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Little Kitten – Shaun Micallef Wreaks Havoc On Breakfast
May 21, 2012 at 12:08 pm 
Kylie Sturgess Thank You, World Skeptics Congress, Berlin! #6WSC12
May 21, 2012 at 4:37 am Kylie Sturgess It’s all over! I’ll have a very tiny podcast episode out soonish, which is just a mixture of interviews and fun from the event. Thank you again, all the organisers, behind-the-scenes crew, fellow presenters and the fabulous people in the audience and all the support you gave. It really made the event unmissable and unbeatable.
Simon Perry on Fishbarrel:
Ray Hyman, James Randi and Massimo Polidoro:
The wonderful Josie, who has been a gem (and not just because that’s her field!):
If you want to see Tweets collected from the conference, check out the Storify collections at:
World Skeptics Congress Thursday
World Skeptics Congress Friday
World Skeptics Congress Saturday
World Skeptics Congress Sunday
James Randi At The World Skeptics Congress And Women, Media And Science #6WSC12
May 20, 2012 at 5:51 pm Kylie Sturgess It’s a Sunday morning and everyone is on the edge of their seats, to hear Massimo Polidoro interview James Randi. We’re hearing stories about the Alpha Kids, Philippine faith-healers, Peter Popoff, how his asteroid is smaller than Arthur C. Clarke’s, the intersection of science and magic…
…and how a matchbox didn’t fool him:
New podcast episode out at the Token Skeptic, one that I conducted a while back – Episode One Hundred And Twenty-One – Women, Media And Science – Interview With Ben Radford. Here’s a little transcript of some of our discussion.
Kylie Sturgess: Your latest article was about digitally altered photographs, and there’s a teenager who’s protesting how her favorite magazine seems to have nothing but digitally altered photographs. Do you think that there’s any value in raising awareness of how images are manipulated? Because, as a media teacher of high schoolers myself, I always seem to think that teenagers are pretty savvy already about what’s going on…
Benjamin Radford: You’re exactly right. The PC answer is that anything that raises awareness is a good idea. My answer is that raising awareness itself is a poorly defined concept that’s thrown around all over the place and is basically meaningless.
Kylie: Yeah, it could mean raising awareness…
Ben: For example, I still see awareness raising campaigns against smoking. Does anyone seriously in 2012 really not know that smoking is dangerous? Yes, I understand it’s a good idea to inform the public and educate the public. That’s all well and good, but if it’s just this amorphous, ill‑defined awareness raising program, what’s that about? In this case, the case you’re talking about, the public really greatly underestimate the media savvy and they frankly overestimate the gullibility of teens and teen girls in particular. In my research and my looking into, I think that girls and women are much more intelligent than they’re often given credit for.
Token Skeptic Best-Of And On Education And Pseudoscience At The JREF’s Swift! #6WSC12
May 19, 2012 at 3:53 pm Kylie Sturgess I wrote the blogpost for the latest Token Skeptic podcast – my second “Best Of” compilation… and accidentally set it to be auto-timed to appear in 
the middle of the conference, before I had a chance to upload it. Whoops.
HOWEVER!
It’s now finally out at Episode One Hundred And Twenty – On Token Skepticism – The Best Of (Yet Again) and it features clips from interviews I’ve done over the +120 shows I’ve created:
On Tribal Science – With Michael McRae
On Sexism, Skepticism And Civility Online – With Viv “TigTog” Smythe
On James Randi’s An Honest Liar – With Justin Weinstein And Tyler Measom
On Great Books In Skepticism – With Warren Bonett
On Miracle Detectives – With Dr Indre Viskontas
On Skeptical Science – With Stephan Lewandowsky
On The Invisible Gorilla – With Daniel Simons And Christopher Chabris
On Project Barnum – With Hayley Stevens
On The Young Atheist’s Handbook – With Alom Shaha
On How Now You See Her – With Gia Milinovich
On Something Fierce – With Marian Call
If you’re new to the show, I hope that helps give you an idea of the kinds of things I do with my podcast!
