Does Creation science have any convincing arguments?

Oxford Skeptics in the Pub hosted Peter Harrison this week.  He is based at St Andrews University (of which I am a graduate) so it was fun to have a chat with him.  His talk was about creationism.  As it said on the SITP site:

It’s easy to make fun of many creationist claims, but what are their strongest arguments?

Creationism often takes a lot of flak for the kind of wild claims made by hoards of ALL-CAPS creationists on blogs and YouTube comments. But of all the claims and arguments made by creationists, which are the most impressive? Do they pose a threat to creationism-denying scientific fields? Forget the usual tired canards. Peter has spent a year collaborating with top creationist organisations and groups to collate and bring to you their most powerful arguments yet…

So, I hear you asking whether any of the arguments were convincing.  He had asked them about both their evidence for creationism and in four of the five cases for evidence that the world is young (6000 to 10,000 years old).  The fifth organisation promotes old-earth crationism so it was not relevant in their case.

The organisations that he had challenged included Answers in Genesis and The Discovery Institute.  It seems that they have now ceased to cooperate with him after he shared his conclusions with them.  They didn't even appear to have used their best lines of evidence even while they were talking, but then again who is the best judge of that?

One thing did surprise me.  In his discussions with the 'Discoveroids', he had used the term 'creationist'.  I happen to listen to their podcast, ID The Future (which I decline to link to, as I have no desire to increase their Google ranking) on a regular basis.  They usually make a point that The Discovery Institute is there to promote 'Intelligent Design', and not creationism.  They say that there is a difference, although I have some doubts about that.

All in all, it was an entertaining evening with a great speaker.  It was only the second time that he has given that talk.  I hope he will get chance to use it many more times.

Adam Rutherford at Oxford Skeptics

The speaker at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub this week was one of the best yet.  Adam Rutherford engaged an audience of about 60, speaking on the subject of 'Creation'.   The event was held in a new location, the St Aldate's Tavern.  A good choice, I must say!

When I say that he engaged the audience, he used wit and wisdom to answer questions and challenges in the most interesting round-about ways, and yet still managed to give a satisfactory answer.

There is no point trying to give an account of the talk that he gave.  I will just note a few of the things that I found surprising.

• The family tree of Charles II of Spain, the last of the Hapsburgs, with all its inter-generational loops.
• The Murchison meteorite, which contains traces of one of the four letters of the genetic code - one that we find it difficult to synthesise here on Earth.  (And yet the hypothesis of panspermia was rejected as non-scientific.  Apparently it is a nice idea but there is no evidence for it.)
• That the Miller-Urey experiment was actually more successful than originally thought.  In fact, it produced all 20 essential amino acids - many more than there were able to identify at the time.
• A definition of life - "Life is the opposite of decay"
• GM cress which detects land mines by changing colour - and yet is not on the market due to an intellectual property dispute.

These and a few others were the highlights of the evening.  Congratulations to Heather for finding such a good speaker.

A great evening out!  If you get chance to see him you should take it.

Small note: Boo to Martin Robbins for trying to be more than an 'ordinary member' of the audience.  He wasn't a very interesting speaker when he was supposed to be the speaker, and he wasn't much better as a member of the audience.

Is Martin Robbins skeptical enough?

Martin Robbins, blogger for the Guardian, spoke to a packed audience at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub this week.  It was not the usual venue (which has a great meeting room but no atmosphere), but a real pub called the Port Mahon in St Clements.  The down-side of this is that the room was long and narrow, filled with an audience of 50 or more, and if you were unlucky enough to be sitting near the back it was difficult to hear or see.  In fact many were not lucky enough to be sitting at all, but the atmosphere was friendly and nobody was complaining

Still, I got more than the gist of his string of anecdotes about quack medicine in Africa, with tales of Joseph Obi in Gambia, Jim "Bleachgate" Humble, Homeopaths without Borders, the 'Real Medicine Foundation', and Jeremy Sherr.

His source of information was a period of a month or so in Africa a couple of years ago.  He had been generously supported by The Wellcome Trust. He and his team were quite successful in their attempt to find quack 1st-world medics plying their trade, but he was keen to point out that some of their associates actually do good charitable work.

