Sci Fight: Science/Comedy Debates

Sci Fight is a quarterly science comedy debate, with your definitely qualified host, Alanta Colley (citation needed). Sci Fight brings together science folk and comedy folk, and makes them debate the big issues in a silly way.This round we turn to pleasure. Finally! What is it? Where does it come from, and can I have some please? Pleasure is part of our biological make-up; evolution's way of prodding us to consume calories, procreate, and not freeze to death, so surely seeking pleasure is only natural? If nothing else, pleasure is a small compensation for all the suffering we endure simply by being trapped in these ridiculous meat vehicles, what with all their tooth decay, ear ache, period pain, and haemorrhoids. Can we not have a little dopamine as a treat? Why not steer our ship of purpose towards the cape of pleasure? Or is pleasure a false god? Simply a smoke screen for more pain? Was it pleasure that led to the tooth decay in the first place? Is pleasure only ever a short term reward, where the deeper satisfactions born from hardship, suffering and sacrifice? One can't imagine Marie Curie bunking off early from the lab for a cheeky pint and a parma. Does the pursuit of pleasure prevent us achieving all that we are fully capable of as a species? What ever happened to those kids in the marshmallow test? Are some of them still waiting? Join us at the Howler for an evening of passionate and pleasurable discourse as scientists and comedians dissect our purpose, our passions and our pitfalls. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sci Fight (www.scifight.com.au/) is a quarterly Science Comedy Debate where scientists and comedians come together to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner.This round we turn to pleasure. Finally! What is it? Where does it come from, and can I have some please? Pleasure is part of our biological make-up; evolution's way of prodding us to consume calories, procreate, and not freeze to death, so surely seeking pleasure is only natural? If nothing else, pleasure is a small compensation for all the suffering we endure simply by being trapped in these ridiculous meat vehicles, what with all their tooth decay, ear ache, period pain, and haemorrhoids. Can we not have a little dopamine as a treat? Why not steer our ship of purpose towards the cape of pleasure? Or is pleasure a false god? Simply a smoke screen for more pain? Was it pleasure that led to the tooth decay in the first place? Is pleasure only ever a short term reward, where the deeper satisfactions born from hardship, suffering and sacrifice? One can't imagine Marie Curie bunking off early from the lab for a cheeky pint and a parma. Does the pursuit of pleasure prevent us achieving all that we are fully capable of as a species? What ever happened to those kids in the marshmallow test? Are some of them still waiting? Join us at the Howler for an evening of passionate and pleasurable discourse as scientists and comedians dissect our purpose, our passions and our pitfalls. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sci Fight (www.scifight.com.au/) is a quarterly Science Comedy Debate where scientists and comedians come together to debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner.This round's topic: Scientists go to heaven.Scientists do God's work. They seek truth; divorced from opinion or ambition. They put society's needs ahead of their own. They pursue their research with diligence, patience, and humility. Some of them even do it sober. That's most of the seven Heavenly virtues!Surely that's enough Frequent Virtue Points to fly them straight to the gates of Heaven. Knowing scientists, they probably carbon offset the flight as well. Surely scientists are God's chosen ones.Pope Francis assured us that you didn't actually have to believe in God to go to Heaven; though it is still rude to continuously blank Him during the weekly Bingo tournament once you're there. Plus, the atheist scientists surely have an eternity in Heaven to overcome their existential bewilderment.Then again, scientific research brought us the weapons of war; the tools to frack God's Mother Earth, and the Lynx Africa body spray range. Can any amount of atonement wash the sins of shower in a can away? If Richard Dawkins ended up in Heaven surely it would be some sort of Angelic prank. If Dawkins is there, is it still Heaven?Come to the Brunswick Ballroom and enjoy a bite and a beverage as we get belligerent and biblical. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sci-Fight hits Kalaide Theatre for this special National Sustainable Living Festival event! Academics, scientists and comedians put forth the case as to whether this is fine or whether it's time to unleash chaos. Come and make your breakdown evidence based!Humans have made it through some pretty tricky times. We survived that ice age 40,000 years ago. The black plague epidemic wasn't exactly a bundle of laughs. Then there was a world war, AND its sequel, which was even worse than the original. We even soldiered through the Boy Band fad of the 90s. Which girl were they all even singing about?But now we're in the midst of a Climate Emergency; one accurately predicted by oil company Exxon's scientists as far back as 1982. We're experiencing more and more extreme weather events across the globe; floods, fires and cyclones. We have all the scientific data we need to predict the worsening situation, we even have the technology to replace the primary causes of global warming, yet we're in the grip of a pandemic of global leadership by a bunch of white, complacent businessmen with fossil fuel fetishes. Is this the time to panic?Or is this the boot in the backside that homo sapiens needed to turn things around? Are we at our best when it comes to an emergency? Did things need to get this bad to tip the populace out of climate complacency and in to action?RMIT and Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate come together for this special Sustainable Living Festival event; bringing together academics, scientists and comedians to debate whether this is a time for hope, or a time to watch the most well-informed animal on the planet become endangered.Support Climactic See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Liking the show?Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts here!Support us directly, we'd really appreciate it!Recorded at Howler, December 12th. Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate is a bi-monthly science and comedy debate held at Howler Bar, Brunswick in Melbourne. Hosted by science comedian Alanta Colley, it's almost always a lot of fun and only occasionally results in defamation cases. Now also lives in podcast form at Climactic.fm. This round's topic: Santa Claus is real.We all know him. On a first name basis. This man, with an unorthodox method of entering your living abode and leaving again based on your yearly performance is a household name, and routinely escapes arrest. He must be real. I mean you can track him on google maps on December 24. I mean you can't be this famous and not exist! Next you'll be questioning the existence of God! Or George Clooney!Yet some serious questions have arisen about this particular individual's practices. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good. I mean Santa Claus has a surveillance system that puts the NSA to shame. Who has Santa paid off to get around international privacy protocols? Not to mention Customs. Is Santa in the pocket of Big Bauble? Questions have been raised about the laws of physics Santa flagrantly violates in order to complete his deliveries on Christmas eve. With the sophisticated transport technology at Santa's disposal humanity could achieve incredible things; like distributing ebola medications to remote communities in crisis, as much as spoiled 8 year-olds in Florida need a second Pikachu pez dispenser. Support ClimacticLinks:Musicians For Climate Action See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Liking the show?Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts here!Support us directly on Pozible!Climactic Community CornerNight Terrace KickstarterLarry Leadbeater KickstarterThe Commons Library Recorded at Howler, October 17th. Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate is a bi-monthly science and comedy debate held at Howler Bar, Brunswick in Melbourne. Hosted by science comedian Alanta Colley, it's almost always a lot of fun and only occasionally results in defamation cases. Now also lives in podcast form at Climactic.fm. *This round's topic: Nature Knows Best. *We are born of nature. We strive daily to return to Mother's ideal state; organic, pure, fresh, and free of chemicals. We're told we would definitely be a lot happier if we shook off the shackles of modern day living; buried our smart phone, swapped out our laptop for lapping lakes, exchanged our coke for coconuts and netflix for nectar and flowers. And it's true; mother nature invented heaps of good stuff. Like sunsets. And the mantis shrimp. But she also invented scurvy. And obstetric fistula. And kidney stones. I mean what were we supposed to do with kidney stones! They're not even load bearing like regular stones. Let's be honest; if left purely to the whims of evolution a whole bunch of us would not be alive for this event. To feed the lion nature sacrifices the goat. And the goat didn't really get a say in it. The goat would probably be happier if the lion survived off protein pills and video games. And who gets to draw the line as to what even is natural? I mean, everything is of nature, if you squint hard enough. With the right mind set real estate agents are natural. And banking holidays. And Dancing with the Stars.Support ClimacticLinks:How you can donate and help with the NSW and Queensland bushfires | Australia news | The GuardianSci Fight Science Comedy DebateSci Fight Christmas special: Santa Claus is real. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Recorded at Howler, August 21st. This month, Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate is partnering with Science Gallery Melbourne to explore their 2019 exhibition theme: Disposable.Are we a disposable species? The 20th Century has seen humanity's focused on creating inbuilt obsolescence, of single use everything, why should it not apply to the whole human race as well? We turned liquid dinosaur juice into fuel for our cars, we took perfectly happy and inert carbon and flung it into the atmosphere, and we built an entire economy on moving bits of plastic from one place to another, and then back again in the name of recycling. Which then mostly went into landfill.Well, the land is very full now and we've not yet got around to locating a Planet B. No one has put their hand up and said that they're willing to forego pasta and start eating plastic. When oil is down to its last drop, should humanity just go with it? To be outlived by the coffee cups and disposable nappies we brought into existence.Or is that the attitude of quitters? This new wave of ecological chaos isn't humanity's first run in with adversity. Remember the bubonic plague? Well that wasn't the barrel of laughs we hoped for. But we got through it. Remember Nuclear Winter? We've put that off. Then there was the K2 bug. If anything we're getting better at this crisis business. Plus, this time round we've got all these coffee cups and nappies to use for something. As the most intelligent, creative, and adaptable species Earth has yet seen, is the solution to our ever increasing waste problem just around the corner? It'd be a shame to quit before we got there. Humans might just be worth saving.Support ClimacticLinks:Sci Fight Science Comedy Debate - Facebook PageAlanta Colley (@Lannyopolis) / Twitter — Follow for Sci-Fight announcements, and Twitter funnies. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.