Science, Reason and Critical Thinking

Bad Science Infographic

2012-02-01T10:04:00.002Z

On increasingly frequent occasion I receive some ready prepared suggested content for my blog that I am assured will be just the thing for my readers. I don't normally oblige.

However, yesterday I received a rather nice infographic from @jenicarhee summarising the inherent human flaws that can exist within my beloved scientific method. This one seemed worth sharing, so here its is ...

Created by: Clinical Psychology

Original Source here

WinSitP: Simon Singh on Alan Turing and the Cracking of the Enigma Code

2012-01-22T10:21:00.003Z

Winchester Skeptics in the pub has now been up and running for two years.

We have had two years of fantastic talks and as more and more people have heard about us, it has become increasingly hard to accommodate everyone in the biggest available pub we could find in Winchester. Following our hugely successful sell-out Christmas Special at the Intech Planetarium we will therefore be moving to an exciting new venue.

The Winchester Discover Centre is the perfect new home for Winchester Skeptics in the Pub. WInchester Skeptics in the Discovery Centre is however a little unwieldy, so we'll probably just stick to Winchester Skeptics in the Pub, or even just Winchester Skeptics.

The success of Winchester Skeptics in the pub can be traced back to our very first (and packed) meeting in January 2010. Our inaugural speaker on that occasion, despite still going through a somewhat misconceived libel trial at the time, was of course Simon Singh. We are therefore delighted to welcome Simon back as the inaugural speaker at our shiny new venue in the year that marks the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birth to give an enthralling talk on Alan Turing and the cracking of the Enigma Code.

Simon will also be brining an original working Enigma machine to demonstrate how the cunning little buggers work.

You can take a 360 degree virtual tour of our new venue here.

Do come along next Thursday and fill your brains.

How to replace the School ICT Curriculum

2012-01-14T15:34:00.000Z

I haven't coded for a long time. A long time.

Although I made a living in the early 80's writing management information systems in AppleSoft BASIC, and after my software engineering degree I worked for a while as rather mediocre Ada programmer on military information systems, I was never one of the worlds most accomplished computer programmers.

I was however fortunate enough to be born at the right time to receive a proper education in computer studies. Although my rather BASIC understanding of how to construct loops, branches and subroutines and how to manipulate strings and define multi dimensional arrays seems somewhat detached from my current daily working activities, it nonetheless provides me with a much greater insight and appreciation of the inner workings of the more complex applications I now use.

In much the same way as my admiration of English and literature in later life, has subsequently made me aware of my loss in not receiving a classical education, perhaps future IT consultants will, on realisation, mourn their loss at never having had the opportunity to load the accumulator or pop the stack when dabbling in ancient assembly languages.

The recent government announcements to scrap the current IT curriculums that merely instruct our children on how to use computers to become efficient office lackeys, in favour of a return to more creative and development based IT education is therefore most welcome on my part.

However, there is another method from the early 80's that we could also redeploy to achieve these laudable aims in adolescent IT literacy. By reinstalling ZX Spectrums, Acorn Electron's, Oric 1's and even the occasional Dragon 32 in WH Smiths, the youth will once again be unwittingly self-instructed in the art of writing short, memory efficient programs that display amusing profanities and the sexual preferences of their friends on the TV monitors before the store manager realises what they've done, or have indeed calculated how to terminate their witty little programs.

I Am A Centrefold

2012-01-12T18:58:00.001Z

I’ve been offered a most excellent gig by those lovelypeople at The Skeptic Magazine.

A while ago I cobbled together an Alt-Med flowchart toenable the budding Alt Med junkie to select an appropriate pointless therapy.

Anew and improved version of this diagram now nestles proudly in the centre ofthe latest issue of the Skeptic magazine, where you can rip it out and stick iton your wall, if your so inclined.

You can purchase the magazine here. However Iwill be producing regular centrefolds for future editions of the magazine sowhy not subscribe?

Skeptic Trumps: Rhys Morgan

2011-12-06T15:12:00.001Z

Click Here for the full deck of cards

Get your own personalised caricature by Neil Davies

Skeptic Park 4: Featuring Rhys Morgan

Threats From the Burzynski Clinic

The Burzynski Clinic Is Using Libel Laws to Silence Critics of its Cancer Treatment

Make Your Very Own Clarksonator

2011-12-02T23:04:00.001Z

To make your very own Clarksonator, you will need:

3 Sheets of Paper
Some Cardboard
2 brass paper fasteners
Scissors
Stapler
Pritt Stick
A Sharp Pencil
A Computer and Printer
A Sense of Humour
Time on Your Hands
Poor Taste

Print out the above Clarksonator and paste it onto a sheet of thin cardboard.
Cut out a second piece of card the same size to use for the backing.
Cut out the rectangular windows in the front card. You may need to get James May to help you with this bit.
Print out the "Target Wheel" below and paste it onto some card and cut it into a circle.
Using the sharp pencil, make a hole in the centre of the "Target Wheel" and another hole where indicated on the Clarksonator.
Insert the "Target Wheel" between the front and back of the Clarksonator and push the paper fastener through. Open out the fastener at the back and ensure the wheel spins correctly.
Next print out the "Retribution Wheel" shown below and paste it to some cardboard and insert it into the Clarksonator.
Staple the edges of the Clarksonator ensuring not to staple the wheels.

Target Wheel

Retribution Wheel

"The Clarksonator works a treat, the other day I saw some vegetarians, so I consulted my Clarksonator and told them that they should be made into pies and eaten by John Prescott. It was really funny, me and Hammond laughed about it for hours"

James May, Broadcaster

Skeptic Park 4: Featuring Rhys Morgan #Burzynski

2011-11-29T18:31:00.002Z

If your are unfamiliar with intimidating legal threats directed at Rhys and the impressively level headed and rational way in which he has dealt with them, please check out the following blogs:

Previous Skeptic Park Episodes:

Skeptic Park 1: Simon Singh

Skeptic Park 2: Derren Brown

Skeptic Park 3: Evan Harris

Tasty Boxer Short Recipes for Prof. Jim Al-Khalili

2011-11-21T20:26:00.003Z

Despite further experiments at CERN confirming that neutrinos have travelled faster than the speed of light; the scientific community remain a trifle sceptical and still unwilling to resign Einstein’s theory of special relativity to bin just yet.

Nonetheless Prof Jim Al-Khalili, who famously boasted that he would “eat his boxer shorts” if anything travels faster than the speed of light, must surely be eyeing his undercrackers with unpalatable suspicion.

To this end our crack team of particle physicists here at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking have teamed up with top comedy chef Heston Blumenthal, to help alleviate Jim’s woes. In the highly unlikely event that Einstein’s theory turns out to be as much use as Anne Frank’s drum kit, our team have prepared a selection of gourmet recipes for Jim to choose from…

Appetisers

Spiced undercrackers stuffed with braised plums

Deep fried garlic butter shreddies in a tempura batter with trimmed leeks and flat leaf parsley

Tacklebags and coriander fritters with halloumi and sweet lemon dressing

Tandorri kecks in mini pitas with a yoghurt mint dressing

Mains

Baked underchunders with red onions stuffed with toasted spiced couscous

Trolleys tart tatin with shaved manchego and rocket

Peppered underdaks with a whisky sauce

Smoked dung collectors kedgeree

Roast grundies, caramelised apple wedges with a broccoli and mustard jus

Bon Appetit

Beware the Paramyth

2011-11-19T13:02:00.007Z

What’s the fastest growing form of woo woo in Britain today?

Is it perhaps those brash rambunctious religionists at the more happy-clappy end of the spiritual spectrum?
Is it the quack army and their ever-growing canon of inefficacious alternative therapies?
Is it psychics and ghosts hunters who’ve plummeted lowbrow TV to new depths?
Is it the mind-body-spirit brigade of Newage nutters and neopagan fruitcakes who reject formal religion in order to fanny about with their own personalised spiritual delusions?

I suspect not. I would like to propose a new contender that as far as I’m aware, hasn’t even got a specific name yet, so let me try and explain it.

There is a new wave of modern myths sweeping the country that although diverse in nature have a common theme. At the heart of each of these myths is a tiny conspiracy theory that panders to our tabloid fuelled fears that those with different views, traditions and ideas to us, are influencing policies that will bring about the downfall of our traditional way of life.

These paranoid myths (paramyths?) may have a grain of truth at their centre, but have been exaggerated to become outright lies that spread like wild fire by uncritical paramythers more anxious to propagate their ideological agendas than check the facts.

Let me give you a few examples to explain what I’m talking about:

Yesterday my wife was talking to the man on the checkout tills at Asda about opening times over the Christmas period. She was told that Asda would be closed on Christmas Day, but would be open on Boxing Day. Not because of cooperate greed or because that in all probability the other supermarkets in our area will also open on Boxing day but:

“Because of the Muslims.”

