Sci Fight: Science/Comedy Debates

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 togetherElon 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.

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.

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 simulationSimulation 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?

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.

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 simulationSimulation 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?

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 a UptopAI.

Sci fight is a quarterly Science Comedy Debate where scientists and comedians debate serious issues in a ridiculous manner.Thrilled to celebrate National Science Week 2023 in partnership with the Science Gallery Melbourne!This rounds’ topic: We should embrace our animal nature.We are animals. We may have pulled ourselves out of the primordial muck by our bootstraps. We may have invented sophistications such as chess, quantum mechanics and the Nutbush. We may have gained consciousness, closely followed by curiosity, hope, and existential despair. But have we forgotten our roots?Many of the things that bring us misery today are constructs we invented. Inflation. The 5 day work week. Brexit. You’ve never seen a bonobo stressing over whether their stock portfolio offers an adequate return on investment. Would we be better off if we shrugged off our fictional fetters and returned to a simpler, more primal existence?There’s a lot to be said for the joys of an animal existence. Being with your pack; with all the meaning and purpose of playing a role in the social group. Using your energy only for that which enables your survival or brings you joy. And not having to fight your very natural animal urges, like sleeping in, eating the last slice of cake or farting during a meeting. Would we be less lonely? You never have to worry if a guinea pig is only being nice to you to get a promotion.Why are we lying to ourselves about our animal nature? Is it guilt? It’s guilt, isn’t it. Separating ourselves from our fellow animal kith and kin definitely makes it easier to eat them, use them for production, and sleep while the orca uprising begins.Or are we better off leaving our bestial identities behind? After all, there was a lot of murder. And disease. And falling off or into things. Is our happiness tied to our higher order human society? Have we too easily forgotten the horrors of our base selves, buried now under qualifications and underwear?Is it even possible to truly leave our animal selves behind?Join six human animal scientists and debaters wrestle with this existential question of who we are, and how we can be happy.

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 should search for life out there.Since humanity became conscious of a universe stretching out far beyond our own little turquoise home, we’ve repeatedly wondered, are we really alone? Or is there life out there? And; have we offended it?Statistically speaking, after 13.5 billion years and with 200 billion trillion stars in the universe, it seems impossibly unlikely that life hasn’t evolved more than once.So: in the famous words of Fermi, where are they?Possibly in order to justify their ongoing tenure; SETI employees and astrophysicists have developed increasingly imaginative (read: desperate) theories as to why we haven’t been contacted by aliens just yet.As if we’ve been ghosted on a dating app; hypotheses include that maybe we just missed them; having evolved after they fell into extinction, or we’re up before them; they just haven’t reached us yet, or perhaps they’ve evolved into post-biological entities and are in stasis until the approaching heat death of the universe makes it cool enough for them to run their super computers without their CPU processor overheating.When you’re a busy alien it's hard to make the time for an intergalactic voyage. Maybe they’re just procrastinating. ‘Well I *would* make the trip but my spaceship isn’t insured for off-galaxy collision with cosmic dust’. Should we collectively accept that they’re just not that into us?But why are we so obsessed with finding alien life? Are we so fed up with our own neighbours and our daily grind that we need the novelty of an entirely different life form to give us hope? Given we’ve dedicated the last several hundred years arguing over slightly different versions of the same God, what makes us think we would all get along? If the Bible had been edited with version control the Crusades could have been cancelled.Is this just colonialism all over again? Have we just swapped the safari suit for a space suit? Why do we have this insatiable desire to expand? Are we simply distracting ourselves from the existential threats we face; hoping a cheerful alien will drop by a care-package of a hyper efficient energy source and an atmosphere repair kit?And have we really properly considered what happens if we do actually find extraterrestrial life?We may discover that the only thing scarier than being all alone in the universe is if we're not.Come listen to 6 very earthly scientists and comedians unpack what is out there and whether we should care.

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 should fear AI.AI is all up in your business. It knows when you’ve been sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows things about you that would bring a family bingo night to an awkward halt. And there’s new ways it's being used every day; AI may soon be used in judicial sentencing, in medical diagnoses and to care for the elderly. AI is able to be programmed out of the subjectivities and biases of us fallible humans, and it eats far less crumpets.Some things about AI are simply annoying; like the pro-Russia twitter bots liking your posts (and never buying tickets to your shows) and the weird social media algorithms that decide to start advertising you menopause remedies or combine harvester repair kits. But then there are the scarier moments; when you’re reading or looking at something that should be made by a human, but it just doesn’t have the right number of fingers. ‘Something seems off’ doesn’t feel like an enduring defence against AI’s ever increasing sophistication; Uncanny Valley was three stops ago.Academics downplay ChapGPT’s efficacy; as when you ask it a question it spontaneously hobbles together a series of roughly correlated facts it found elsewhere to make a hollow semblance of an argument and that's definitely not what I spent my undergrad arts tutorials doing. Can schools and universities genuinely invigilate AI out of the classroom?While humans immediately start making those throaty noises about AI coming for our jobs, the same way they did with the invention of the washing machine, the street sweeper and the bidet (okay, less that last one) AI may pose threats to humanity that we’re not even across yet. Will the singularity keep us up to speed what it's up to? Should we be keeping our friends close and AI closer?Or should we simply be celebrating AI? If all AI is is the enhanced and refined networking from the vast product of human output- then maybe AI is more human than humans! If that’s the case, then is all we really have to fear is…. ourselves?

