Edinburgh Skeptics Presents...

We chat to Richard Firth-Godbehere to learn more about the murky subject of emotions...

Richard Firth-Godbehere first became interested in emotions, and especially disgust, while his wife was suffering from a phobia for vomiting, emetophobia. Since then, he has been studying what emotions are and were, and trying to find a way through the academic minefield that is the study of emotions. Richard is a Wellcome Trust Scholar in the Medical Humanities at Queen Mary University of London

Emotions evolved for a reason, but how simple are they? The fun really starts when we discover that what we call ’emotions’ are only a couple of hundred years old. How can this be, and what came before?

In this talk, Richard will embody the voice of Thomas Wright, a 17th Century English Catholic missionary whose book, The Passions of the Minde in Generall, influenced many including some bloke called Shakespeare. Through him, he will explain what feelings came before ’emotions’ and where modern ’emotions’ came from.

Richard will also discuss lost emotions – the ones that have disappeared that we no longer understand – and will do his best to get us to feel feelings we feel we’ve not felt before (or maybe we have, but have forgotten).

Richard Firth-Godbehere first became interested in emotions, and especially disgust, while his wife was suffering from a phobia for vomiting, emetophobia. Since then, he has been studying what emotions are and were, and trying to find a way through the academic minefield that is the study of emotions. Richard is a Wellcome Trust Scholar in the Medical Humanities at Queen Mary University of London

https://twitter.com/abominablehisto

Warning: recorded on an iPhone... :-)

What happens when your speaker for the evening isn't arriving for another ten minutes, and you have a room full of people expecting to be entertained? You simply ask Robin Ince - a man who was up at the Fringe to do one show and ended up doing about 6 - if he wouldn't mind filling in.

Robin was kind enough to step up and help us fill the time while Steve Mould from Festival of the Spoken Nerd hotfooted it over from the Assembly George Square theatres. We were also able to record his performance on the evening, and it's presented here for your enjoyment.

We'll be back in two weeks with a more traditional talk and interview podcast, and we hope you're enjoying our Fringe 2015 content. Please do email us with any comments ([email protected]) and we hope you'd consider leaving us a review on iTunes to help us promote the podcast more.

@robinince | http://robinince.com/

After appearing on our first night of the 2015 fringe our roving reporter David Frank sat down with poet and nerdsmith Dan Simpson to ask about his life and his love for poetry.

You can listen to Dan performing some of his excellently nerdy poetry in part 1 of this week's podcast bundle, recorded at our first night "Our Friends On The Fringe" extravaganza.

Twitter: @dansimpsonpoetWeb: https://dansimpsonpoet.wordpress.com

David & Dan proving the Fringe was being torn down around them.

Dan’s poster/flyer, in all it's glorious geekiness

Odd that this one is episode 5, but we have our reasons and mind your own beeswax or something...

We kick off by sharing our stage with some of the other acts that appeal to the Open-Minded, the Curious, to Scientists, Geeks and Skeptics. These acts appeared alongside us at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe, and were kind enough to come down and give us a little sneak peak at their Fringe shows.

Alongside our compere Diane Waugh, you'll hear from:

• Rosie Wilby – @rosiewilby
• Dan Simpson – @dansimpsonpoet
• Jack Heal – @jackheal

And in part 2 of this week's podcast bonanza, you can hear an exclusive interview with Dan Simpson.

Unlike those internet viral hoaxes, today actually IS Back to the Future 2 day. To celebrate, we have an interview to go with our very own Ewan Leeming's talk on time travel in popular fiction (which you can also download today). We talk about Ewan's favourite time travel stories, how he got into skepticism, and his pets as a child...

Ewan is something of a renaissance man: having qualified (and worked briefly) as a Maths Teacher, he’s also been a Gamekeeper, Outdoor Instructor, Science Presenter, Tutor, Farm Worker, Croupier, Shelf Stacker, Science Communicator, Newsletter Editor, Motorsport Event Organiser and probably some other things he’s forgotten about.

Currently he’s a Senior Printer at the best Printers in Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Copyshop. He’s also the chair of Edinburgh Skeptics, attempting to keep everyone else sane while we put on more events per year than any other skeptical group in the country.

You'll find Ewan on Twitter at @champnav

In the year that Back to the Future went back to the future, we just had to have a talk on time travel.

