GSEJ Director, Dr Joy Zhang will be a main stage speaker for the upcoming QED convention in Manchester between 29th-30th October 2022.
QED: Question, Explore, Discover is an annual two-day science and skepticism convention that brings fantastic speakers from the worlds of science and science communication together for a weekend celebration of science, reason and critical thinking. Past speakers include Richard Dawkins, A. C. Grayling, Carol Tavris, Simon Singh, Sophie Scott, Hannah Fry.
Dr Zhang’s talk, ‘Rogue Scientists and the Elephant(s) in the Room’, unpacks governing challenges in the development of global biotechnology. From experimental stem cell therapies to the CRISPR babies scandal, it seems that regardless of public education, desperate patients still fall into the hands of rogue scientists. Instead of simply being ‘bad scientists duping the public’, the human stories behind rogue science often point to more unsettling questions about what we expect of each other and of science. In this talk, Dr Zhang will discuss the elephants in the room that rogue experimentation point to and what it says about science and us.