Join us at the house of a committee member in Moseley/Balsall Heath border as we get together to watch and discuss the livestream of Humanists UK’s 2025 Rosalind Franklin lecture, which will be broadcast online.

Marking International Women’s Day, the Rosalind Franklin Lecture explores and celebrates the contribution of women towards the promotion and advancement of aspects of humanism in the UK and around the world. The Rosalind Franklin medalist has made a significant contribution in one of these fields. The lecture and medal are named after Rosalind Franklin, humanist and scientist, whose contribution to science for many years went unacknowledged on account of her sex but who is today rightly celebrated.

Often censored, always emotive, swearing is the part of language that speaks when other words fail us. In the Rosalind Franklin Lecture 2025, Emma Byrne will unpack the power of strong language. Using data from medicine and neuroscience, she will demonstrate why swearing has such a potent effect on both the speaker and their audience. She will draw on her own research, which shows that swearing is used in sympathy and in excitement far more than it is used in anger. She'll also look at pleas for civility and ask: do these make for better discourse, or do they just preserve the status quo? Whether you try not to swear, or you have a broad and lively swearing vocabulary, the Rosalind Franklin Lecture 2025 will challenge the still-pervasive myths that surround this most adaptable part of speech. 

More details here: https://humanists.uk/events/franklin2025/

Please RSVP by filling in the form below if you plan to attend, as the address will be emailed only to those who reply.

This sounds like an interesting and thought-provoking subject, so do come and join us. The lecture itself starts at 7.30pm, but you are welcome to arrive from 7.00pm onwards, to get set up and to chat and socialise beforehand. We usually stay a while for our own discussion following the broadcast.

If you’d like to come, please use the form below to book your place.

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