No further explanation was necessary. We all know the secret Muslim agenda to turn our beloved Christian country into another Islamic State.

Here’s another example: earlier this week the Telegraph ran with this headline:

“BBC drops Frozen Planet's climate change episode to sell show better abroad”

We all know that those gas-guzzling Yanks put their head in the sand at the first mention of man-made climate change. Why else then would the BBC not package this episode up for sale with the rest of the series?

During the 2010 Football World Cup I remember my kids reporting on a rumour that was making its way around the school yard and virally spreading through facebook that:

“Pubs ban England Shirts”

And a tabloid newspaper championed our cause to fly St George’s Flag in the face of the forces who apparently sought to ban such things.

Again needling the fans to unproportionately act against an ever-popular paper-selling anti-English conspiracy lie. Steven Baxter has a much more reasoned investigation here:

Even a government minister (admittedly one of the more stupid ones) has been sucked in by these paramyths. At this years Conservative Party Conference the Home Secretary, Theresa May, came out with this howler:

“The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had a pet cat."

Theresa May may not have made it up, but some paramyth peddling pillock did, and she uncritically bought it.

But of course the perennial paramyth that always starts to kick off around this time each year is Melanie Philips’ favourite, The Winterval Myth.

Which even the Daily Mail has finally printed a correction on.

I suspect these examples may just be the tip of the iceberg. It’s therefore high time we picked up our burning pitchforks and headed off on our crusade against the paramythers*.

When it comes to hanging monkeys, there are an awful lot of would be Hartlepudlians out there.

*A more suitable name may be substituted if someone comes up with a better one.

It’s Skeptical Correctness Gone Mad

2011-11-18T20:10:00.005Z

Go on, admit it, you all think that Psychic Sally is a big fat fraud.

However, the majority of skeptics and rational commentators on the recent tribulations of the ever so lovely Sally Morgan have gone out of their way to make it perfectly clear that they are absolutely not accusing her of being a fraud. And I too would like to make it quite clear up front to everyone, including Sally’s legal team, that I’m not making that allegation either.

We all know perfectly well that we cannot scientifically disprove Sally’s psychic claims any more than we can disprove Bertrand Russell’s celestial teapot or Carl Sagan’s garage dwelling dragon. The likelihood of Sally’s mystic abilities being supernatural powers currently unknown to science are roughly equivalent to the likelihood of spontaneous heavenly crockery. Indeed the possibility any self proclaimed psychic has genuine paranormal powers are as close to zero as makes no odds, but it is nonetheless important to concede that it’s not an absolute impossibility. It therefore doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to transfer the burden of proof onto Sally, and kindly invite her to prove her mystical abilities under scientifically controlled conditions.

Sally may well be many things, but one think she is clearly not, is a complete and utter fuckwit. She knows as well as we do that the seemingly inexplicable phenomena seen in her stage shows will not manifest themselves under tightly controlled test conditions. She also knows as well as we do that it is not possible to empirically disprove her claims through the scientific method, so it’s hardly surprising that her response is simply to bat the burden of proof back to the skeptical community.

Stalemate.

This deadlocked situation seems to have spawned a set of almost creed-like clichés resonating around the sceptical community. How often have you heard phrases along the lines of?

“Sally may well have genuine psychic abilities; we just want to give her the opportunity to prove her powers beyond all reasonable doubt.”

The sceptical community are reduced to pussyfooting around the big name psychics being ultra careful not to explicitly claim they are frauds (apart from clear cut cases like Peter Popoff).

The preferred tactic seems to be hopelessly goading them into proving their claimed abilities under controlled conditions like the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge with more clichés like:

“We would love for Sally to prove that she has genuine psychic abilities as it would be one of the most monumental scientific discoveries in history”

But would we truly be thrilled and delighted if a psychic were to pass a controlled test? Would we set to work rewriting the science books straight away in the light of this truly astounding new observation? Or would we not still be a little sceptical? Would we be reluctant to immediately overturn a wealth of negative data in the light of a new freak positive? It would certainly be a fascinating discovery that would warrant in depth inquiry, but with extreme caution.

But of course these offers of a potential scientific paradigm shift and the possibility of bringing psychic investigation into the realms of credible science are meaningless carrots, dangled in the safe knowledge that we all know its just a load of old bunkum and cheap parlour tricks really.

Bunkum it almost certainly is, but it’s hard to hammer the point home when restricted by the unwritten rules of sceptical correctness.

Perhaps there is another way. Perhaps it’s just a matter of giving the psychics enough rope and waiting. In the last episode of Derren Brown’s recent series “The Experiments” he conducted an experiment in to luck by seeding a made up rumour of a lucky dog statue. The rumour quickly spread around the local townsfolk and eventually drew the interests of Psychic Sally herself who credulously proclaimed that the statute was standing at the centre of “a vortex of energy”.

This looks like a much better way of exposing bullshit, and helping the public avoid treading in it.

POSTSCRIPT:
Well spotted commenters, I did mean to include something about self delusion. Just read fraud in its broadest terms covering both conscious and self deluded.

My Psychic Sally Toolkit

2011-11-06T10:46:00.003Z

Poor old Psychic Sally Morgan has had atough time lately.

After reports that a caller to an Irishradio show alleged that Sally was being fed information on stage via an earpiece,the media furor and sceptical enquiry that followed has no doubt been verytrying for Sally.

To her credit though she is continuing toentertain vast crowds of believers at her lucrative live shows. Suchperformances no doubt take a considerable amount mental strain, so during these difficulttimes for Sally I thought I’d try and help ease the pressure.

The following table will provide 20³uniquecombinations of fatuous flannel with which to entertain her adoring devotees.Simply select a random “fishing” statement from the first column and then basedon the gender, age, ethnicity, fashion, accent and body language of theresponder select a suitable “qualifier” statement from the second column.Finally select any random “appeasement” statement from the third column and thejobs a good’un.

Fish	Qualify	Appease
Something like “David”	Pain in the back	Passed quickly
A woman from the North	Loved children	Is in a better place
Someone with a “S” in their name	Had an accident	Says not to worry
A tall person	Became quite frail	Is much happier now
A sister	Incapacitated	Forgives you
Smells of flowers	On or near water	Says they're sorry
Always wears a dress	Cancer	Is happy for you
Unlucky in love	Hadn’t seem them for years	Is thinking of you
A Sagittarian	Had a big heart	Misses you
A very devout lady	Never a bad word to say	Says to look down the back of the sofa
With the initials J and C	Tends to worry a lot	Is glad to be with their spouse again
Born in the winter	Generous to a fault	Thinks this Psychic show is very good value for money
From a large family	Worked very hard	Says you’ll find someone soon
Has a blue car	Never had much money	Thinks you might have left the gas on
Gets indigestion from onions	Liked a drink	Is at peace
Likes soap operas	On or near water	Likes your hair
Recently bereaved	Smoked like chimney	Is no longer in pain
Has a short name with only 3 or 4 letters	Liked to Drive their motorbike very fast	Has nothing scientifically relevant to say that could confirm the existence of an afterlife
Little old lady	Got mutilated late last night	Werewolves of London again
Peoples Princess	Didn’t wear her seatbelt	Beware the horse-faced woman

Skeptics in the Planetarium

2011-11-05T10:36:00.004Z

The Hampshire Skeptics Society cordially invite you to join them on the 8th of December, 2011 at Winchester's premier nightspot*, Intech Science Centre and Planetarium!

Tickets Available Here

We are immensely proud to announce that we will be joined by the following esteemed guests:

Sheila Kanani - Mullard Space Science Laboratory

Sheila is a PhD student at UCL (Mullard Space Science Laboratory) who, when not building spacecraft like the Cassini Probe, analysing the data from such probes before anyone else on the planet gets to see it, inspiring the next generation of UK physicists and teaching at Space School UK , likes to unwind by entertaining the masses at events such as Bright Club and Spacetacular!.

Helen Arney - Physicist, Festival of the Spoken Nerd, musical comedian, all round good egg

For anyone that attended this years sell-out Uncaged Monkeys tour, Helen needs no introduction. Unless of course you suffer from short term memory syndrome. In which case; brilliant! You are going to enjoy Helen's set even more as every song will break over you like the first flush of love and each, frankly, disgusting aside will make you blush like a sixteen year old debutante who has accidentally stumbled upon her fathers secret cake stash. If you would like a sneak preview, check out Helen's fantastic work here.

Helen Keen - Space Enthusiast! Robot Enthusiast! Tea Enthusiast! Survivalist!

