Sci Fight: Science/Comedy Debates

Psychology is a Freud - National Science Week

At Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate, scientists and comedians come together to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner. This round's topic: Psychology is a Freud Featuring award winning comedian Jude Perl, Martin Dunlop, magician and doctor Vyom Sharma, psychologist Kathryn Kallady, neuroscientist Elyas Arvell, and writer/editor extraordinaire Elizabeth Flux, and hosted by Alanta Colley, this is sure to be a fantastic evening. Is psychology a science? An art? Or an ink blot of your parents fighting? If you ask a psychologist if psychology is a science, they pause, peer over their glasses, and ask you if you feel like it's a science or not. The only other science that involves this much deflection are satellite dishes. In a sea of Myers Briggs tests, brain biohackers, self-help gurus and buzz feed quizzes to discover 'what is your inner potato?’(I’m a tater tot) it can sometimes be hard to spot legitimate psychology amongst the charlatans. After all, the history of psychology is littered with lobotomies, medically sanctioned orgasms, psychedelics, electrocution, and prison simulations that we can confidently point to as the reason we now have ethics committees. Not to mention making us all pretty uncomfortable with implications about wanting to sleep with our Dad. From this progeny of perverted renegades, could we possibly expect a legitimate science to be born? But that was the past. Psychology now employs clinical trials, neuroscience, and a full suite of empirical data. We now have the tools to take us closer than we’ve ever been to understanding our inner being (My MRI scan confirmed I’m a tater tot).

Neuralink will bring us closer together

Sci fight is a quarterly Science Comedy Debate where scientists and comedians come together to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner. This round's topic: Neuralink will bring us closer together Elon Musk recently announced the first results from an in-human clinical trial of Neuralink; a brain-computer interface that decodes brain waves allowing humans to control anything from a computer, prosthetic limb, to an errant robot vacuum cleaner. Which journal did he publish this in, I hear you ask? Twitter? No, I'm not familiar with that peer reviewed science journal. The technology is an incredible opportunity for people with paralysis to communicate and interact at a greater level with the world around them. This is very cool. But where is this technology heading? What access to our thoughts will this give Musk in the future? I’ve tried to block him on Twitter, and yet, he’s always in my feed. Organic intrusive thoughts are bad enough; how does one block a pop up from inside your head? What happens if governments can see your thoughts? Are we heading for a police mental-state? What would it be like living in a world where our insecurities, nasty thoughts and desires are on display? Would it herald the collapse of society as we know it? Or would the end of the final frontier in privacy invoke a new era of universal understanding and empathy? Would discovering your shameful secret of writing erotic parliamentary fanfic isn’t that unique after all? Come and get neurological with Melbourne’s best scientists and comics at the brilliant Howler.

Natural Selection is Over

Sci fight is a quarterly Science Comedy Debate where scientists and comedians come together to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner. This round's topic: Natural Selection is over. Biotechnology and genetic research are barrelling ahead 100 miles an hour. It may soon be possible to produce babies from just one person, or six, or more. Scientists speak of a future where babies may be brought to term in artificial wombs, with the capacity to screen embryos for genetic abnormalities, disease, or even physical traits. Are we as a species at the end of evolution? Are we now turning to Mother Nature and saying; ‘thanks for the ride lady; we’ve got it from here’? Could future humans be a curated, disease-free, race of super-humans? Will mankind be manufactured? Will baby building become a commodity? Or are these the hubristic hallucinations of a bunch of self-assured monkeys in white coats? Are the powers of evolution and natural selection far more complex and powerful than we understand? For a species that can’t even wean itself off fossil fuels, is this a future state not even worth entertaining? Does nature always find a way? Come to Howler for some fermented fruit juice while 6 scientists and comedians entertain this existential quandary.

Sydney — We Are Living in a Simulation

Sci fight is a quarterly Science Comedy Debate where scientists and comedians come together to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner. This round's topic: We are living in a simulation Simulation theory posits the notion that if humanity doesn’t wipe itself out shortly, humans of the future will have massive computers. This seems legit. But if they have massive computers; several annoying commentators argue; they will no doubt run ancestor simulations; for fun, for education, or to figure out just why 21st century humans were just really into Crossfit. If they do this, every copy of every simulation will far exceed the numbers of us biological humans, ergo, we are FAR MORE LIKELY to be a simulation than a real human. Day. Ruined. Being in a simulation might explain some of the odder parts of reality. Shortcomings in the code might account for why certain atomic particles seem to behave differently if we’re watching them, or why Kyle Sandilands still has a job. Or why I have no memory of last Thursday. But there’s much more it doesn’t explain. Consciousness. The ever expanding levels of complexity we discover in our universe. What stamp duty is. Does the notion this is a simulation cheapen our existence? Is our life worth less if it's digital? Does it free us from the laws of biology or society we assumed were innate? Can I punch a Nazi in the face? Is the red pill covered by the pharmaceutical benefits scheme? Or is it a zero sum argument; with no consequence to our daily existence, a disprovable thought experiment thought up by a tech bro keen on getting an invitation to Musk’s prepper circle? And where is the reset button?

Newcastle — We Should Fear AI

Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate brings together comedians and scientists to debate serious issues in a ridiculous way. Proceedings are loosely held together by your definitely qualified host, Alanta Colley [citation needed]. Sci Fight has been described as a nerdy, silly, and only occasionally litigious romp into what it even means to be alive. This round, we debate: should we fear AI? Just this year, AI chatbots have given people instructions on how to build a bomb, told users that they loved them, and instructed one user to leave their spouse and a child to stick nails into a live power socket. Before now you had to go to 4chan for that quality of abuse. Has Silicon Valley simply built a better troll? Programmers are running behind ChatGPT and other AI trying to fix the problems as they arise and yet for every bit of foolproofing they achieve, humanity builds a better fool. Our one saving grace right now? It’s bad at Wordle. But this will surely not be the case for long. Or is AI overhyped? Is our distrust of AI just our barely concealed sense of inadequacy, concern that a jacked-up two-bit calculator might prove a more sparkling conversationalist than we do? Or is the real fear that the true flaw of AI is that it is built on data that humans made, and that all of its shortcomings were inherited from us? Do we simply fear ourselves? Come and watch 6 very human scientists and comedians assess whether we’re on the brink of the AI-pocalypse or a Utop-AI.