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 should live forever!One thing we know to be true - when something is good, more of it is better! Like coffee, sun and heroin. Ergo this precious gift of life must be all the more valuable if we could live forever!As scientists get scarily good at herding stem cells, lengthening telomeres, and hacking DNA, this messy business of death looks more and more negotiable. Why go through the indignity of decrepitude if one might not have to?So much investment goes into making an educated, fully functional adult, knowing all that effort has a time limit on it does seem a little bit of a bummer. Do I get a refund on my HECS debt if i’m too old to remember anything from second year on the spanish civil war? Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Don’t make me do the essay on the origins of anarcho-syndicalism again!!Knowing that the knowledge and experience of each individual will one day be lost forces society into this frenzy of information preservation; books continue to be pumped out, even though we’ve not all read all of the current ones. Social media accounts stockpile images in a desperate effort to freeze precious memories in place. The internet has a back up, which has a back up, which has a back up, and somewhere in a bunker lies the last copy of Microsoft Encarta 95. But what if all information could just be stored in…an immortal being? Want to know the best way to smoke a kipper? Just ask Barry. He’s known kippers since they evolved drinking habits.But what if what makes life so valuable is its fleetingness? Forever is a long time to feel embarrassed about that time you mistook someone’s sister for their mum. And what happens with population growth if we keep living longer and longer? Do we cancel having children? They ARE annoying. Will the government have to step in? What if you need a permit to extend your existence by another financial year?Look it’s a sticky subject but luckily our debaters and scientists will have the whole dilemma cleared up before last drinks. Either way, one thing is for certain; this debate too shall pass.

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: Bodies are horribleBodies. You’ve probably got one. Unless you’re a concept. Or an algorithm. Or a sentient shade of purple. Either way, this is an inclusive space.Trapped within this profusion of soggy tubes and various humors, we stumble from one potentially lethal encounter with either gravity, toxins, radiation, or more recently, the AIR, to the next.Physics, chemistry, botany, astronomy; geology, heck, even zoology; there’s not a single branch of science that can’t immediately conjure a litany of methods with which to dismantle a body. No one should be more surprised than us that we’ve managed to multiply to the quantities that we have, or, perhaps, it's this precise cognisance that drives us as a species to stack the numbers for our survival.They burp, they fart, they bleed, they ache, they shed, they sweat, and that’s just when they’re functioning normally. So much of our bodies seem to have reached late stage evolution in spite of their design, rather than because of it. If you (or a chiropractor) turns your neck too sharply, there’s a bone that can shut off the blood supply to the brain. The hypothalamus has to make antidiuretic hormone; otherwise we wee ourselves to death. And no one’s ever looked at the prostate and considered nominating it for a design award. The whole system looks like it was designed by committee, after a boozy work lunch, and shortly before knocking off early for the long weekend.Every now and then, though, they are capable of doing amazing things, and feeling amazing things. Amidst the foot fungus, the heart break and the treachery of ageing, they sing, they dance, they paint, they laugh. Perhaps bodies are to be forgiven for their shortcomings?Bring your being to Brunswick’s Howler bar to witness a debate between scientists and comedians whom all have a vested interest in the topic.

Sci Fight is a quarterly science comedy debate, with your definitely qualified host, Alanta Colley. Sci Fight brings together science folk and comedy folk, and makes them debate the big issues in a silly way.Drugs. You’ve probably heard of them. Not welcomed in your luggage; your blood test results or the Olympics. They’ve had wars against them, they’ve founded Empires, and are administered by drug lords, drug barons, though conspicuously few Drug Earls (except Grey). They’re generally used as a bi-word for criminals and seen as the scourge of the streets. Addiction reaks havoc for many people. Are drugs the opiate of the masses? Or might drugs hold the key to achieving our full potential? The ‘stoned ape’ theory suggests psilocybin mushrooms were the "evolutionary catalyst"; from which language, projective imagination, the arts, religion, philosophy, science, and all of human culture sprang. Many of our greatest composers, philosophers, and theoreticians benefited from the apothecary’s under the counter range. Evidence grows for medicinal cannabis use in treating chronic pain. Psilocybin is gaining ground as a treatment for trauma, depression, and other ills. Has the baby been convicted with the bathwater?What even is a drug? Defined as a substance that alters your physical or mental state; but that’s a pretty broad category; in which you could include a particularly spicy curry; sitting in the sun, or just a really good hug. And if the cold hard light of sobriety means having to deal with all that is presently before us; might a little times in the saddle of the Mexican horse (that’s slang for heroin, I looked it up) be just what society needs?Join us for this theoretically legal and ancient debate; to be definitely resolved by our gaggle of drunk scientists and abstinent comedians at the reputable Howler Brunswick.

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 /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 /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 /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 ClimacticSee /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 againbased 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 ActionSee /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 LibraryRecorded 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 /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 /privacy for privacy and opt-out information.