Duncan Dallas, who has died aged 73, was the founder of Café Scientifique, whose worldwide success has transformed the dissemination of challenging ideas and issues among people at every age and stage of education. A man of charm, exuberance and vigour, Dallas adapted the longstanding practice of tavern talk to Nobel prize subjects. "Ace caff with nice prof attached," quipped Tim Radford in the Guardian (adapting the Victoria & Albert Museum's promotional campaign) at the London launch in 2002.
Dallas's love of debate and of disentangling unclear thinking fired his creation. At cafe sessions he could be seen willing the speaker not to go on too long before discussion could begin. The most eminent guests at the founding cafe in Leeds came away acknowledging that they had learned lessons. Lecturing and PowerPoint were strongly discouraged, and Dallas held that it could be as useful to discuss a bad idea as a good one.
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