Oxford Think Week - Education

Samantha Stein's talk about the educational ideology of Camp Quest UK drew a slightly smaller audience than the others I have attended this week, but was nonetheless interesting and very well presented.

She asked why she had had to wait until she was 19 to learn 'the scientific method'.  As she said, the combination of the scientific method, critical thinking and philosophy would help anyone in their search for facts.  These skills would help you to distinguish fact from fallacy while browsing the internet.

And yet schools concentrate on fact-based learning rather than learning to understand.

Even in a Physics degree course I'm not sure I learned about the scientific method.  I picked it up somewhere in my 30s and 40s.

Oxford Think Week - Consiousness

A gentleman in the audience began his question with "Speaking as a geologist, your arguments are largely incomprehensible to me . . ." and I can only agree with him.

The most incomprehensible arguments came from Raymond Tallis who tried to persuade us that neuro-science will never be able to explain conciousness.  Although he was an erudite speaker, looking through my notes I find almost nothing to say except that I think I prefer Daniel Dennett's well reasoned views on the same topic.  Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" was quite challenging, but this speaker was impossible (in the nicest possible way).

The other side of the argument was presented by David Papineau.  At least I could grasp the basics of what he was talking about!  He believes that there is a chain of causation relating to consciousness.  The fact that we want to know why a certain brain activity feels as it does (e.g. the feeling that something is red) just shows that it is hard to rid ourselves of dualism (separating the mind from the brain).  He argued that there is no such separation.  Non-dualists don't even need to ask why certain brain processes give rise to conciousness.  They just are the feelings.

Now it is quite possible that I got all of that completely wrong.  Still, wearing my Fusion sweatshirt I got the chance to evangelise fusion to a bright young physicist.  The evening was not totally wasted.

Oxford Think Week's disappointment now celebrated!

This evening's event in Oxford Think Week was somewhat challenging to my own inadequate consciousness.  As someone said, I wished we had had Prof. Peter Atkins there tonight!  More on that tomorrow.

But the good news!  Tuesday evening's disappointment has been largely mitigated by the team from "The Pod Delusion".  Thanks guys!  The discussion between Richard Dawkins and A C Grayling is now available at the web site for The Pod Delusion - one of my favorite podcasts.  It was fascinating to listen to it and decide for myself how successful this 'experiment' might be. 

Several people had told me that it was a 'bit of a love-in', with RD and ACG agreeing with each other on everything, and with the audience there just to 'worship' them.  They told me that they would have liked to hear some other points of view.  They told me that it was a bit like a religious experience except that the two preachers were atheists.  (Yes honestly someone said that!)  They were preaching to the choir.

My take on that is substantially and radically different.  I thought it was a really good way to hear the considered, consistent and complementary views of two great thinkers without the clamour of non-existent controversy.  As non-religious people, surely we have a right to a discussion that is not contaminated by supernatural mumbo-jumbo.  Christians go to church and agree with each other every Sunday.  We should have a chance to do it too, and religious apologists have no right to be offended about that even if it is a public event (like most church services).

I'm not saying that we should start to take offence at the insistence of religious people to interrupt our serious contemplation.  I'm just claiming that we have a right to enjoy  rational thought together sometimes, free of the rantings of religious apologists.

Let's have more like this - please??

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!