Perhaps I was most surprised by his message about skepticism.  He clearly demonstrates a skeptical attitude on a lot of topics, and yet he seems to doubt the value of skeptical blogging in the Western world.  He asks why more skeptics don't get out to Africa to see for themselves what is going on there and to try to do something about it.

And yet . . . he has just been there on a well funded mission and clearly managed to do nothing that is very useful.  Yes he brings back a message about quack medics practising their trade in African countries, but then tells us that nobody here will do anything about it, and that it might even be a bad thing if they did.

To me it is obvious why more skeptics do not go on these missions.  For a start there is no source of funding, whereas quack medicine funds itself.  Secondly, anyone who thought about it would understand that Western quack medicine is probably no more harmful than the indigenous quack medicine practised by witch doctors and shaman. I for one am not a fan of interfering in developing countries. 

If we have learnt anything in recent decades it is that well funded and well-intentioned charity often manage to do more harm than good. 

Amateur skeptics are hardly likely to achieve anything better are we?

Sanal Edamaruku in Oxford this week

Sanal Edamaruku, President of the Indian Rationalist Association, was in Oxford this week, and he took the opportunity to speak to an audience of about 50 at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub.

This was not the usual 45 minute talk that we are accustomed to.  I thought I saw an interesting twinkle in his eye when he was introduced with the statement that he would talk for about that long.  In fact he treated us to and hour and three quarters of interesting anecdotes about the role of superstition in otherwise progressive India.

For example, Indian technology has enabled the country to launch satellites, but astrologers are still consulted when deciding the best time to launch them.  We were treated to a long list of more and less shocking anecdotes on similar topics included fire-walking, 'The Milk Miracle' (where statues appeared to drink milk from a spoon), the Prahlad Jani hoax (where he pretended to have fasted for 70 years) and tales of the famous Sai Baba who has been debunked many times by Sanal and his crew.  You can see more of the tales on  this video from Vimeo (which I shared with you a few days ago).

He described how his organisation runs 'Inspire Camps' in schools all over India, teaching the children how to do the tricks that a lot of gurus and holy men use to fleece their customers.  They then give the kids a kit of the ingredients that they need so they can go and show their parents and friends how it is done.

A few other interesting facts:

• The average age of an Indian is currently 22.  Within 10 years the average will be 18.  By comparison in most EU countries the average is over 40 and sometimes over 45, and increasing.
• The terms Humanist and Skeptic are used little in India.  Generally the two groups are combined and referred to as Rationalists.
• You will see people in India rubbing their hands in a particular way because they believe it will stop them going grey.
• There is still a culture of child marriage in India, even though it is illegal.
• Until the 1930s, people suspected of theft could be tried by fire - fire-walking that is!  If they were not burnt then they were considered innocent.
• I was a bit surprised to hear him invoke ball-lightning as an explanation for some events in Utna Pradesh.  Still - even 'Rationalists' can have areas of non-skepticism.

All-in-all he did not disappoint.  He concluded with the story of the recent event that resulted in him having to leave the country.  You can read more about that in a previous post on Something Surprising, here.

I was most surprised by events the next day when I was telling a Christian about him.  She dismissed him out-of-hand and said she thought people shouldn't go round debunking other people's beliefs like that, whether or not they happen to be harmful beliefs.

I disagree. 

Sanal Edamaraku at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub

On Monday evening this week, Oxford Skeptics in the Pub will host the Indian star skeptic Sanal Edamaraku.

You can see some of his work in this video from Vimeo.

If you can make it, it will be interesting to see you there.  I won't be carrying a copy of 'The Financial Times' or wearing a pink carnation - but you might find me chatting with anyone who wants to talk.

Links here and here.

Only an opinion about nothing . . .

Oxford Skeptics in the Pub had an unusually 'empty' talk this week, entitled "Why nothing matters".  An I'm not saying that the talk didn't happen but that it was full of nothing.

An audience of only about 30 heard Ronald Green speaking about "Why Nothing Matters", hawking his book and clearly expecting to be heckled.  Indeed his style was more-or-less confrontational while he told us that he had spent 5 years studying 'nothing' very seriously.  It is not quite clear where he was when he did that study, nor indeed which universities he has taught at in various continents, or exactly what post-graduate studies he participated in at Oxford University (or indeed which university in Oxford).  But maybe I am too skeptical in wondering about those questions.

Was it obvious that it is true that nothing matters?  You have to ask yourself how deep the following comments are.

