As skeptics and critical thinkers, free speech is a value we must strive to uphold, and to defend. Yet, the free speech argument has often been weaponised by opponents of skepticism, in order to promote pseudoscientific ideas - from creationism in classrooms, to intimidatory anti-abortion protests, to climate change denial. Most recently, prominent “race realists” have appealed to the concept of academic freedom in order to garner support for unscientific eugenicist arguments. Using real life cases from across the last decade, Michael Marshall will show how skeptics have seen our commitment to free speech hijacked and weaponised by the very pseudoscientists we seek to counter.

NB: This talk takes place at the Deco Lounge, Bold Street.

SkeptiCamp is a one-day event of short talks, celebrating the incredible work and enthusiasm of the skeptical community. SkeptiCamp is about providing an open and accessible platform for as many members of the Skeptic community as possible to share their ideas, collaborate, and discuss the topics they’re passionate about. All you need is a topic you want to talk about for 10 minutes to a friendly audience of like-minded skeptics.

Whether it is your first time at an ESC event, or you’re a twenty-year veteran, the Mixer is the perfect opportunity meet new friends, and catch up with old ones. You’ll also be able to pick up your name badge, saving valuable time on Saturday morning.

Featuring Siân Docksey

In 1969, a rumour swept the world: Paul McCartney had died in a car crash and The Beatles secretly replaced him with a lookalike. Clues were everywhere: Paul barefoot crossing Abbey Road, a number plate reading 28IF, messages buried in the records and revealed only when played backwards. None of it was true. But all of it fit together perfectly.

In The Beatles’ own Liverpool, Massimo Polidoro will use the ‘Paul is dead’ legend as a guided tour of the conspiratorial mind: how we hunt for patterns, how coincidence hardens into certainty, and why a story in which every clue clicks into place is so hard to take apart. It is also a challenge to us as skeptics. The hoax survived because it was fun, mysterious and beautifully told: if we want the truth to compete, ‘it isn’t true’ will never be enough, we need a better story.

What is the conservative girly-pop ecosystem? Why are women coming off the pill? What does it mean to have your body stolen, deepfaked and circulated online? And why are women turning to ‘Fairy Smut’ and audio erotica instead of video porn? The internet has become a new battleground over women’s bodies, from the ways they're controlled and consumed to the ways we find new ways to escape them.

Lily O’Farrell presents this funny, insightful and accessible deep dive into the strange places women’s bodies go online.

The microbiome is currently one of the most talked-about topics in the wellness industry, promised as the secret key to everything from weight loss to mental clarity. But how much of this is marketing, and how much is proven science?

Sheena Cruickshank cuts through the headlines to define what the microbiome actually is, separating the commercial hype from clinical reality, and explore exactly what current research tells us about the microbes living inside and around us and what we can really use our knowledge about the microbiome for.

In an age of mis- and disinformation, strong critical thinking skills are more important than ever. Our lives are inextricably bound up with the digital world, and with so much misleading content online, exposure to critical thinking needs to start at school age. But how do we equip children with the skills required to protect them from harmful and misleading content, and teach them which sources of information they can trust?

Merseyside Skeptics’ Phil Armstrong will be joined by Yvonne Skipper, John Hamilton, and Caradoc Gethin to probe how we can best arm young people with the tools needed to recognise mis- and dis-information.

Since January 2025, the second Trump administration has taken hundreds of actions against science and the institutions and people that produce it. It has slashed research funding, fired independent experts, removed health protections, suppressed data, blocked international collaboration, and explicitly prioritised ideology over evidence.

Christina Pagel has been tracking these actions in real time and in this talk will pull the various actions into an overall pattern to show how the Trump administration is waging war on science as a whole, and discuss how vulnerable UK scientific institutions and universities are to the same tactics.

James Shakeshaft (co-host of Loremen Podcast) has been looking at a bunch very old stones, and these aren't your grandad's stones... They're your great x140-grandad's stones!