Yesterday I presented a speech at the World Skeptics Congress in Berlin – and the JREF Swift site has a little article that I wrote about the origins of the speech: Pseudoscience In Education – Seeking To Solve The Rabbit Out Of A Hat Fallacy:
At the Sixth World Skeptics Congress in Berlin this year, I’ll be presenting a talk on “Why Can’t a Teacher Be More Like a Scientist? – Pseudoscience In Education“. I wish I could take credit for the start of the title: I was initially inspired by a paper written by Mark Carter and Kevin Wheldall, published in the Australasian Journal of Special Education, back in 2008. Although it is now many years after that paper’s publication, many of the things it discusses are pertinent to educators still – for me, it encourages collaboration with educators and educational systems, to prevent pseudoscience from entering classrooms and playtime.
Finally, if you’re following the conference via Twitter, I’ve got Storify collations of the first two days up already:
World Skeptics 2012 – Thursday
Now? I’m off to enjoy Saturday at the conference! If you’re there, I’ll see you around!
Safe, Happy In Berlin (Rather Cold Though!) #6WSC12
May 17, 2012 at 7:00 pm Kylie Sturgess Just a quick (quick!) note – I have arrived in Berlin for the World Skeptics Congress and I’m still kind of getting over jet-lag. Because there’s no wifi at the conference hotel (I think?) I’m restricted with blogging, et al, but I’ll try when I can. This also means I’ll be turning off comments on the site, as I can’t moderate anything easily and have no time/access to interact (it seems fairer that way). I think it will also help me focus on the work I’ll be doing here, as I’m doing a presentation tomorrow and writing up the conference.
Arriving in Berlin
I should have two already-done podcast episodes out over the weekend, and then I’m taking a break for a while, as I have exams coming up very soon after I arrive home. Please check out the www.tokenskeptic.org site to see them when they arrive!
Berlin Archaeopteryx
Me on the steps of the natural history museum in Berlin
Other than that, here’s a few photos – many, many thanks to Josephine and Martin and all the #6WSC12 conference for making this happen and I hope to write more in the future. See you around if you’re here!
Playlist En Route To Berlin
May 15, 2012 at 1:39 pm Kylie Sturgess Well, it’s a long trip on a plane to the other side of the world…
One of the nicest things about travelling, is that it gives me a chance to listen to music while trundling through terminals with luggage and do some Pilates in empty departure lounge in order to unkink my muscles.
The Police and “Canary in a Coalmine” – I’ll listen to this when I’m hauling arse from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, Heathrow:
Feel free to stretch along with me – I’ll be in the air for about 18 hours, after all…
Any Colour You Like – Pink Floyd
Ride Wid Us – So Solid Crew
Nineteen – Tegan and Sara
Cheerleader – St Vincent
Breathe – Prodigy
Let’s Dance To Joy Division – The Wombats
Clark Gable – The Postal Service
We Will Become Silhouettes – The Postal Service
Jump In The Line – Harry Belefonte
The Analog Kid – Rush
She – Elvis Costello
A-Punk - Vampire Weekend
Let’s Go – Cut Off Your Hands
Give Me One Reason – Tracy Chapman
Alice – Pogo
Imaginary Ordinary – Architecture in Helsinki
Wildcat – Ratatat
Iceblink Luck – The Cocteau Twins
New Killer Star – David Bowie
Saturday – Electrelane
Looking For Clues – Robert Palmer
The Girl You Lost To Cocaine – Sia
By Chance – Sophie Ellis Bextor
Our Song – Yes
Hurricane – Faker
You Just Gotta Know My Mind – The Hummingbirds
Via Con Me – Paolo Conte
Little Kitten – Scamworld
May 14, 2012 at 11:20 pm Kylie Sturgess 
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