"There has to be something around nothing, and there has to be nothing around something."

"Luke says 'nothing is impossible with God' ".

"Zero apples is not the same as zero oranges" and "there are different kinds of nothing".

"Really, nothing is the absence of everything, including ourselves"

Apparently 'silence' might be one kind of nothing [but I don't think the absence of sound is enough to count a real 'nothing']. But he claims that you can never actually have complete silence.  I venture to disagree with this particular claim on grounds of some physics.  If you were in a vacuum there definitely would be silence.  His claim that you hear yourself when it gets quiet enough and that there there is never silence is surely philosophically flawed, because the role of the observer is irrelevant.  If you were not alive and were in a vacuum there definitely would be silence and it doesn't matter a jot that you therefore don't know about it.

More interesting was the tale of the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911. Apparently far more people queued to see where it had been stolen from than had wanted to see the painting itself. 

But my final point is that I prefer the approach taken by Peter Atkins in his recent talk and Lawrence Krauss in his "A Universe from Nothing".  Green claims that "even Krauss gets terribly mixed up about it".  I think I would ask whether it is overwhelmingly probable that that is true.  Ask who is more mixed up, and I think the answer seems obvious.

On the other hand I saw a review of his book . . .

[Unlike the talk] This is not a book to be dipped into or skimmed over a coffee break. Green writes very clearly and with a great deal of humour, but he is dealing with ideas that perhaps go to the very core of what it means to be human. That he can do so without the nihilistic melancholy of so many of the people he quotes is a tribute to his writing skills. Would I recommend this book? Yes, with the proviso that if you choose to read it you give the time and thought it deserves.

So maybe I misjudge him. 

Sunny brain, rainy brain

Elaine Fox made a presentation to Oxford Skeptics in the Pub last week, in a meeting attended by an unusually large number of people.  The theme of the talk was about whether optimism is good for us.

She began by reminding us that everyone is different.  Quoting William James, she said that every baby born into the world is inundated by "the blooming buzzing confusion of sounds", and it is remarkable how quickly they are able to focus on the ones that matter and ignore the sounds and sights that form the background to life.

She went on to tell us that some things are hard-wired into us, and that fear and pleasure play a large role in the workings of our brains.  In most people, fear takes priority over pleasure and she described the signal route from the amygdala to the pre-frontal cortex - the desire to eat lunch is over-ridden by the desire to avoid being lunch.  (I didn't know that we do not have one amygdala but two.)

In order to convince us that most people have an optimistic approach to life (which seems counter-intuitive to all of us, let alone a room full of skeptics) she read a few statements out and asked us to score our level of agreement.  See below**.  The room displayed a wide range of scores, but she was successful in demonstrating what she wanted. (This was not necessarily done in a completely scientific manner.  How were those statements chosen, and what do they actually mean in detail?)

Optimism is a complex combination of states.  It is not just a matter of happily expecting the best outcomes, but people who score high on optimism scales also take positive actions and persist longer to solve difficult problems.

She also pointed out another (perhaps obvious) point that our outlooks are not shaped by nature or nurture, but by the interaction between both.  The brain remains much more malleable throughout life than was understood only a few years ago.  As an example, she described how London taxi drivers who were studying for a test called 'The Knowledge' had been shown to have experienced a growth in the size of their hippocampus. 

Studies of different gene variants have shown correlation with subtle effects on brain chemistry.  Perhaps there is good science behind these claims.  We didn't really hear enough to be able to tell, and in some ways this was a pity, because it further confirms our bias that the science of the brain is still in its infancy.  Only be the highest standard of scientific method will that change quickly. 

The final topic was about therapeutic effects of cognitive bias modification.  She claimed that various studies showed health benefits from an optimistic bent.  Let's hope that this turns out to be true.  I have a strong feeling that I have heard opposite claims from other researchers, but that is not necessarily a threat to the advance of science.

All in all, it was an interesting evening in spite of a the projector being unable to display in colour.  Obviously it must have been the projector, not the Apple Mac that was being used for the presentation as nothing ever goes wrong with a Mac does it?  Ironic comments aside, the venue was a place that has recently been renamed "The Wig and Pen".  There are rumours that it wants to start to charge for use of the room as well as gaining the benefit of bringing 50 or 100 customers in.  All I can say to that is that they would need to improve the quality of the room.  A bar with one member of staff does not cope with the number of customers.  And one might expect that the toilets would have been cleaned, and that the taps on the sinks in the gents toilets (at least) might open in a more controlled and less explosive way.  I would vote to change venue.

