Circumcision is practised on around one third of men globally. Once promoted as a means of preventing ‘tuberculosis, cancer, syphilis’ and ‘polio’, as well as ‘idiocy’, and ‘forgetfulness’ by virtue of its role as a perceived masturbation prophylaxis, it is now associated with HIV reduction efforts. While the medical literature on its costs and benefits is mixed, more often than not, circumcision is practised for cultural reasons by an array of monotheist, polytheist and even atheist groups. Some have cited factors such as potential sexual diminution, social coercion and gender discrimination to argue that circumcision may share similarities with forms of female genital ‘mutilation’ in constituting harm and contravening human rights legislation. This argument was apparent in the recent decision of a German regional court to prohibit the circumcision of minors. While there is much contention over claims of sexual diminution and other forms of harm, the shrill response of monotheist groups to the decision illustrates a tendency which has dogged cultural life in various societies for millennia and which should give many of us serious cause for concern. In this talk, I examine the historical suppression of polytheists, heathens, heretics and blasphemers by, and the demands for special legislative treatment of, monotheists to argue that we must actively challenge the privileged position of the Abrahamic faiths and adopt an egalitarian approach to invasive practices.

Matthew Johnson is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of York, UK. He has published scholarly articles on cultural diversity, liberalism, Marxism and invasive cultural rites, such as male and female genital cutting. He is editor of the journal Global Discourse and deputy-editor of Studies in Marxism, has edited The Legacy of Marxism published by Continuum and has a forthcoming book to be published by Palgrave MacMillan entitled A Theory of Cultural Evaluation, which examines the contribution of culture to human wellbeing. He has taught at the Universities of Newcastle, Queensland, Iceland and York. He is currently developing a project examining welfare regimes, cultural diversity and wellbeing by organising a cross-cultural exchange between people from an Aboriginal Australian community and a former coal mining community in his native North East of England.

 There is common perception that robots are set to take over the world, and humans somehow will be made to work for a new metallic master. The lines between fact and fiction are often blurred in many areas, robotics is no exception.

In this talk, Jon will discuss the limits of what robots are able to do, either when they work on their own or as they work as a "swarm". He will discuss work ranging from robots detecting strange chemical substances, to robots working together as a swarm to perform tasks that individual robots can not do, to swarms of robots attempting to repair themselves. However, whilst significant advances have been made in robotics, Jon will also discuss why we should not fear the "Terminator" robot for quite some time. In fact, sometimes they can not even manage to stay on a table, let alone direct the next revolution.

Jon Timmis is Professor of Natural Computation and holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Computer Science and Electronics at the University of York. He holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award, a senior research fellowship, for his work in self-healing swarm robotic systems. HIs work is highly interdisciplinary and Jon works a great deal with immunologists, developing computer models of immune system function to aid understanding of various diseases and then translating ideas from immunology into engineering to develop reliable robotic systems. Details of his research can be found at http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/jtimmis/

Following the success of last year's Open Mic Night, we are going to do it all again! In a break from our usual format we will have several short talks on a range of subjects. An opportunity for local sceptics and free-thinkers to take to the stage for 15 minutes in the spot light.

If you'd like to speak, sing, dance, or perform in any other manner (we draw the line at ritual sacrifice), get in touch with us through our contact page.

Homeopathy is a 200 year-old system of alternative medicine, based on the premise that “like cures like” and that more diluted remedies are more potent.

The skeptical community often requires that those who support homeopathy provide evidence of its effectiveness, and we know that this evidence is usually not forthcoming, or has serious methodological flaws which limit its usefulness. Despite this, many argue that homeopathy still has a place in modern medicine, since it offers a treatment option that is acceptable to many patients, and does no harm. 

But is there evidence for this claim for no harm in homeopathy? Does the burden of proof fall to us as skeptics to prove that it can cause real damage to people? We examine the evidence for and against homeopathy, which may be more harmful than you think.

The Mayan calendar finishes one of its great cycles in December 2012, which has fuelled countless theories about the end of the world on December 21, 2012 at 11:11(UTC). Numerous prophets and religious leaders have previously made claims that the world will end on a specific date with events subsequently proving them wrong.

