Richard Fortey

Tickets £10. "Jane Austen said that ‘the person, be it gentleman or lady, who has no pleasure in a novel must be intolerably stupid’. But is knowledge of the fundamentals of science more important in the age of climate change and cloning?

For the motion: Richard Fortey, palaeontologist and ... (more)author of Dry Store Room No.1: The Secret History of the Natural History Museum; Georgina Ferry, science writer

and author of Max Perutz And The Secret Life.

Against the motion: John Mullan, Professor of English at UCL, journalist and author of Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature; Tracy Chevalier, novelist - The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Burning Bright – and Chair of the Society of Authors.

Chairperson: Joan Bakewell, Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts, is a pioneering journalist, cultural commentator and author.

The audience decides the outcome by casting a vote. "

Tickets: £8 (£5 under 18s). "Richard Fortey is a prize-winning science writer, Fellow of the Royal Society and former senior palaeontologist at London’s Natural History Museum. Combining professional learning with a gift for prose that sparkles with wit and literary sensibility, he delves into the ... (more)feuds, scandals and skulduggery that have punctuated the Museum’s history and brings to life the people and pioneers behind this great institution."