Autism is a subject steeped in rumour, mystery, misconceptions and myths.  The talk will look at different definitions and cultural representations of autism and then move on to the good, the bad and the ugly as regards treatment.

'The bad' and 'the ugly' are dealt with first.  Tannice discusses quack-treatments which exploit families who are looking for help.  These treatments may be at best ineffectual and at worst harmful to the children treated.  The question 'what's the harm?' is an important one to ask before embarking on a course of treatment.

Tannice then moves on to the one that she considers to be 'the good' and looks at ABA or Applied Behavioural Analysis.  She will give a concise overview of what it is, how it's used and the evidence behind it.

Tannice has experience of working with autistic children using ABA and uses this to mitigate some of the extreme behaviour patterns associated with autism.

Stevyn Colgan is a former member of the Met Police Problem Solving Unit, which developed creative and innovative approaches to issues that did not respond to traditional policing methods.  He is an expert on problem-oriented policing.

He is an author, artist, songwriter, public speaker and oddly-spelled Cornishman.  He is one of the ‘QI Elves’ that supply the questions for the popular BBC TV series and co-writes its sister show, The Museum of Curiosity, for BBC Radio 4.

He has also, among other things, been a chef, a potato picker, a milkman and a police officer. He has written briefing notes for two Prime Ministers and TV scripts for Gerry Anderson and Doctor Who.  He’s helped build dinosaur skeletons for the Natural History Museum, movie monsters for Bruce Willis to shoot at, and was the official artist for the 2006 National Children’s Book Fair.  He has been set on fire twice, been shot at once, and has given hundreds of talks across the UK and USA on a variety of subjects from problem solving to Cornish mythology to why he believes that he wasn’t intelligently designed.

He is the author of Joined-Up Thinking (Pan Macmillan 2008), Henhwedhlow: The Clotted Cream of Cornish Folk Tales (Kowethas 2010) and Constable Colgan’s Connectoscope® (Unbound 2013). He is currently writing several different books, recording an album of his own songs and developing an animated series based on Constable Colgan’s Connectoscope®.

And, of particular interest to No.84, he stops inordinately frequently for tea.
 

October's talk is suitable for people of any faith or none as Simon Woodman discusses why what most people think they know about the book of Revelation is wrong.  The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the number 666 and the vivid depictions of disaster and suffering are well known.  Many ideas as to their meaning have been put forward.  Simon has studied the text and its historical background in detail and offers his own ideas.  Come and find out if you agree with him.

Simon Woodman is a co-minister at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.  As well as being a minister he is an author, reviewer, public speaker and lecturer.  His PhD involved study of the Book of Revelation.

Where did life come from? Modern western culture is highly sceptical of beliefs that God made the world. In this talk Stephen Lloyd will explain why we should instead be sceptical of the widely accepted, but implausible idea that life made itself.

In his illustrated talk Stephen will describe the copious evidence of design in nature. He will explain how scepticism towards the evolutionary understanding of earth history can enrich science through inspiring new research and discoveries, including examples of research that provide compelling evidence of Noah’s flood.

Stephen is the Pastor of Hope Church, Gravesend. Before entering Christian ministry he spent 8 years in post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge including 4 years as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. He has appeared on Channel 4, ITV and BBC1 explaining why it is scientific to believe that God made the world.