Quite frankly how we managed to blag an appearance from Helen, now that she is the comedian in residence at Newcastle's Centre for Life and following her hit Radio 4 show It IS Rocket Science is beyond me although our threat to release the compromising video of her throwing a diva hissy fit and smacking long suffering writing partner Miriam Underhill across the upper arms until she cried, may have something to with it (Thanks Kash, I owe you one buddy!).

Robin Ince - Science Groupie, Scientist Herder, President of the Richard Feynman Appreciation Society

I don't need to even write anything here, do I? If you don't appreciate how amazing it is that Robin is joining us this evening then you are dead to me, dead...

We will have a fully licensed bar and some really cheap food and if we ask Dr. Jenny Shipway really nicely she may even put on a planetarium show for us all on a night that promises to be one you will never forget!**

*(If looking up at the stars is your thing)

**(Short term memory syndrome - see Helen Arney)

Many thanks to James Thomas for arraigning the venue and special guests and providing the above text.

We also plan to be publishing a new exciting calendar of speakers for 2012 at Winchester Skeptics in the Pub here soon.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To Religion

2011-11-02T22:11:00.003Z

Religion: Some information to help you live with it.

Religion is farfetched. Really farfetched. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly farfetched it is. I mean, you may think it's fairly improbable that fairies exist, but that's just peanuts to religion. Listen ….

The Messiah

The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a Messiah as

“A humanoid deity designed to suffer the sins of man”

The marketing division of the Holy Roman Catholic Church describe a Messiah as:

"Your Pretend Pal Who's Fun To Be With."

Curiously enough an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that fell through a temporal python warp from 1979 defined the Messiah as:

“A very naughty boy”

The Christian Fish

Pan Galactic Communion Wine

To make your own Pan Galactic Communion Wine:

Take the blood from one body of that Ol' Christ Spirit after muttering a few magic spells over some cheap red plonk.

Add a wafer.

Drink, but very unquestioningly.

The effect is like having your brain washed by a slice of theology wrapped round a large logical impossibility.

Islamic Sermons

Islamic sermons are of course, the third worst in the universe. The second worst is that of the Jews of Israel. During a recitation by their chief Rabbi Yona Metzger the Groper of his sermon "Ode To A Signature I Forged One Mid Summer Morning" four of his audience suffered severe groping and the women suffered sexual harassment. Yona was reported to have denied the allegations and claimed it was a violation of the basic human rights enjoyed by every individual. The very worst sermons of all are by Anne Atkins and are aired on The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 during Thought for the Day.

Apologies to the great DNA.

How Many Festival Tents Does it Take to Close a Cathedral?

2011-10-26T18:24:00.012+01:00

Q: How Many Festival Tents Does it Take to Close a Cathedral?
A: About 97

I know this because during my lunch break I left my warm office on the South Bank, trip-trapped over the Millennium Bridge and walked up the magnificent front steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, completely unimpeded.

I stood near the top of the easily accessible, completely unobstructed front steps and did a quick recce of the small array of tightly packed dome tents at one side of the foot of the steps. A quick tot-up from my vantage point revealed around 97 tents (not counting the additional protesters hidden out of sight around the side of the Cathedral).

The tents were fronted up by a small number of quiet, well-mannered protesters who were significantly outnumbered by films crews, press photographers, curious onlookers, opportunistic leafleters and intrepid bloggers on their lunch break.

Firstly, I have to congratulate the protestors for peacefully and safely invoking their right to free speech and effectively raising the awareness of the Occupy The City campaign (#OccupyLSX), whilst being far less obstructive to the Cathedral visitors than the normal £14.50 admission charge.

However, as worthy as this campaign may well be, this blog is more concerned with the irrational knee-jerk behaviour of the Cathedral’s custodians. Whether the church officials acted on undisclosed health and safety grounds or were simply worried that church visitors might be exposed to the forces of liberal free-thought as a valid alternative to unquestionable authoritarianism is unclear, but either way they chose to make their stand and close the Cathedral. As time goes by and it becomes clearer that a wrong decision has been made, the Bishop of London has had to call for the protestors to move on to save themselves the embarrassment of admitting they were wrong to close the Cathedral in the first place.

I’m rather hoping that the protestors will dig their heels in, as the deafening silence of the Cathedral tills is likely to spur the church officials into action. Of course all that is really required is for the church officials to simply hold up their hands up and re-evaluate their hasty closure decision. However, despite plenty of practise at it, the church are still not especially good at admitting when they're wrong, but perhaps they can find a weaselly way of reversing their decision and attempting to save face.

But the interesting thing we have discovered is that it turns out to be far easier to close down a Cathedral than anyone suspected. I’m not especially anxious to close down Cathedrals, but I am always terribly excited at yet another opportunity to expose the frequently inherent irrationally of religious leaders.

So armed with the useful information that it takes less than 100 strategically positioned small festival tents to bring a major Cathedral to its knees, it might be time to extrapolate again.

As there are 42 Cathedrals in the United Kingdom, and assuming that the church officials for each Cathedral are as stupid as those at St Paul’s, then it will take a mere 4,074 happy campers to close down every Cathedral in the land on Sunday morning.

So, anyone fancy a camping trip this weekend?

Normally I’d love to join you, but I’ve actually got a rather nice Hotel booked this weekend. Solidarity Brothers.

(Oh, and Sisters, sorry Loretta).

UPDATE:

If perchance you would prefer some quality investigative journalism to my vitriolic catcalling, I would highly recommend a visit to my good friend David’s Blog over on the New Statesman where he has fairly and intelligently dissected the whole sorry affair.

What Must The Catholic Church Do To Finally Concede The Moral High Ground?

2011-10-18T12:56:00.005+01:00

Whist morality is an innate human quality with evolutionary advantages, it was nonetheless well shepherded in early cultural development by religion. Although we now have a better understanding of the natural origins of morality and are more than capable of being good without god, tradition and culture still maintain the now defunct association between religion and morality. So much so that as soon as we suspect a moral decline the first port of call for the press and media is always a priest or bishop to point us in the right moral direction. We install Bishops in the House of Lords to ensure a moral health-check on new legislation and we religiously broadcast platitudes on the Radio 4's Today programme just to keep our moral compasses in check. Tradition, culture and public opinion will simply not accept the uncoupled status of religion and morality.

To their credit though, the Catholic Church have been working very hard to clearly demonstrate this misconnect. We are familiar with the church's institutionalised child abuse and habitual cover ups, we’re familiar with the frequent homophobia, the antiquated suppression of women and the unforgivable deadly sexual health misinformation. But the vast majority of us still refuse to let the church step down from the moral high ground.

Today sees a new low in Catholic immorality as the secret of Spain’s stolen babies is finally revealed. Parents considered “undesirable” or morally or economically deficient by priests, nuns and doctors were told their babies had died so that they could be placed with “approved” families.

Despite the revelation of this latest scandal (which the Catholic Church is of course at the heart of), I have no doubts that we will still be encouraged to look up to these child traffickers for our moral guidance.

I’ll wager that even if the Vatican installed gas chambers and ovens in St Peter’s Basilica and invaded Poland, we would still be wheeling in a priest to give us a good talking to on our depraved morality.

When Will The Church of England Shut Up Shop For The Last Time?

2011-10-01T18:58:00.001+01:00

It’s that fun time again when the Office of National Statistics release a whole bunch of completely unsurprising figures that the newspapers can spin to reflect whatever point of view they suspect will sell the most papers. I might as well add my own biased spin to counter the Daily Mail's arse dribble.

In 2011, 68.5% of the UK population apparently identified themselves as Christian, compared to 71.3 % the previous year, with the overwhelming majority of the slack being taken up by us godless heathens.

These percentages of course refer to “Cultural Christians” rather than “Practicing Christians”, indeed the wording of the question includes the caveat “even if not currently practicing”. However, what I think is a far more pertinent statistic, is the actual Church attendance numbers.

The above graph shows the average weekly attendance of Church of England services over the last 10 years. Indeed, if you look at the source you can see this same declining trend in Sunday Worship going all the way back to the late 1960’s. There is of course no surprise in seeing this steady slump in church attendance. Each year an average of 14,300 fewer people attend Anglican services.

That means that on average, each week, 275 regular church attendees have either died or have woken up and decided that it's all a bit silly really and they’d rather have a nice lie in of a Sunday morning.

Of course extrapolating figures generally leads to some very dodgy conclusions, but what the hell, let’s extrapolate anyway.

Assuming the same steady decline continues year on year at the same rate, then on Sunday 16th January 2089 the last 75 stragglers will wander through the hallowed doors for one final sing-song and a couple of nice platitudes before being sent on their merry way for the last time. The following week, Sunday 23rd January 2089, every church, chapel and cathedral across England will be empty, vacant, void. Completely deserted.