Thanks as usual to the organisers, Heather and Alex.


**Small note
My transcription of the 6 statements:
1/ In uncertain times I usually expect the best.
2/ I enjoy my friends a lot.
3/ I would take off on a trip with no pre-plans.
4/ I don't get upset too easily.
5/ I get restless when I spend too much time at home.
6/ I count on good things happening to me.

Decide for yourselves whether these all reflect aspects of optimism.  Not everyone understands what they mean and how much we are expected to consider the implications.  Not everyone agrees that they reflect optimism as opposed to some other quantity - but then again none of the people I have asked are experts on the topic.  However, I was VERY pleased to score slightly higher than one of my friends who I consider to be highly optimistic, albeit much lower than another.

An accomodating atheist

Oxford Skeptics in the Pub is back in operation after a lengthy pause, and the second event of the year, last night, featured a speaker who was the author of "The Young Atheists Handbook", Alom Shaha.

Young Atheists Handbook

Alom is an ex-muslim from a Bangladeshi background, working as a physics teacher in London.  In his slightly self-effacing way, he was very comfortable with the audience, and he encouraged the event to become much more of a discussion than the normal format of a lecture with questions.  Everyone had an opportunity to join in, with a friendly, humorous and cooperative atmosphere.

He wrote the book because he found that the question of 'god' (whether God or Allah) was coming up in lessons.  He had had challenges from some religious children about topics such as the 'big-bang'.  He explained how he disliked having to answer questions with "Because it is on the syllabus" but that sometimes that was a last resort.  He was clearly comfortable with his atheism but not out to 'convert' people.  On the other hand he sees no reason to hide it.  He pointed out that it was fine for other teachers to be openly Catholic, so there is no reason why he should not be openly atheist.

His whole approach to the issue of religion was gentle and empathetic to the point that he was accused several times of being an accommodationalist.  Initially he readily admitted it, but later started to ask what exactly that meant.  However, he was at least a sophisticated accommodationalist, realising that people arrive at the beliefs for a wide variety of reasons, not all of which are rational.  He says that although he personally (and at present) does not believe in a god, he does understand why others might and he concedes that there is no way to tell whether he might in future find reasons to believe.  The whole concept that life really might be pointless is not one that everyone can buy into.  Religion can come to the rescue for some, and he argues that there is not necessarily any harm from that.

His main aim in speaking and writing is to introduce children to the very concept that some people are not religious.  He points out that many young people are simply not aware of the possibility that they can question the existence of god, whatever their parents happen to believe.

This brings us to a topic that then was thoroughly debated.  Few seemed to disagree that 'coming out' as an atheist is not equally easy for all people in all communities.  Leaving Islam or a fundamentalist christian community in USA would clearly be harder than leaving the Church of England.  It is also recognised that their are racial and ethnic differences. 

He seemed to be keen to suggest that one way to move forward is to promote secularism rather than atheism.  He noted that the word 'secular' has been hijacked by the religious, and to some extent it is now taken to mean something that is threatening to religion rather than an opportunity for freedom of religion, and from other religions.

So it seems that I agree with a vast majority of what he says and I feel sure that I could enjoy a long and friendly discussion with him.  But there are a few things that I definitely would take issue with.

• He thoroughly dislikes many internet atheists, and their aggressive approach, and that everyone says things that others have already said as if those things have never been said before.   I agree that I also dislike the rudeness of the extremists too - both ends of the arguments.  Nevertheless I do learn things from every argument I hear.  In this case I feel more tolerant and accomodating than Alom.  I also think it is not overwhelmingly probable that he has said very much new in his book.  What is the difference?  (I admit I haven't read it, so I can't claim that for certain, and I do understand that he is getting good reviews for his narrative style.  But I would like to discuss that aspect.)
• He maintains that there doesn't have to be a conflict between science and religion.  I'm not completely sure that is true.  The discussion can indeed be avoided, and it is even possible to skirt around the general topic in a friendly way.  But ultimately when push comes to shove, in my view, and for some people, there is a conflict.  I also think that the existence of god is a matter that science should take very seriously, because potentially it affects everything else.  [Update:  On this topic, a fellow blogger has commented about the incompatibility of science and religion, in 'Science and Faith - I beg to differ']
• It is evident that he has had some disagreements with Richard Dawkins.  I felt that he spent a little too much time building a straw-man of Dawkins to attack.  Although empathetic to the religious, Alom seemed less empathetic to the slightly more robust atheists and tended to bundle them with the 'really aggressive' atheists, perhaps unfairly in my view.  Dawkins is by no means the most aggressive atheist in the world.  I suppose I take the view that sometimes there are times when tough things do have to be said, and I admit that I am unashamedly a fan of Richard Dawkins.