John will examine the phenomenon of prophetic failure, drawing on the wealth of literature that we have developed in the social sciences over the last 60 or so years. In doing so he will hope to answer such questions as what happens when prophecy fails and does prophecy ever really fail?

John Walliss is the senior lecturer in the sociology of religion and Director of the Centre for Millennialism Studies within the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope University.

You're a generous soul: so you sometimes give money and time to charities. But what do they do with it? Charities make a whole pile of claims about what they achieve, but how would we know whether those claims are really true?

Inspired by the evidence-revolution in medicine, Caroline Fiennes is leading the charge for evidence-based charities and philanthropy. She unashamedly brings a scientific approach to understanding what charities are doing, what they should be doing, and whether they're any good at it.

Ben Goldacre on Caroline's recent book: "You’ve been waiting for this: evidence-based charitable giving." Simon Singh: "Caroline Fiennes explains how to balance heart and mind for people serious about philanthropy. She emphasises with clarity the importance of evidence."

Copies of Caroline's book It Ain’t What You Give, It’s The Way That You Give It - "the Freakonomics of the charity world" - will be available at a sneaky discount.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been promoted as the 'most developed' of the talking therapies by the Layard report and let to the conclusion to invest £0.6 billion to provide CBT in 250 dedicated therapy centres across England (the so called 'improving access to psychological therapies [IAPT] iniciative).

CBT has been viewed as a modern panacea for almost every ailment. In particular, NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) recently re-approved CBT for use in 'all people with schizophrenia', recommended it for bipolar depression and of course, is widely used with simple depression. While CBT is assumed to be 'evidence based', the evidence base for the effectiveness of CBT in reducing symptoms and preventing relapse in these disorders may be much less than previously thought. So why is it still promoted?

CANCELLED: Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, our speaker for tomorrow's talk, Keir Liddle, has had to cancel. We have decided to re-arrange Keir's talk for another date, we hope to announce this in the near future.

This of course means that with regret we have had to cancel the event tomorrow. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused, though I am sure you all wish Keir well.

We hope to see you all on the 17th October as normal.

Cancer quackery is a pernicious and dreadful thing often selling false hope to the vulnerable and the desperate at an extortionate price.

Last year grassroots skeptics in the UK and internationally fought back against one dubious treatment and exposed much more than they were expecting. One of those grassroots bloggers at the centre of the Burzynski storm offers their blow by blow summary of how skeptics took on this cancer "cure", exposed dubious legal and medical practices and battled to get the UK media to acknowledge its unwitting support for treatments lacking solid evidence.

Keir Liddle is Chair of the Edinburgh Skeptics Society and currently studying his PhD at the University of Stirling.

How can children brought up in religious families reconcile the different 'truths' they are told about the world? And to what extent should we discuss these issues in schools: what exactly should science teachers say when asked about the 'truth' of science by religious students? In this talk, Alom Shaha will describe his personal experiences growing up in a Bangladeshi Muslim community in London, what role his science education played in his journey towards atheism and how, as a Physics teacher, he responds to the apparent conflict between science and religion in the classroom.

Alom Shaha is a science teacher, writer and film-maker and author of "The Young Atheist's Handbook". Details of his work and blog at www.alomshaha.com

The world faces an impending crisis, in what has been called the perfect storm of population growth, climatic change and failing energy supply. The global population is increasing rapidly, from the current 7 billion, to between 9 billion and 10 billion by 2050. It needs feeding, against a backdrop of global warming and non-sustainable fossil fuel availability that together are adversely affecting food production. Currently about 1 billion people do not have sufficient food. While there have been major advances in improving crop yields since the end of the second world war, through a combination of improved varieties and the use of agrochemicals for plant production against weeds, pests and pathogens, that increase in yield is stalling. 

What is GM technology and what can it achieve? Can it offer a new green revolution? Is it a technology that no-one wants, or is it one we can't afford to ignore?

Prof. Keith Lindsey is at the Integrative Cell Biology Laboratory, School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Durham University.

A skeptical look at the theories of Chomsky, the public understanding of linguistics and what the latest research is telling us about whether our language is a product of our culture or a product of some innate language instinct.