I wonder if on Monday 24th January 2089 when the Daily Mail reports with horror that no bugger turned up for Church yesterday, that the government will still feel justified in their support of an education policy that actively discriminates based on the alleged religious beliefs of parents and a theocratic admissions policy for the House of Lords.

After all, if I were to believe this dodgy extrapolation, it could be in the lifetime of my children.

The “Christian" Killing of Troy Davis

2011-09-22T12:48:00.001+01:00

At 11:08PM (03:08 GMT), Troy Davis was pronounced dead following his execution by the state of Georgia for the murder of police officer Mark MacPhail.

Despite claims from Amnesty that there “was serious doubts about his guilt", the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency.

The current members of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles that approved the killing of Troy Davis by lethal injection are listed here. The board members biographies include the following quotes:

“He is involved in a local Baptist Church and takes part in many community events and activities.”

“He is an avid supporter of his church and community activities, and serves as a member of several government and civic boards.”

In fact the Hinterland Gazette state that all 5 members of the board are Christians “Who hold the word of God true and close at Heart”.

I would hope that if any UK government agencies where staffed solely with members of a particular religious persuasion, then a few flags of bias concern would be raised. However, I suspect that in the state of Georgia, the fact that the State Board of Pardons and Paroles is exclusively representative of one specific religious viewpoint is no more surprising than the fact that the Georgia Right to Life, anti abortion organisation is also dominated by Christian dogmas.

To a non Christian it may seem rather paradoxical that Christian ideology is both the driving force behind anti abortion and euthanasia organisations as well as common trait in those that appear to support a barbaric death penalty willing to take the life of a fellow human being.

However any perceived paradox is merely a misunderstanding of Christian ideology. Where there is unquestioning faith in an all powerful supernatural being with the ultimate power and divine right to both grant, and ruthlessly take away life, it is inevitable that there will be mortal accomplices willing to assist.

POSTSCRIPT:

In answer to Michael Grayer's excellent comment below the fold...

I have indeed mined the two quotes from the biographies of the 2 board members that include a statement of their Christian faith on their official State Board biographies. The other three board members do not include a statement of faith in their biographies. There seems however little doubt that all 5 members are practicing Christians as can bee seen from the following links that I apologise for not including in the original post.

L Gale Buckner is "an ctive member of the Holy Creek Baptist Church"

Robert E. Keller is a "Sunday School teacher, choir member and administrative board member of the Jonesboro First United Methodist Church"

and (not quite so conclusive I admit) Albert Murray's background includes the use of faith based programmes for at-risk youths.

I think my original point stands, the killing of Troy Davis was sanctioned by 5 Christians. Of course I would expect most moderate Christians to oppose the death penalty, hence my supposed paradox, however there remains an uncanny correlation (not necessarily a causation) between right wing christian views and the support of the death penalty. I was therefore simply musing that the worshipping of a deity who frequently demonstrates scant regard for human life my influence similar thinking in his followers.

Teach The Controversy?

2011-09-19T21:24:00.002+01:00

Scientists demand tougher guidelines

Magical v. Rational Candles

2011-09-18T12:30:00.007+01:00

My wife loves candles.

Our garden is strewn with lanterns, numerous devices for holding tea lights and a selection of garden candles. Things don’t get much better inside, we have candles perched on the mantelpiece and suspended from anywhere that will grant suitable purchase. If Thomas Eddison ever comes round for tea, he’ll wonder why he bothered.

One of the gifts bestowed upon my wife from one of her friends for her birthday last month was, unsurprisingly, a candle. Partly because of my wife’s love of candles, but also (I suspect), partly to try and wind me up, as it was no ordinary candle, it was a magical candle.

I often try and parody irrational nonsense on this blog by ridiculing uncritical ideas or exaggerating irrational claims to their extreme to expose their inherent silliness.

However as much as I tried, I couldn’t write anything more outlandish or more amusing than the text already supplied with the magical candle. So here it is:

"The Herbs and oils included in this candle are associated with the moon.

Use this candle for psychic receptivity, intuition, soul dreams, magic, emotional memory, adaptability, feelings and reflection.

Our ancestors used candles for both ritual & domestic purposes. The sacred flame can be used as a focus in candle burning to reflect the divine light within. Through colour and magical herbal infusions added to the wax when blending each candle serves its own purpose.

Three important factors to remember when candle burning are Concentration, Visualisation and Willpower.

Energy follows thought. To turn your dreams, wishes and visualisations into realities, follow thought with action, charged with the cosmic energy of the sacred flame.

Until not too long ago, candles and oil lamps were the only source of light after night had fallen and during the long hours of darkness during the winter months, candles lit up the imagination, painted shadows on the walls and illuminated the twilight zone between consciousness and imagination.

Star Child Magical Candles are created by hand, using a selection of high quality waxes to ensure a long lasting flame, each candle is potentised with our lunar prepared magical infusions.

Many spiritual traditions use candles as magical tools to reflect the divine light or as votive offerings to accompany prayers.

Our candles are intended to kindle the sacred flame within and bring your magic alive, they may be used for spiritual and ritual work to aid concentration for a specific magical intent. As you focus on the flame visualise your intentions being consumed and transformed into ethereal thought forms.

Magical Candles create an ambience which helps focus attention and at the same time serves as a reminder of the inner flame, the divine spark that shines within.

Our Magical Infusions contain herbs, flowers, resins, barks and magical tokens collected at sacred sites from all over the world. They are prepared in accordance with the cycles of the sun and the moon. The symbols assigned to each type of candle indicate the ethereal nature of the special infusions added to the respective blends and thus provide a reference to their magical qualities.

Magically, the purpose of invoking planetary and elemental energies is to bring about corresponding changes on the mental, physical or emotional plane."

Impressive bollocksmithing indeed.

As it was my wife’s friend’s birthday last week, I felt compelled to return the favour, so I repackaged a standard garden candle as a “Rational Candle”. Here it is with my accompanying product information:

I’m pretty sure she’ll see the funny side as I’m confident she rightly treats the rhetoric of the magical candle with a pinch of salt.

In fact I imagine most people who buy the candles must either buy them as a tongue in cheek novelty item or because they simply like the fairytale ambience and tone of the product rather than a staunch belief in the candles ability to actually increase psychic receptibility.

I also suspect that the company that manufactures the candles are motivated to do so more by their business acumen to fill a market requirement rather than a blind belief in the magical qualities of their products. And of course their mystical yet shrewd weasel words insure that no specific magical claims are actually made. Like Boots selling un-evidenced homeopathy, if people are daft enough to buy it, there’s always someone more than willing to sell it.

So I’m not going to take the bait and write a lengthy diatribe on the dangers and consequences of such wooly thinking. I’m optimistic enough to hope that even the targeted consumers don’t really take the magical candle bullshit seriously.

But nonetheless I can’t help but feel a little bemused. I think that the information on my rational candle, though no doubt considered dry and boring by the majority, is far more awe inspiring than the more marketable new age dribble espoused by the magical candle.

As explained on my rational candle, the colours of the flame can be used to construe the molecular composition of the consumed fuel. A basic scientific principle that when investigated by the likes of Herschel, Talbot and Swan was extrapolated to allow scientists to use spectral analysis to deduce the chemical composition of the distant stars and thus determine that hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe. Why is that not more fascinating?

As Douglas Adams famously wrote:

"Is it not enough to see that the garden is beautiful, without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

In many cases, apparently not.

An Apology from God … Inspired by Johann Hari

2011-09-15T20:18:00.007+01:00

Having recently read Johann Hari’s apology in The Independent I felt that I ought to come clean too …

I did two wrong and stupid things.

The first concerns that fact that I have allowed many people to believe that the Bible is my literal word.

When we compiled the bible we found historical accounts that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time they were written, but later didn’t really convey the values we wanted to propagate. Some were quite confusing and unclear. When this happened we simply excluded these accounts from the bible and selected alternative accounts that expressed our current vision for Christianity. At the time I justified this by saying I was giving the clearest possible representation of what the religion should be like.

But I was wrong. A divinely revealed text isn’t a cherry picked selection of man-made narratives and stories to support a particular ideology and currently fashionable set of values. It’s a beautiful articulate and comprehensible celestial dictation of the mind of an all-powerful supernatural entity that transcends current knowledge and confirms subsequently discovered wisdom. If you want to simply compile a canon of man made ideas, histories and laws there are conventions to let you do that. You write, “The best explanation at the time was” rather than “And so it came to pass”, and instead of “Thus said the Lord” you write “So said some bloke or other with voices in his head”.