Apart from that, it was an really enjoyable evening.  He concluded that he 'did not have any solutions', and that although he had not ambition to be one of the four horsemen he thought it would be nice if he could be there on a Shetland pony.  He doesn't want to write about religion any more.  His handbook is apparently not really a handbook, but as he says, nobody minds that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not really a guide.

Shall I buy a copy.  I can't decide, partly because I'm not sure that there will be anything new.  I have read a great deal about the subject and found most of his words refreshingly familiar.

But if you have not read much, you will learn from a nice guy with a great sense of humour, I'm sure.

Pseudo-ostension in southern England

Trystan Swale spoke at the Oxford Skeptics in the Pub event on 10th August.  The topic of the talk was crop circles.  And it was very entertaining to hear the tales of a circle maker himself.

Recovering from a mental illness that has prevented him for a while from presenting the Righteous Indignation podcast that he founded, he related a lot of interesting anecdotes and factoids.  While admitting that circle making is effectively vandalism, he noted that the circle makers tend to keep the 'ear to the ground' (ha ha) and they know which farmers are most likely to object to their activities.  Apparently a few large Wiltshire farmers seem to bask in the notoriety of their land as crop circle territory.  Still, the makers go to some lengths to avoid being spotted at work.

Many people wonder how they can work in the dark, but it seems that after half an hour outside on a dark night it becomes relatively easy to see what you are doing.  By the time that the crops are ripening they become light enough in colour that you can easily see what you are doing.

He covered some of the history of circle making and then showed some good examples of patterns and indicated have they were set out.  Six fold geometry is favoured because equilateral triangles around a centre point mark the positions that define the patterns.  (In other words, a chord of the same length as the radius of a circle marks out positions 60 degrees apart.  However, other formations, e.g. with five or seven fold symmetry have been made to demonstrate that it is not necessary to invoke alien origins.

It seems that there are about 12 people actively involved in circle making in the UK this year (down from about 20 in 2010), with the majority of circles being in the 'Marlborough Triangle' (which stretches from Swindon in the north to Stonehenge in the south).  When asked how many people it takes to create a formation, he gave an example of the 409 circle created at Milk Hill in 2001 by a team of 12 people.

He got a laugh by mentioning that in the mid 90s there was a bit of a flap about whether it is safe to eat wheat and barley from inside a circle and he went on to describe some of the common 'proofs' used to show that the circles are not man-made after all.  Sometimes the nodes on the stems of the crop are 'blown' as they are bent but not always.  He explained that the fluid in the stems has to go somewhere as the stem is compressed.  It happens particularly to formations made late in the season, or in crops that have been over-fertilised.

He explained that the famous video of circles being created at a site called Oliver's Castle was in fact an elaborate fake that was made in conjunction with the circle makers.  (But then again - he would claim that - he's a circle maker!) But this video agrees with him albeit invoking a slightly different explanation (and I have very little doubt myself).  Note the common six-fold symmetry in this formation.



He also explained about the symbiosis between the circle makers and their circles and with the people who are taken in by their work.  The makers seem careful not to claim an alien connection but also they take care not to deny it too much.  Pseudo-ostension is the term for a process that involves a hoax in which the perpetrator enacts a legend.

All in all - an entertaining evening for all of us!  Thanks Trystan.

Related posts:
'Out' Crop Formation
Cornucopia for Cereologists
Income from crop formations  
Where are the formations?
Japanese Rice Art 
Crop formations in trees? 
Wallabies on opium make crop circles!

Oxford Skeptics in the Pub - Stephen Law

Philosopher Stephen Law made another visit to Oxford on Wednesday evening to talk about "Believing Bullshit" - which happens to be the title of his new book.

