extraordinary event. The term is most commonly used to refer to occurrences that at first defy explanation or baffle the observer. According to the ''Dictionary of Visual Discourse'':In ordinary language 'phenomenon/phenomena' refer to any occurrence worthy of note and investigation, typically an untoward or unusual event, person or fact that is of special significance or otherwise notable. Philosophy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perception (for example, telepathy), spiritualism and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology. Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony, and suspicion. The standard scientific models give the explanation that what appears to be paranormal phenomena is usually a misinterpretation, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fermat's Last Theorem
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than 2. The cases and have been known since antiquity to have infinitely many solutions.Singh, pp. 18–20. The proposition was first stated as a theorem by Pierre de Fermat around 1637 in the margin of a copy of ''Arithmetica''. Fermat added that he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin. Although other statements claimed by Fermat without proof were subsequently proven by others and credited as theorems of Fermat (for example, Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares), Fermat's Last Theorem resisted proof, leading to doubt that Fermat ever had a correct proof. Consequently the proposition became known as a conjecture rather than a theorem. After 358 years of effort by mathematicians, the first successful proof was released in 1994 by Andrew Wiles and for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