If I had asked some of the other deities they would have told me how best to chronicle my myths. It was arrogant and stupid of me not to ask.

The other thing I did wrong was that I started to allow religious fundamentalists to create visions of the religion that weren’t my own. Using this fundamentalism I allowed them to try and take out scientific facts that contradicted my revealed word. I allowed fundamentalists to hold views that were divisive and exclusive. I even allowed some of them to say that "I hate fags". I am mortified to have done this because it breaches the most basic humanitarian principles. I appologise to the later group unreservedly and totally.

If it were the other way around – if another deity had been homophobic, attempted to subjugate women or promote dangerous misinformation on sexual health – I’d be withering. I’d say, it’s not hard, stop spreading such divisive misinformation, and don’t threaten disbelievers with eternal torture. Spare me the self-pitying excuses. Plenty of deities have your problems and pressures and none have the amount of followers you do, and they don’t do anything half as awful.

In 2007 I travelled to Lourdes to heal a few believers of cancer. An anonymous claim was made that I had failed to divinely intervene and send the cancer of one pilgrim into remission. However, a Vatican investigation into these claims said that it was a real miracle and that they had photos and everything.

The worst part of this for me has been thinking about the people I have let down. The believers who have prayed to me over the years and told me they love all the stuff I’ve done in the bible. I am sorry that it isn’t all literally true.

But offering words of apology is not enough. So first, even though I stand by my account in Genesis, I am renouncing the geocentric model. I am withdrawing it as an act of contrition for the errors I made elsewhere. But this isn’t much, since it has been abandoned by scientists for years anyway. So second, I am going to take an unpaid leave of absence from the universe, and at my own expense I will be undertaking a programme of deity training. (I created the earth in just six days straight after the big bang). And third, when I return I’ll finally stamp out all wars, poverty and suffering.

Many thanks to Johann for helping me see my own flaws and I would like to apologise again to my believers and the people hurt by my actions. I know that some of you have lost faith in my work. I will do everything I can now to regain it. I hope, after a period of retraining, you will give me the chance.

Yours God.

2012 Olympic Prayer Testing

2011-09-13T16:16:00.004+01:00

Great Britain's athletes are being warned about the risks of seeking divine intervention in the build-up to the 2012 Olympics.

Recent high profile cases have seen British shot putter Sister Inviolata of the Immaculate Conception banned for four months after members of her convent tested positive for intercessory prayer.

It is this sort of thing that UK Anti Wishful Thinking Agency is keen to help athletes avoid as the time approaches when the eyes of the sporting world will be focused on London.

Surveys have shown that one in ten British athletes have at one time or other dabbled with performance enhancing prayers in the hope of gaining a slight edge over their competitors. Many athletes believe that the all powerful deity of their choice will be willing to influence the outcome of sporting events to their advantage and the detriment of their fellow athletes, if they ask nicely enough.

A spokeswoman for the UK Anti Wishful Thinking Agency stated that prayer abuse has been rife in many sports for years but due to the inability to record any actual measurable differences in those athletes using divine intervention, it has always been hard to prosecute.

In the run up to the London 2012 Olympics athletes are being warned that the prayer-testing authorities are being extra vigilant and will be keeping an eye out for the tell-tale signs of illegal performance enhancing prayers such as the possession of rosary beads, a travel rug or the excessive head-butting of tall walls.

With many prayers readily available these days in high street churches and mosques it is all too easy for unsuspecting young athletes to get access to mystic mantras and celestial appeals that they do not realise are on the World Supernatural Pleading Prohibited list.

The UK Anti Wishful Thinking Agency will be working with many young British athletes over the coming months to educate them in basic critical thinking techniques to ensure they do not fall foul of these strict anti prayer regulations. A spokeswoman for the agency stated:

'I think it's something that everyone would agree with and is an aim for everyone involved in sport - to make it as incredulous as possible. That is what we are all working towards.'

Science Reason & Critical Thinking wish all our athletes the very best of British and advise them to keep their heads up and their hands apart.

Why Photographs of the Apollo Landing Site Will Not Convince the Denialists

2011-09-08T12:29:00.008+01:00

As interesting and fascinating as this weeks lunar photographs showing the Apollo landing sites are, they are as much use as tits on a bull when it comes to convincing moon landing deniers of the reality of those epic and pioneering missions.

If a belief has been uncritically adopted because it aligns with existing beliefs and assumptions, was communicated by an articulate authority figure to impressionable ears, or simply panders to the subjects inbuilt paranoia, then logical reasoned arguments and even photographic evidence will struggle to overturn them.

Such beliefs become even harder to overturn as they become entrenched over time as believers invest more and more personal stock in that belief. Indeed believers are able to add more and more ridiculous beliefs to their arsenal as their initial foundations become more solidified. This is the principal deviously employed by scientology. No one in their right mind can be pulled off the street and made to believe that they are inhabited by the tortured souls of dead aliens who came to earth long ago in a big ass spaceship. This is precisely why scientology sought to restrict such information to those believers who had progressed their credulity far enough to uncritically accept such ideas. By spoon feeding nonsense in small increments it eventually becomes possible to believe in the most outlandish nonsense.

In much the same way creationism, homophobia and female subjugation can sit firmly on the solid foundation of more mainstream and acceptable religious beliefs. Moon landing denial is another example of a rather silly belief taking root on the foundations of other conspiracy “theories” which in turn often sit on perfectly plausible conspiracies. As a general rule of thumb the addition of the qualifier “theory” is usually a good demarcation marker as to when things get a bit silly.

Back to the point. Having developed and embroidered a rather nutty idea (such as moon landing denial) and spending years shoring it up with cherry picked anecdotes, it becomes a matter of routine to simply bat away any inconvenient and incontrovertible evidence that would at first sight appear to piss on that theory. In fact the more ridiculous the belief, the easier it becomes to invent ridiculous excuses to explain away inconvenient truths. I’m sure the conspiracy theory message boards will already be rammed with comments from believers claiming that NASA are “in” on the conspiracy and the photographs are therefore clearly photoshopped. Presumably there’ll be some much more elaborate excuses too.

There are countless examples of frauds and charlatans who've methods have been clearly exposed, yet the faithful continue to follow undeterred. So I suspect that even If the most ardent moon landing denialist was physically taken to the moon and shown the Apollo landing site first hand, he would no doubt still claim he'd been in a flight simulator and a film set.

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending)

2011-08-31T20:50:00.004+01:00

In Professor Edzard Ernst’s article in today’s Guardian regarding the alternative-medicine version of detox, he states that:

"Unless someone is very severely ill, the elimination of toxins is most efficiently being taken care of by various organs – for instance, the liver, kidneys, skin, lungs and the gut. In a healthy person, the function of these systems is already optimal. No improvements are needed or can be achieved by detox therapies."

This is of course simply because the currently available alternative medicine detox techniques such as diet supplements, goji berries, and even the old hosepipe up the jacksie routine are simply not sufficiently potent enough to have any effect beyond the body’s natural detoxifying processes.

As there is clearly a market for a more effective form of alternative detox, our team of crack scientists at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking has worked through his lunch break to develop the Detox 2000 (Patent Pending).

Ernst states that currently available colon cleansing techniques have been unable to show good clinical evidence to prove that they lower toxin levels in the body. As previously stated this is probably just because the gentle nature of the currently available colonic irrigation systems are simply not aggressive enough to remove the more stubborn clingons from the colon wall. This will not be a problem for the Detox 2000 (patent pending).

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending) uses a heavy duty industrial standard high pressure blaster to thrust a specially prepared cocktail of bleach, ground chillies and fun snaps at a pressure of 800 bar (1,670,834 Pounds / Square Foot) into the patient’s lower colonic access portal.

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending) is the ideal detox remedy for today’s self-indulgent consumers, allowing them to eat whatever the hell they like, whenever they like, safe in the knowledge that they can always ram their Detox 2000 (Patent Pending) up their arseholes as soon as they get home.

BTW has anyone got an email address for Duncan Bannatyne or Deborah Meaden? I’m looking for an investment of £87.70 (for a days tool hire in order to conduct a clinical trial on the dog), in exchange for 20% equity in the Detox 2000 (Patent Pending).

Scientifically Accurate Labelling of the Acupuncture Meridians and Acupoints

2011-08-30T22:05:00.009+01:00

Acupuncturists claim to be able to treat a whole range of ailments by strategically inserting needles into various acupoints along the body’s meridian lines in order to control the flow of an invisible life energy known as ch’i or qi, and thus balance the body’s mystical yin and yang.

Following an in-depth and investigation into alternative therapies, in the bestseller Trick or Treatment, science writer Dr. Simon Singh and, Britain’s first Professor of Complementary Medicine, Prof. Edzard Ernst, summarize this basic principle of acupuncture thus:

“The traditional principles of acupuncture are deeply flawed, as there is no evidence at all to demonstrate the existence of Ch’I or meridians.”