The room was well filled with people between their 20s and 60s - and certainly not the all white, male, middle-aged demography that you might expected of a group of skeptics only a few years ago.  (OK - as it happens all were whitish.)

The aim of the talk was to examine why 'true believers' (in anything from religions to conspiracy theories) can consider - in spite of all the evidence - that they are the ones with the reasonable attitude and that everyone else is deluded.  Law introduced the concept of the 'intellectual black hole' (IBH) as an analogy for a belief system which it is impossible to escape from.  He suggests that the IBH tends to encourage people to adopt methods of thought that confirm the illusion of reason.

He suggested that there are 8 aspects of the IBH scenario, which we can learn to spot when we are talking to the people caught in them.

1. The mystery card
2. But it fits
3. Moving the semantic goalposts
4. Going nuclear (an example below)
5. I just know
6. Pseudo profundity
7. Piling up the anecdotes
8. Pressing your buttons

Buy the book to find out exactly what these mean and to see interesting examples of all of them.

As one version of 'going nuclear' he gave an example that is common to 'new age thinkers', although less common with theists.  When confronted with an argument that they are going to lose, the people in the IBH might say "That's true for you but its not true for me".  By saying that though, they have made all truths equally valid, however preposterous.  In doing so they have undermined their own argument as effectively as those of their opponent.  (Now you can see why theists do not like to use it.  They like their own version of the truth too much to risk it.)  Law suggested that the best thing to do when someone 'goes nuclear' is to suggest that 'my truth is neither more nor less reasonable than yours' and then leave, and never to get drawn into the argument.

In the questions and answers, he mentioned the work of Justin Barrett who has been working on the concept of 'invisible agents' and who has a new book out soon.  He has developed the Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device (HADD) hypothesis to explain the need that humans seem to have to believe in the supernatural.  His new work suggests that atheists have to work hard to suppress this tendency and that we are hard wired for religiosity.  (That is not to suggest that this is evidence for god though - just of a need for a god.)

An excellent evening!  I must get round to ordering a copy of the book at the weekend.

Related posts:
From Oxford Think Week
The Moral Landscape (introduced by Stephen Law)

David Colquhoun in Oxford

A good crowd (50 or 60 ish) gathered at the Oxford Skeptics in the Pub event last night, to hear Professor David Colquhoun, but I would estimate that about 25% quietly left at the interval.  Tempted to do so myself, I'm glad I stayed as the questions and answers were a little more interesting than the talk.

Although I would say that I agree with his campaign against Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), and agree with his consistent campaigning on the subject, I found the accounts of the events a little more disparaging than might have been necessary.  (Of course he was describing his hard won victories and wanted to describe them in detail.)

The slides contained a lot of text and the audience had little chance to read some of them, and I would just say that his method of presentation was 'unusual' for a professional speaker and member of the Royal Society.  I admit that there were a few giggles, including the surprising inclusion of the National Health Service's formal job specification for a 'Spiritual Healer'.

After last week's excellent event, (Paula Kirby), tonight was more than a little disappointing.  Hopefully the April event with Trystan Swale from the Righteous Indignation podcast will be more fun.

Think Week goes from strength to strength

Oxford Think Week's evening event for Thursday was a surprisingly entertaining discussion between Professor Peter Atkins (Chemistry) and Professor Steven Law (Philosophy).  Can Science Alone answer our questions?

This was far from the dry debate that it could have been if we had not been so fortunate.  It was the most interesting, thought provoking and entertaining event I had attended since . . . well . . . Wednesday!  This week is a veritable feast.  If I try to keep this post short, do not take that as a lack of enthusiasm but more a sign of typing induced stress!  (Or maybe it is a lack of intellectual stamina?  But in saying that I think of the words of a friend who tells me sometimes that I am "indulging in another bout of self-deprecation".  And although English is not her first language I would trust her as a proof reader any day!)

Professor Atkins was clear from the outset.  There are three ways of acquiring knowledge:

• Reading ancient texts (Religion)
• Thinking (Philosophy)
• Experimenting (Science)

Theologians obfuscate, nobody else is quite sure what Philosophers do (but it tends to end up in circular arguments), and Scientists illuminate.  But we have to distinguish real questions from empty questions.  Science can't yet answer all questions but that doesn't mean that it never will, and the progress of the last 100 years has been amazing compared with 10,000 years using the other two approaches.

