Saturday, 10 October 2009

The Amaz!ng Panel

The Amaz!ng Panel took place in Conway Hall on Monday 5th October immediately following a rational packed two days at TAM London.

On the Amazing Panel were:

Martin Robbins: The Lay Scientist
Andy Lewis: The Quackometer
George Hrab: Geologic
Rebecca Watson: Skepchick
Neil Denny: Little Atoms
Tim Farley: What’s the Harm?


NB These are not official TAM London video's

Introductions:
Tessa Kendall gave a brief talk on the current work of the National Secular Society before Tracy King introduced Rebecca Watson who lead the panel in an opening introduction outlining the contributions made by each of the panel.


Opening discussion
Rebecca led the discussion on how to promote skeptical content to a wider audience


Question 1: Negative repercussions
Does the panel ever worry that their work in scepticism and wide Internet presence might have negative repercussions on their professional day jobs?


Question 2: Hate Mail
Have any of you made any real enemies or received any feedback from your blog that's actually frightened you?


Question 3: YouTube
Obviously YouTube is a big medium for scepticism. What's your take on the bannings that have been going on?


Question 4: Getting started
Its a pretty basic question for a beginner, but other than holding bits of paper up, if you've got a blog, how do you go about getting some readers when you're just starting out?



Question 5: European forum
We definitely need something like the JREF forum but more on European topics, because if I make a comment on the JREF about homeopathy they don't even believe their are real doctors in Hungary who practice homeopathy.


Question 6: The term “Skeptic”
Jonathan Ross tweeted today that he thought that the term "Skepticism", is a negative and he prefers to think of it as rational thought.


Question 7: Celebrities
Many of you, if not all of you have experienced some form of "celebrity" yourselves because of your skeptic work for example at TAM's you sign autographs.



NB These are not official TAM London video's
Official TAM London videos coming to the TAM London YouTube channel soon

Additional thanks to
Tracy King
Tessa Kendall
Mark Duwe
Chris Blohm
Sid Rodrigues

And a special thanks to the so proffesional Rebecca for keeping her knees together throughout.
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4 comments:

  1. Michael Kingsford Gray11 October 2009 at 08:08

    I note that Tessa Kendall, when rightly berating genital mutilation, specifically singled out JUST female genital mutilation.
    As this was a consciously active distinction, can I assume that she thinks that male infant genital mutilation, (which is by far and away more ubiquitous), is somehow acceptable?
    To say that this apparent CLEAR acceptance of, and acquiescence to, the crime of male infant genital mutilation on her behalf "coloured" my view of her subsequent comments, would be an understatement of epic proportions.

    Have I 'got it wrong'?

    ReplyDelete
  2. TK11 October 2009 at 11:24

    Male circumcision is no way acceptable but FGM is a far more taboo subject, often ignored, excused as a 'cultural' practise and still practised in secret in countries where it is illegal. I singled it out because more people need to know about it - pretty much everyone knows about the male version.

    However, rest assured that the NSS and the Secular Medical Forum oppose male circumcision for religious reasons and I am attending a conference on it next month.

    ReplyDelete
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  4. Michael Kingsford Gray13 October 2009 at 04:36

    @TK:
    I thank you for your response.
    I now am pretty sure that I understand the reason for your specific exclusivity on the subject of non-consensual genital mutilation (NCGM).
    Do you have access to a reliable statistic on the ratio of female/male NCGM in say, the past decade, worldwide?
    I do not, but would be surprised if it rose much above 0.01%.
    With nearly every male in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic 'cultures' undergoing (infant!) NCGM, this outrageous religious crime must rank as the most widespread, longest-lasting and excused obscenities that it surely deserves at least a mention in EVERY primer to religious iniquities foisted on the human race?

    I understand your concept of uncovering taboos, but I think that worse than taboos are religious atrocities that have been rendered so commonplace as to be the invisible 'elephant in the room'.
    We are talking about the mass mutilation of neonates: babies!!
    What could be more obscene than that?

    ReplyDelete