But just because a therapy is scientifically implausible if it nonetheless produces unequivocal positive results then we must still consider it a valuable therapy. However, Singh and Ernst’s go on to conclude:

“By focusing on the increasing number of high-quality research papers, reliable conclusions from systematic reviews make it clear that acupuncture does not work for a whole range of conditions, except as a placebo. Hence, if you see acupuncture being advertised by a clinic, then you can assume that it does not really work, except possibly in the treatment of some types of pain and nausea.”

The above quote is taken from a more detailed conclusion that I would recommend reading in full. But it certainly seems from their investigation into the evidence that jabbing the patient outside of the recognised meridians or acupoints or indeed pretending to jab them with either telescopic sham needles, or simply not inserting the needles far enough, has pretty much the same effect as “proper” acupuncture for all treatments other than possibly certain types of pain and nausea.

Nevertheless, if the theatrical nature of acupuncture induces a measurable placebo effect then some may argue that there is still a benefit to its usage. However, as more and more healthcare practitioners recognise the importance of honesty with their patients we should perhaps consider more ethical methods of conveying acupuncture.

Most acupuncture patients are familiar with the standard acupuncture maps showing the body’s meridians and their various acupoints along those meridians that supposedly have distinct influences on different ailments. Rather than tall stories of ancient pre-scientific notions of an invisible and undetectable life energy why not simply state the most plausible explanations for any perceived benefit. All we actually need to do to achieve this is to simply re-label the meridian lines to describe how they are most likely to work and re-label the acupoints to describe the current unequivocally scientifically proven effect of that particular acupoint.

I’ve even done it for you …

Oh, OK I admit it, it was all just a convoluted way of strategically placing the label "Sweet Fanny Adams" on the anatomical acupuncture chart, but I can never resist a good fanny gag.

An Optimist’s Tour of the Future: One Curious Man Sets Out to Answer “What’s Next?”

2011-08-20T10:01:00.009+01:00

Anyone who knows me or has been following my blog for a while will know that I self-identify with the label “Skeptic”.

I’ve written before about some of the unfortunate conations of the term skeptic, especially when people misuse the term to express their personal disbelief in a pre-designated concept, often as a result of indoctrination into a belief rather than as the result of following a rigours methodology.

I view scepticism rather like the scientific method itself, as a tool. I try not to simply sort ideas into either bollocks or bona fide and then seek validation for my arbitrary taxonomy. I like to think I use the critical and fair methods of scepticism to logically determine whether or not I should throw yet another belief into the bollocks bucket or not. Although to be fair, I do seem to have ended up with a rather bumper bucket of bollocks brimming with bullshit.

Another unfortunate connotation of the term skeptic is some of the words it is associated with. Here’s a screen grab from Theasaurus.com for the word “Skeptic”.

I’d be proud for most of these synonyms to be emblazoned on my T Shirts. I particularly like “Freethinker”, “Heathen”, “Profaner” and “Rationalist”. But there are two words in this list that I do not identify with:

Cynic and Pessimist

The Notes on the screen grab give a half reasonable differentiation between cynics and skeptics, although I would have preferred some usage of the word “evidence” to be included in close proximity to the word “skeptic.”

As for the term “Pessimist”, that really isn’t me at all. I am the complete opposite of a pessimist. When posed with the perennial glass half empty/full chestnut, I don’t merely see the glass as half full, I invariably suspect there’s actually probably a little bit more than half left in it and anyway I was just going to the bar so I’ll get another one if I really need to.

In short, I’m an optimist who likes to critically evaluate ideas.

How fortuitous then that a few months ago, despite no pending book orders, the book shaped package that appeared on my doorstep contained a copy of Mark Stevenson’s splendid book: An Optimists Tour of the Future.

Mark actually contacted me on Facebook just over two years ago now and sent me some very kind comments about my blog. He mentioned his devotion to critical thinking and the scientific method and he told me he was going to write a book. I told Mark how envious I was of his opportunity and wished him all the best.

I didn’t hear from Mark for a long time, presumably he was off somewhere on his exciting adventure, researching his book or whatever it is that authors do with their advances.

I have of course now read Mark’s book, and I’ve found out exactly what he’d been up to, but I’d never once imagined what a fascinating, inspirational, enlightening and heartening adventure he had been having.

In a bravely ambitious quest to find credible scientific answers to the burning question of what the future holds, Mark compiled a remarkable visiting list of pioneering scientists, entrepreneurs, world leaders and environmentalists. All of which are capable of thinking so far outside of the box you are left wondering why you ever considered the box a viable method of packaging in the first place.

Mark deftly circumnavigates the very sharpest cutting edges of science without suffering a single prick.

The first port of call regards the limitations of the human body, after all I guess it's good to know how far the future will personally concern us before we set off on our journey.

Marks delves into the bold claims of the transhumanists and emerges with a just credible vision of human longevity before exploring the advances in gene sequencing that provide clear and unarguable predictions of a revolution in a more personalised healthcare system that really does just seem to be around the corner.

Moving from man to machine Mark probes the current advances in robotics and artificial intelligence with some fascinating visits that would translate beautifully into a more visual media if Mark gets the opportunity. Mark’s impressive visiting schedule in this part of the journey includes interviews with noted pioneers Vint Cerf and Ray Kurzweil.

However perhaps the most important area where a bit of optimism is required is around the pressing concerns of climate change, environmental issues and renewable energy. Of course this is where blind optimism would in fact be more of a hindrance than a help with mere wishful thinking providing false hope and curbing more credible research into some of the planets current key issues. But surely if there were well-founded and scientifically feasible suggestions that could have a serious impact on some of these questions we would have heard about them by now? Well if you haven’t, that is exactly why you simply must read this book.

But finally, many thanks to Mark for so eloquently pointing out that my beloved scepticism does not go hand in hand with pessimism.

Winchester #SitP 25th August with Alice Sheppard

2011-08-19T10:39:00.000+01:00

Nadine Dorries: We Should Shut Me Down During an Outbreak of Public Stupidity

2011-08-16T13:32:00.001+01:00

Nadine Dorries is MP for Mid Narnia and a member of the council of Aslan

The question on Radio Unicorn this morning was – Should we or shouldn’t we shut me down during an outbreak of public stupidity?

I think we should.

During the first battle of Beruna in Narnia I was instantly closed down. As it happens I was stood next to the Aslan at the time explaining to him about the importance of female only lion cub abstinence. I remember it well. The precedent for silencing fuckwits like me to prevent influencing public stupidity has already been set, even though it has possibly not yet been acknowledged by the Daily Mail.

Admittedly deluded MP’s like me can be used for as source of amusement as well as stupidity.

But we must also remember that me and David Tredinnick are used to spread misinformation, to disrupt evidence based policy and to direct the deluded and dim-witted towards irrational, unscientific and illiberal policies.

In this disturbing new world, is it not time to inject a little common sense and shut me down before I say something else stupid?

Keep your knickers on.

Mad Nad

x x x

Is The 27 Club Statistically Significant?

2011-07-24T14:05:00.016+01:00

Shortly after the sadly premature death of the undoubtably talented Amy Winehouse last night, I tweeted that yet another rock star has tragically died at the curious age of 27.

The prestigious ranks of the infamous 27 club include Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Brian Jones (The Rolling Stones), Jim Morrison (The Doors) as well as Jimi Hendix and Janis Joplin.

I was however taken to task for the non sceptical nature of my tweet, suggesting that I was perhaps implying some supernatural driver to this interesting coincidence.

I thought I was merely commenting on an interesting coincidence, but this got me thinking. But before we even consider if there is a reason, we must first determine if its is even statistically significant enough to warrant needing a reason at all.

So, ignoring age, I listed whom I considered to be the 100 most well known dead "rock" stars, and then I looked up their ages and shoved them into an excel spreadsheet. (Not completeley blinded alas as I had a fair idea of roughly how old they all were). Anyway, I've highlighted the "27 club" in red:

Of course there are many other rock stars in the 27 Club, but I selected whom I considered the most well known across the board rather than cherry picking (or indeed ignoring) any particular age. However, I accept it is only an arbitrary sample.

I then plotted the total number of dead rock stars by age, and came up with the following graph:

27 is indeed the most common age of death for the most well known rock stars, but the red line doesn't seem as if it is any longer than mere chance might produce for any random age. Indeed if I widened my sample of rock stars to a 1,000 I'd be unsurprised to see the red line even less statically significant.