Professor Law started by saying that he was a great admirer of the empirical sciences.  He regards them as a great tool, and possibly the only tool we have.  He thought that some questions were impossible to address in principal, but that didn't mean that they were off-limits. He had the impression that the majority of scientists were not so wedded to the idea of scientism and gave a few examples of questions that were conceptual rather than scientific.  (One was the example of Galileo's thought experiment about dropping a heavy and a light ball and deciding which would fall faster, and how that would be affected if they were joined together.)  He wanted to separate the 'is' questions from the 'ought' questions and suggested that you cannot logically get an 'is' out of an 'ought'.

I expect I am showing my slight bias by commenting that although he might have convinced some members of the audience (about 100 interesting people) he failed totally to convince his opponent.  For example, just because the answer is intuitively obvious, it does not mean that the result of an experiment will not surprise you.

Another big question, "Why was the universe created?" might not be a sensible question because it pre-supposes purpose.  Perhaps we should ask How instead of Why?

Obviously there is no conclusion, but I think I land on the side of scientism and enjoyed the journey.  What a wonderful evening with an opportunity to meet people I have admired from afar, and to look suitably foolish in front to them.  (I wish I had told Richard Dawkins how big an effect 'The God Delusion' has had on my life, and that I only read it because our vicar recommended it to my wife (who remains thoroughly Christian)!  Ho hum.  Maybe next time.)

As usual - failed to be concise in this post!  Whoops.

More Paula Kirby

More on the topic of Paula Kirby's visit to Oxford yesterday evening.  (I promise not to go on about it for ever!)  I had the pleasure of a short chat with her during the interval and we discussed why it was so interesting to keep talking about faith after we had lost that faith.  Maybe I will grow out of it in the end, but not yet, and Paula clearly hasn't either.

Paula's big question is one that fascinates me too.  What is it about people that makes them susceptible to belief in God?  Certainly it is not a question of intelligence.  We agreed that we both know people who are intellectual giants but who still maintain a faith in the supernatural.  Indeed what is it that makes it possible for an individual to hold both views in one lifetime, and to hold those views very strongly?

I asked her in the 'Question and Answer' session how she had taken the big step from ('just') losing faith to wanting to stand and talk about it in public.  I empathised with her reply that she likes to have an audience and indeed I enjoy that myself (as long as it is on a topic that I know well).  I love to have the opportunity to speak to a group of visitors at work and to evangelise about Fusion research.  I have not yet had the chance to evangelise atheism.

But on further questioning how the opportunity to become such a well known public figure arose, I was interested that it was at least partly through her contributions to www.richarddawkins.net.  Richard Dawkins wrote to her saying that he enjoyed her writing, and opportunities gradually opened up after that.  You could see the obvious delight on her face as she explained "Just imagine! I'm getting fan mail from my favorite author!"

Oxford Think Week rescued - Paula Kirby

This evening's event more than made up for the disappointment of yesterday!  Much more!  I ventured to the Oxford Skeptics in the Pub event for a talk by one of the most incisive atheist writers, fully aware of the possibility of disappointment.  I'm delighted to be able to say that Paula Kirby did not disappoint in any way, (in spite of twice being introduced as Sheila).

In front of an audience containing a brave group of Christians among a larger number of secularists, she clearly delighted in telling a moving story of becoming a committed Christian as an adult, and then becoming an atheist a few years later.  I can hardly attempt to emulate her by trying to distill the key facts from an argument and present them clearly and concisely, without leaving any doubt about my views.  However - here goes!

Before describing how she lost her faith (or won freedom from faith) she wanted to explain how she became a Christian.  The story was moving and rather personal, and left us in no doubt of her full commitment.  For 6 years her religion was completely central to her life, with a significant spiritual encounter that she now rationalises in a different way.

Then she went on to observe how Christians often describe their conversion as having a weight lifted from their shoulders, and to assure us that although she had experienced that, the relief of becoming an atheist was an even greater pleasure.  Even in the totalitarian North Korea, people's thoughts are private.  But somehow God invades even your private thoughts, and it is such a relief to lose the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder all the time.

