In the 1700s, the English believed a woman could give birth to rabbits; a man could climb inside a two pint bottle and sing inside it; and a blond-haired European was born in Taiwan. Based on his recently published book, Ian Keable demonstrates how 18th century hoaxes are memorable not only for their imaginative nature but also because of the differing motives of the tricksters.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

It is difficult to imagine admitting to something that you didn’t do, but people do. Aside from those who voluntarily confess, others are vulnerable to persuasive interviewing tactics, and some even come to believe that they are guilty. From personality factors to threats and torture, join Faye to explore the psychology of false confessions and what can be done to prevent them.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Everyone knows “you can’t believe everything you read in the papers,” but few people realise it extends far beyond the celebrity pages and gossip columns, and spills into ‘real’ news. Here, the near-invisible influence of PR companies is often pivotal in deciding what news gets told, and how it gets reported. Michael Marshall will show why you really, really can’t believe everything you read in the papers.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

We've discovered thousands of exoplanets around stars that are not our Sun. In fact, own solar system may be far from the norm. These alien worlds are often hot, massive, and perplexing to astrophysicists – just how do these objects form, and what processes make them different to our own, and what could this all mean for finding life elsewhere in the universe?

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

To defend evidence-based reasoning and knowledge in a “post-truth” era, we must understand the strategies by which the post-truth world is driven forward. Did the post-truth era arise spontaneously, or is the result of a highly effective political movement? This talk will focus on three strategies and present evidence for their existence and impact, and how it might be countered.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Join host Andy Wilson for another live-streamed episode of the skeptical-themed panel show InKredulous.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

One in two of us will suffer with cancer in our lifetime and almost all of us have some experience of the disease. But do we really know what cancer is and how we can work towards a cure? Is a cure even possible? And how can we arm ourselves with the right information to help us prevent and treat cancer?

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

For most of history, a patient meeting a doctor was probably harmed rather than helped. We'll look at biological and psychological factors that let medical treatments persist for centuries with no beneficial effects, and if the benefits of treatments might lie not in what they do to your body, but in what they communicate to others about your need for care.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

While evolution is accepted by skeptics, evolutionary psychology is far less so. Lindsey explores some of the good scientific work in this area, as well as common misconceptions about — and misuses of — the evolutionary framework as applied to human psychology.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

What is the meaning of life? Dr Caspar Addyman once wrote to every philosopher in the UK to ask them. Their answers were meagre and dispiriting. One even included a death threat. Since then, he’s moved on to study why babies have such a great time being babies. The secret of babies happiness fits in nicely with the very best answers to the meaning of life.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.