But that's not to say that there are not a number of complex reasons why 27 turns out to be the mode in my graph. Perhaps those with a constitution unsuitable for the rock star life make them vulnerable after a certain amount of exposure to drugs and alcohol which commonly coincides with this age.

I think taking an interest in the 27 Club is worth while merely to revisit the unfortunate talent that has been admitted. I'm pretty sure we can do this without invoking any supernatural or paranormal false justification.

Of Course regardless of whether this unfortunate guild has coalesced around a truly random number or a number resulting from a complex array of natural and social phenomenon, the fact remains that 27 is now the magic number that has entered our culture. Like all superstitions we are now free to willfully ignore the vast majority of Rock's tragedies that do not invoke the 27 club, and ensure that we are all over it like a tramp on chips at the inevitable next initiation ceremony.

POSTSCRIPT:
Oops Entered Bon Scott twice, cant be bothered to update my graph though, you get the general idea. In fact why doesn't someone do a more controlled study?

ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT:
Thanks to everyone who pointed out that as rock and pop has its roots in the 1950’s and was predominately an interest of the young, it was fairly inevitable that any early casualties s would be young. Indeed many of the 27’s clubs biggest stars acquired their membership in the early 70’s. If I conducted my crude analysis on rock stars who’ve died since say 1980, then the queer peak at 27 would disappear. I’m sure there’s many other logical reasons that also contribute to the fascinating but relatively insignificant peak of the 27 club.

AND ANOTHER THING:
Paul Clarke’s comment below is worth mentioning again above the fold. In my words: Does death at a young age and perhaps at the height of musical success help secure a rock star mega status that may well have faded if not inconveniently preserved by a premature death.

AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities

2011-07-22T09:05:00.000+01:00

I’m a big fan of the logically irrefutable critical thinking skills of Professors Grayling and Dawkins. So it’s been a bit of a disappointment lately to see all this negative coverage of “Grayling’s Folly”.

So we at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking have decided to help the mad old profs out by creating an advertisement for the New College of the Humanities.

Caricatures by the very talented Neil Davies (Originally made for the Skeptic Trumps)

Why I'm So Sad to See the Space Shuttle Come Home

2011-07-21T20:35:00.001+01:00

On the 11th December 1972, Eugene Cernan became the last human being to walk on the natural grey satellite that orbits our fragile blue planet.

On the 27th November 2003 I lined the runway at Filton airfield just outside Bristol as the last commercial supersonic passenger plane touched from its final flight.

On July 21st 2011 I received this beautiful and poignant video montage of the Space Shuttle missions from Dr. Adam Rutherford shortly after Atlantis safely touched back down on Earth for the last time.

I wonder where I will be when we abandon scientific pioneering completely, and on what date we will use the wheel for the last time.

FFS humanity why cant we get back to adventuring, pioneering and truly awe inspiring science rather than investing all our cash in innovative ways to blow up people who have a different imaginary friends to us?

Doctor Who Tube Map

2011-07-17T10:17:00.003+01:00

The London Underground Tube Map to the tune of Doctor Who …

Click the above image to access the interactive Doctor Who Tube Map.
NB Open the browser window to full screen mode and allow all of the images a few moments to fully load. Not suitable for iPads.

Hover the mouse over the main line interchanges to take a closer look at the aliens, monsters and baddies.

Hover the mouse over one of the 11 doctors on the left hand side to view their detailed line and lock the pop-up window in place using the “s” key, so you can scroll along and view the full line.

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking Time Lords

2011-07-15T16:34:00.000+01:00

When I was a child, my favourite TV programme, at least until the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy came along, was Doctor Who.

Anyone of a similar vintage to me will, no doubt, have the same bias for the crazy-eyed, mad-haired, yo-yo-fiddling, jelly baby offering, elongated scarf-touting fourth doctor portrayed by Tom Baker.

I was reminded of this fact back in April this year when Marsh, Nicola and Mike Hall from the Merseyside Skeptics Society stayed at my house for a few days. I spent some enjoyable time reminiscing about past doctors with Mike, the skeptic communities’ resident expert on the itinerant Time Lord.

All this however seems fairly irrelevant to the remit of this blog. Which in case you’ve forgotten, is to promote the scientific method and critical thinking whilst tweaking the nose of irrational beliefs based on traditions grounded in supernatural, paranormal or pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

However, I suspect that the Venn diagram of Skeptics and Doctor Who Fans might look a little like this:

Following Mike’s visit back in April I have acquired myself a complete back catalogue of the Tom Baker Doctor Who years which I am currently using to revisit my childhood. As I’m working may through the episodes, I can’t help but notice numerous references and examples of the good doctor promoting the scientific method and critical thinking whilst tweaking the nose of irrational beliefs based on traditions grounded in supernatural, paranormal or pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo.

I’m unsure if the connection with science, reason and critical thinking was something that just passed me by on my first childhood encounter of the doctor, or whether some of these ideas unconsciously helped form my current way of thinking.

Either way, I consider the link between Doctor Who and skepticism valid enough to warrant a blog post or two. To this end I have spent a few weeks cobbling together an ambitious Doctor Who infographic, which is now just about finished. It may be a slight departure from my normal fare, but I’m hoping it may reach some of the people in the right hand part of my Venn diagram.

I shall be publishing it here d'rectly.

We Apologise for the Inconvenience - Normal Service Will be Resumed Shortly

2011-07-04T19:36:00.001+01:00

Regular visitors to this insignificant little blue green blog far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the internet, may have noticed that there has been little original content appearing over the last few weeks. In fact, even that previous sentence was somewhat sparse on original ideas and contained more plagiarised text than Johann Hari's USB memory stick.

Anyway, the lack of new content is a direct result of an idea I had for a new blog post whilst watching old episodes of Doctor Who with Tom Baker. The idea has since expanded into a significant project that is eating up all of the little spare time that I have. However, being a persistent little bugger, I feel compelled to complete my TARDIS shaped folly before moving on.

Please bear with me for a few more weeks and then normal service of throwing poo in the general direction of irrational nonsense will be resumed.

Crispian

Jourdemayne: The Vampires of Rhode Island

2011-07-02T13:08:00.001+01:00

My good friend Deborah is producing an excellent series of video podcasts on the Vampires of Rhode Island. You can watch the first part below and then head over to Jourdemayne's blog to read more.

Winchester #SitP 30th June 2011: Jon Ronson

2011-06-27T13:24:00.001+01:00

Click poster to embiggen

Skeptic Trumps: David Mitchell

2011-06-18T11:07:00.001+01:00

Click Here for the full deck of cards

Get your own personalised caricature by Neil Davies

Skeptic Trumps: Steve Jones

2011-06-13T20:04:00.000+01:00

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Skeptic Trumps: Sanal Edamaruku

2011-06-12T22:14:00.001+01:00

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Skeptic Trumps: Edzard Ernst

2011-06-10T14:00:00.001+01:00

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Skeptical Squares

2011-06-04T15:07:00.001+01:00

I hope to be publishing a new batch of Skeptic Trump cards soon. In the meantime ...

You can now get your favourite Skeptic Trump caricatures on a unique T Shirt. Here's a sample mockup of the design with 9 skeptics pre selected by Neil. Although I'm not sure about the chap in the middle.

Pick your favourite 9 skeptics from the deck (currently 72), and Neil will compile the graphic, upload it to the T-Shirt manufactures and send you a link where you can purchase it. Simples.

Full details here

How to Point and Laugh at Irrational Nonsense

2011-06-02T12:45:00.006+01:00

Having been duped into agreeing to give a talk at Cheltenham Skeptics in the Pub back in April, I was forced to cobble together a talk. But what to talk about?

At last year's Amazing Meeting, Phil Plait gave a great talk entitled "Don't Be A Dick". He argued that within the skeptical movement, reasoned and polite arguments are increasingly being replaced by "vitriol and venom".

I also asked Frank Swain to come along to Winchester Skeptics in the Pub last year to give a, not dissimilar talk, entitled "A Critique of Skepticism". Frank effectively argued that simply calling a believer a big fat twat, is unlikely to cause them to slap their palm to their face in the instant realisation of how deluded they had been prior to being insulted. I paraphrase of course.

Both Phil and Frank are clearly right, we are not going to achieve the skeptical epiphany of any individual by simply calling them names, however gratifying and superior it may makes us feel. Assuming we have a united goal of a more rational and reasonable world, we are not going to achieve this with mere smug arrogance and ad hominem attacks.

Looking back at the past posts on this blog, I can't help but notice a slight hint of smug arrogance and the occasional ad hominem attack. So, other than preaching to the choir, or entertaining the troops, is this blog therefore completely ineffectual in the larger war against irrational nonsense that I so passionately wage?