The words of the Apostle's Creed seemed to be the tipping point in her de-conversion.  [How many times have I said them and questioned what they really mean?]   "He descended into Hell . . . " was the first sticking point that made her start to examine the whole of the rest of her faith with a critical eye, ultimately drawing up a list of things she believed about christianity along with a list of things that others believed just as strongly.  Realising that the two lists could never be compatible she reasoned that perhaps neither was true, and that if christianity was not true then she didn't want it, however comforting it might be.

As she said "Take away 'God did it' and you have a whole new exciting world".  Not only was she not sitting on the fence, but there was actually no fence to sit on!

This short summary does no justice to a delightful evening full of intelligent humour.  I would be surprised if my admiration was not shared by the vast majority of the audience.  To conclude, I found her views on the afterlife (in response to an audience question) resonated with my own.  She had found herself unusual among Christians in that she never really wanted eternal life.  It is reassuring to hear that I'm not alone in that!

Think Week has been rescued.  Thank you Paula.

Think about Politics - Towards a Secular State

In UK we have an 'established church' and Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords, unelected and (by many) unwanted.  This first evening of Oxford Think Week was a discussion between an interesting panel of people.

Ronan McCrae introduced Monday's event with a talk aimed at promoting the idea of a secular state for the benefit of everyone, including the religious.  The idea that certain religious beliefs override liberal democratic rights might be ok if you are from that religion, but not if you are not.  Secularism is not the same as atheism or humanism, but it is simply the separation of faith from law.  It does respect religious beliefs and protects them, but it requires recognition of the fact that religion does promote controversy.  Even within the major faiths there is controversy, and there is no widely accepted 'true Christianity' or 'true Islam'.  The use of public money to promote any faith is not acceptable to secularism, and the constraints that are put on state funded faith schools to do the business of the state by teaching a standard curriculum (at least officially) are probably not acceptable to those schools either.  He summarised by mentioning the secularising influence of European history, and pointed out the dangers if community views were allowed to break down due to the idealogical influences of many different religions.  In the questions later, he quipped that secularism is an arrangement that we can live with pending the arrival of the second coming!

Baroness Shreela Flather, a Hindu atheist as she explained, has gone some way to restore my confidence in the House of Lords - although in a discussion with her at the end she told me that she feels that she is very much in the minority in that respect.  She pointed out that there is no single ideal solution and that even in secular states religious power play is a serious matter.  I liked the way she explained that as an atheist she felt free, and that a weight had been lifted from her.  (I feel the same way.)  She pointed out that religion can be a force for good or for VERY bad.  She admired English Common Law, especially in that it is based much more on common sense than on Christianity.  She spoke well on the topic of human rights and particularly on women's rights, and how they are badly eroded in religious communities world-wide.

Nia Griffith, Labour MP for Llanelli then described how prayer is all around us and that it is difficult to break out of it.  The non-religious tend to substitute religious ceremonies with secular ceremonies that mimic what they are trying to get away from.  Perhaps we should adopt a different approach entirely?  We shy away from being evangelical secularists.  How are we going to untangle the religious infrastructure?  Certainly we have to think in the long term.

Martin Horwood, Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham told some entertaining anecdotes about his attempt to have a secular Hindu wedding to his wife.  He went on to point out that religions are not timeless truths, so it is not surprising that there are gradations within the faiths.  He believes that describing modern day Islamic extremists as representing 'Medieval Islam' is not correct, because medieval Islam was really very tolerant.  (His attitude to Islam seemed generally to be rather un-critical.  Thank goodness other members of the panel were there to disagree with him and point out the dangers of Islamic influences.)  He did present an interesting idea for elections to the upper house when it is reformed.  The idea that interest groups could set up non-geographical constituencies and that people could use their one vote either for a group or geographically seemed sensible.  He made several disapproving comments about the approach that Richard Dawkins takes, in my opinion incorrectly accusing him of conflating atheism and secularism, and of course mentioning the word 'strident', as people so often do.  I would say that the mood of the audience was not in favour of this opinion.

An interesting evening!  All the speakers agreed that if you want to make a difference in the world you should join a political party.  If like me, you would find it hard to stomach being a member of any of the political parties you have the option to set up a campaign to lobby your MP, r set up a petition via a web site such as 38 degrees.  Unsurprisingly they find it more effective if several different versions of a letter are used, rather than a single boiler-plate letter sent by many different people.  And don't forget to write to the House of Lords - they feel left out!

This evening's event is an armchair discussion between Dawkins and Grayling.  Can't wait!