Time travel is something that none of us has any* experience of, yet it’s a very strong and understandable plot device in many books and films. Chair of Edinburgh Skeptics (and Sci Fi geek) Ewan Leeming will look at how, why and where it is used, and the growth away from the traditional science fiction setting towards more mainstream stories.

*non-trivial

Ewan is something of a renaissance man: having qualified (and worked briefly) as a Maths Teacher, he’s also been a Gamekeeper, Outdoor Instructor, Science Presenter, Tutor, Farm Worker, Croupier, Shelf Stacker, Science Communicator, Newsletter Editor, Motorsport Event Organiser and probably some other things he’s forgotten about.

Currently he’s a Senior Printer at the best Printers in Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Copyshop. He’s also the chair of Edinburgh Skeptics, attempting to keep everyone else sane while we put on more events per year than any other skeptical group in the country.

You'll find Ewan on Twitter at @champnav

Feederism (or feedism) is the term given to practices and relationships related to erotic weight gain. In its simplest form, feederism is about a feeder (a person who likes to see another person gain weight) and a feedee (a person who enjoys gaining weight).

Following on from their Fringe talk for us, Mark Pentler spoke to Kathy Charles and Michael Palkowski about their research in this area. This work led to the release of a book on the subject, titled Feederism: Eating, Weight Gain and Sexual Pleasure, details of which can be found here on the Palgrave website.

Kathy has been a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University since 2007. She teaches undergraduate modules in forensic psychology and research methods, and she is the programme leader for the MSc in Applied Criminology and Forensic Psychology. Her research interests are in aversive personalities, unusual interests, and forensic interviewing. She is the director of studies for a PhD student researching aversive personalities. Her website is at www.kathycharles.net and she can be found on Twitter as @kathy_charles

Michael Palkowski is a Sociologist and PhD student at Edinburgh Napier University, working in the Business school. He is also currently an undergraduate dissertation supervisor in the School of Life, Sports and Social Sciences, where he specializes in autoethnographic projects. He has also presented his work at various international and national conferences. His Twitter handle is @degarmot

Feederism (or feedism) is the term given to practices and relationships related to erotic weight gain. In its simplest form, feederism is about a feeder (a person who likes to see another person gain weight) and a feedee (a person who enjoys gaining weight).

This talk - by Kathy Charles and Michael Palkowski - opens up the world of feederism by exploring what really happens in feederism relationships and where the desires of feeders and feedees stem from. This work led to the release of a book on the subject, titled Feederism: Eating, Weight Gain and Sexual Pleasure, details of which can be found here on the Palgrave website.

Kathy has been a lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University since 2007. She teaches undergraduate modules in forensic psychology and research methods, and she is the programme leader for the MSc in Applied Criminology and Forensic Psychology. Her research interests are in aversive personalities, unusual interests, and forensic interviewing. She is the director of studies for a PhD student researching aversive personalities. Her website is at www.kathycharles.net and she can be found on Twitter as @kathy_charles

Michael Palkowski is a Sociologist and PhD student at Edinburgh Napier University, working in the Business school. He is also currently an undergraduate dissertation supervisor in the School of Life, Sports and Social Sciences, where he specializes in autoethnographic projects. He has also presented his work at various international and national conferences. His Twitter handle is @degarmot

With massive apologies for the crapper-than-usual sound quality, here's the next episode of the Skeptics on the Fringe 2015 podcast! The very lovely and wonderful Festival of the Spoken Nerd (Helen Arney, Steve Mould, and Matt Parker) were a massive help during our Fringe festivities, with each of the trio doing a night for us. In return, they were gracious enough to offer reduced tickets to the filmed version of their main show for EdSkeptics regulars. How nice is that?

If you like maths, fire, waves and graphs, Festival of the Spoken Nerd are definitely for you. They've just started on a massive UK tour with something like 40 dates in, and we urge you all to toddle off to the FOTSN website and see if they're playing near you.

In this interview, we speak to the trio about how FOTSN started, their thoughts on science communication and education, what to expect from their new tour, and their Fringe favourites.

And apologies again for the sound quality, but this is a much longer interview than normal. We take with one hand, we give with the other. Firm, but fair, that's the EdSkeptics way.

W: http://www.festivalofthespokennerd.comT: https://twitter.com/FOTSN