What we still don't know about evolution
17th July 2008, 7pm

Dr. Richard Watson, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University
of Southampton

It has been 150 years since Darwin described the process of evolution by
natural selection and we now understand a lot about the details of how it
works. The field of 'artificial life' uses this understanding to evolve
artificial creatures in worlds simulated on computers with some
extraordinary results. However, these simulations show that our current
understanding of evolution is incomplete - we don't understand everything
yet and there are some important questions that remain open. For example, we
don't really see any evidence that evolution by natural selection, as we
currently understand it, will produce a continued increase in complexity -
which is troubling given how complex biological organisms are. Therefore a
complete scientific theory of evolution needs to move beyond the Darwinian
model - unfortunately, given persistent attachments to non-scientific
explanations, this is tricky territory. I'll show some examples of
artificial evolution simulations and artificial life creatures, and also
illustrate current shortcomings in our understanding of how evolution works.
I'll lead up to talking about the kind of mechanisms that my team at
Southampton has been working on to develop a more complete theory of
evolution which models a balance of competition and cooperation at different
biological scales.

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Venue once a month on Thursdays (usually the third Thursday in the month).
Meetings start at 7pm in the Soul Cellar, 78 West Marlands, Southampton,
SO14 7FW.

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Later this year
http://www.astro.soton.ac.uk/~crk/scicaf/programme.html
www.phys.soton.ac.uk/scicaf

Bad Science - the method, the media and the message
18th September 2008, 7pm

Dr. Phil Uttley, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton

One of the most important things science has given us is the scientific
method itself, which since its first rigorous application in the 16th and
17th centuries has pushed our understanding of the universe and our place in
it to previously unimaginable levels. And yet, the majority of the
population are completely unaware of these simple principles which underpin
human progress. Much of this ignorance is down to the bad reporting and
presentation of science by the media, which tends to portray science as
arcane information handed down from on high, not a path to knowledge which
most people can tread. At worst, the media actively pushes stories as
`science' when they are really based on pseudoscience or a basic
misinterpretation of scientific data.

In this talk, I'll use examples from science and the media to take a look at
some aspects of the scientific method, how we can use them to make sense of
the world, and show how without them, we can all be led astray. We'll see
how our unscientific ways of thinking may have been useful in the past when
we lived as hunter-gatherers, but are really holding us back today. On the
way we'll look at cloud-creatures and nun-buns, the connection between
superstitious pigeons and stock-market analysts, and I'll also point the
finger at some less-than-obvious culprits in the bad-science wars. Most
importantly, I want to show how the scientific method is relevant to our
daily lives and not just the classroom or laboratory.
Nuclear fusion power
16th October 2008, 7pm

Chris Carpenter / Chris Warrick, UKAEA Fusion Association
Where is the universe?
20th November 2008, 7pm

Prof. Bob Nichol, Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of
Portsmouth

In the last ten years, cosmologists have discovered that 97% of the Universe
is dark. It does not shine and only interacts with us through gravity. More
bizarrely, three quarters of this dark stuff appears to be an energy
associated with empty space and is causing the Universe to expand at an ever
increasing rate. Cosmologists have measured the universe to great accuracy,
but understand it even less. In this talk I will review the evidence for the
dark universe and speculate what it may be.

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General electronic repairs, most things repaired, other than TVs and PCs
http://www.divdev.fsnet.co.uk/repairs.htm
Diverse Devices, Southampton