Yes, it's megaliths - those monumental bits of rock that we* simply don't know what they're for. Since growing up near the Rollright Stones these mysterious** unnatural geological formations have had a pull for him. Is that because of all the ley lines? Probably not.

Armed only with the sort of 70s hauntology books that have names like ‘The Secrets of the Stones: What We Mustn't Know’ James takes a whistle stop tour of the most (and least) interesting explanations for these stone circles that litter the countryside like cup rings from a race of absolutely massive slobs.

Please - if you have any actual scientific knowledge in this field - Do. Not. Heckle!

The past is the most fascinating aspect of human existence, as the present is fleeting and the future is a matter of speculation. This potential for tangibility, is perhaps why the past has become a battle ground, where evidence recedes in the face of assumptions. ‘Political correctness gone mad’ may be shouted from the parapets in chatrooms and narratives are lost. But there is history ‘out there’. It is impossible to tell any story without multiple voices! Let alone the history of a country: England. History is not his-story, the elite musings of few very powerful-rich, lauded gentry. England’s history is the histories of everyone who has lived or been connected to these islands. Onyeka Nubia will uncover some of these multiple voices.

Gala dinner ticket holders only.

Featuring The 2026 Ockham Awards, followed by comedy from Ria Lina and Andy Zaltzman.

Behavioural scientists spend a surprising amount of time trying to change what other people do. But what does that actually involve? Where is the line between informing, influencing, and interfering?

Drawing on real examples from intervention development, Chantal den Daas takes you along for a behind-the-scenes look at how researchers translate theories about human behaviour into interventions intended to change it. Along the way, she explores the surprisingly complicated role of information, what misinformation means when viewed through a behavioural lens, and the scientific, practical and ethical limits of trying to change behaviour while leaving the ultimate decision where it belongs: with the individual.

Over the past decade huge amounts of money have been pumped into fact-checking initiatives in media, government and academia … with almost no discernible effect. Conspiracy theories, misinformation and straight-up lies continue to have an outsized influence on politics and society - in the US, in the UK, and in many other places around the world.

So why has fact checking failed, despite big hopes that it would increase trust and improve democracy? Why has the very idea of checking facts become politicised, prompting a backlash against hard-working fact checkers themselves? How can we in the ‘reality-based community’ fight back?

In this talk Mike Wendling will draw on his experiences covering Covid misinformation, the 2024 US election and the Trump administration, giving a ground-level view of how conspiracy theories have warped our societies - and discuss some big ideas about how to battle the tide of bad information.

Why do people gather and even co-habit around shared beliefs? Why some spiritual communities endure while others fade? In a wide-ranging conversation chaired by Andy Wilson, evolutionary researcher Kat Ford, anthropologist Susannah Crockford and BBC journalist Mike Wendling will explore the forces that draw people together and give places power. Moving from the human need for belonging to the spiritual landscapes of Glastonbury and Sedona, the panel will examine how stories, rituals and communities become rooted in place.

It will also consider how the internet has transformed the way beliefs spread, allowing seekers to find one another across distance. While accelerating conspiracy, polarisation and extremism. Does belonging still need a home?

As wellness influencers and podcasters promote ever-more extreme protocols, practices like supplement stacking and injectable peptides are gaining popularity across online subcultures. Extreme self-optimisation like biohacking and looksmaxxing has spread from the niche tech-centric spaces into the mainstream with young men particularly vulnerable to hyper-targeted protocols.

Join host Dr Ria Lina with Dr Alice Howarth, science communicator Jonathan Jarry and feminist podcaster Lily O’Farrell as we explore the rapid rise of these trends, the potential health consequences and where the wellness machine goes next.

While we have come a long way toward deciphering the laws of the universe, many physicists still regard time to be one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. Jim Al-Khalili provides answers to the questions about time that philosophers and scientists have been asking for millennia, such as whether it has a beginning and an end, why it only points toward the future and not the past, whether it can be stretched and squeezed or even reversed, and whether it is even real. Jim will tackle the enduring problems of time head-on, carefully examining them across the central pillars of physics.

By special invitation only.