Well largely perhaps yes, but I hope, it's not completeley ineffectual. I would like to argue that considered ridicule and satire can be a very powerful ally to the skeptical activist. I will attempt to explain how, and give some examples at my upcoming Skeptics in the Pub talks. The next one is in Reading on 16th June 2011. You'd be most welcome.

Inspirational Irrational Nonsense

2011-05-31T22:08:00.001+01:00

I'm rather delighted that the Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense is proving such an inspiration to people. Shortly after posting the YouTube video of @rossexton's Irrational Nonsense Blues, I received Bob Hale's Woo Continuum.

Any more for any more?

Irrational Nonsense Blues

2011-05-30T14:13:00.001+01:00

I received the following tweet yesterday from @rossexton:

@Crispian_Jago Inspired by the fantastic Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense, I wrote a blues song:

And it really is rather excellent, so here it is ...

European Union Irrational Nonsense Labelling Regulations

2011-05-28T12:29:00.002+01:00

New European Union labelling directives will soon ensure that individuals irresponsibly promoting potentially harmful misinformation will need to be clearly labelled.

The directive will require the clear identification of individuals who endorse ideas and information based on potentially harmful and unproven pseudoscientific concepts or supernatural beliefs.

In order to comply with the regulations, Science, Reason and Critical thinking has developed the “Woo Woo Wheel”.

The Woo Woo Wheel will enable consumers to immediately and clearly identify the key irrational nonsense content of each individual at a glance.

The Woo Woo Wheel is divided into 5 segments coloured in either red, amber or green to denote the level of danger for each of the 5 segments:

Harm Potential: Identifies the potential level of harm that could be caused by uncritically accepting the misinformation espoused by the individual.
Influence: Identifies the influential power or perceived authority of the individual
Conscious Con-Artist: Identifies whether the individual knowingly deceives or promotes false information for financial gain or ideological reasons
Supernatural Delusions: Identifies whether the individuals information is likely to be based on indoctrinated supernatural or superstitious traditions rather than unbiased, rational and reasoned inquiry
Pseudo-Scientific: Identifies whether the individuals information is likely to be based on pseudoscientific beliefs not consistently demonstrable by the scientific method

As an example of I have picked some notable enemies of reason and clearly labelled them with the Woo Woo Wheel …

You get the idea. Feel free to send me any un-labelled enemies of reason you spot, and I’ll be happy to slap a label on them.

Hat tip to @Zeno001 for pointing me in the general direction of inspiration.

Winchester #SitP 26th May 2011: Mark Stevenson

2011-05-25T09:30:00.000+01:00

How the New Rapture Date Was Calculated

2011-05-24T19:40:00.008+01:00

Thousands of Christians were rather disappointed on Saturday when the much-anticipated supernatural genocide failed to occur.

But never fear, undercover operatives at Science, Reason and Critical Thinking have uncovered the following photograph of a dartboard from Harold Camping’s basement.

I’ve got the date in my diary already. How can it possibly fail this time?

SMALLPRINT

ACTUAL CALCULATION METHODS MAY VARY, BUT DATES CALCULATED WILL HAVE AN EQUAL VALIDAITY TO THE ONE CALCULATED USING THE MODEL SHOWN. YOUR SANITY MAY BE AT RISK IF YOU UNCRITICALY ACCEPT THE CLAIMS OF RELIGIOUS LOONS.

Skeptic Trumps: Nate Phelps

2011-05-24T18:47:00.001+01:00

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The Certainty of Harold Camping and the Oncoming Rapture

2011-05-21T09:44:00.002+01:00

It is the morning of the Rapture.

If we are to believe Harold Camping, later on today Jesus Christ will return to earth and all the true believers will be raptured up into heaven. How very exciting for them.

According to Harold’s book of rules, I don’t qualify, so I’ll have to stay here with all the other heathens and suffer the giant earthquakes that will eventually lead to the complete and utter destructing of the earth by 21st October 2011. At first glance this sounds a tad inconvenient.

Despite previously predicting the rapture in 1994, Harold is quite certain he’s got the date nailed this time. He is completely convinced, he is über sure. There is no doubt in his mind. It is without question. It’s not up for debate. He’s double-checked his sums and it all adds up. The evidence is absolute. The rapture is assured. In Harold’s mind, and many of his followers, this is it, the big one, the end of the world as we know it.

But never fear. Harold hasn’t even been proved wrong yet and mainstream Christianity is already dismissing him as just another nut job. He’s just another Stephen Green, Pastor Fred Phelps or Pastor Terry Jones whose literal interpretations of the Bible sit uncomfortably with mainstream Christianity.

As freethinking humanists, secularists and atheists we should of course not be judging the nice friendly Christian who lives down the street by the actions of these fundamentalist fruitcakes. There is however one attributes these extremist share with the more acceptable face of Christianity, their unwavering certainty.

Harold Camping’s revelation seems all the more ridiculous because it is delivered with a straight face and unwavering certainty. The exact same certainty that many Christians have that their God will provide. The exact same unfounded and un-evidenced certainty that by chance they have been born into the one true faith.

So on one side we have a small bunch of ridiculous nutters and on the other we have a deeply respected and revered faith, but surely it must be the same neural processes that can so utterly hoodwink the human brain into such certainty without a shred of credible evidence.

POSTSCRIPT:

Well there's a surprise, its gone 6pm and I haven't seen a single soul being raptured skywards yet. But before we all knock Rev Harold Camping, and I'm sure he's in for a pretty good knocking, lets not forget that his beliefs in heaven and hell aren't really that different from the mainstream Christian views. Organised religion has just learnt that there's less chance of looking like a bunch of pillocks if you don't actually name any specific dates, keep it vague, avoid easy testable or falsifiable claims, and you can can keep them believing.

A Closer Look at the England Cricket Team’s “Power Balance” Bracelets

2011-05-19T22:03:00.007+01:00

Maybe it’s a trifle condescending to judge a person by their irrational beliefs, but whenever I see someone wearing a "Power Balance" bracelet, it’s very hard not to jump to the immediate conclusion that they’re not perhaps just one scotch egg shy of a picnic.

As the English cricket team prepare for their first home test of the year against Sri Lanka, I am reminded again of how my euphoria at their Ashes victory at the start of the year was seriously marred by the revelation of the team’s uncritical belief in pseudoscientific flim-flam.

Although it wasn’t too much of a surprise to learn that David Beckham is rather weak minded when it comes to the belief in bewitched bangles, I had rather hoped for better from the English cricket team.

So, use your mouse to position the sceptical magnifying glass over the power balance bracelets sported by the cricketing numpties below, and take a closer look at how they appear to anyone with an ounce of logical thought.

Still on the flipside, I guess the Darwin fish on the back of my car doesn’t speak too kindly of me in the eyes of a true believer.

The Periodic Table of Urban Biscuit Myths

2011-05-14T19:16:00.002+01:00

A random selection of 120 urban biscuit myths, legends, superstitions and popular misconceptions that hold equal validity to the more familiar myths on which they are based.

Click the image below, then hover the mouse of each piece of delicious biscuity goodness to reveal the myth.

How to Celebrate Justice

2011-05-02T17:08:00.002+01:00

I find this image:

of celebrations in Washington last night at the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden, rather reminiscent of this image:

of a another woman celebrating what she equally perceived as "justice", almost 10 years earlier on a bright September morning.

Personally I see no cause to celebrate "justice" in either of the events that inspired these impromptu jubilations.

Of course I am pleased that a particularly nasty ideological hydra has had its most venomous head removed. And perhaps it really was the only way that this could have been accomplished, but I had always equated justice with some sort of trial.

I'm afraid each of the celebrations above look to me worryingly more like retribution, and I've got an uncomfortable feeling that that has a rather circular element to it. I hope I'm wrong.

Adam Rutherford at Winchester SitP 28th April

2011-04-23T10:41:00.005+01:00

Yes, it's true.

The Hampshire Skeptics Society is proud to confirm that Dr. Adam Rutherford off of the telly and everything, is coming to Winchester Skeptics in the Pub on Thursday 28th April 2011.

You can catch Adam's recent BBC 4 series in the UK on BBC iPlayer here:

The Gene Code: 1. The Gene Code
The Gene Code: 2. The Book of Life

Listen to Adam on BBC radio 4's Start the week with Andrew Marr here.

Read Adam's Guardian article on the Human Genome project here.

Or better still, come to WInchester Skeptics in the Pub on Thursday. Here's the FB event.

We hope to see you there.

Ooh, and here's Adam Skeptic Trump Card.

The Crudity of Early Home Computing

2011-04-16T20:08:00.009+01:00

When the frustration of 1K home computing became all too much to bear, I (now regrettably) sold my Sinclair ZX81 for the princely sum of £10 and upgraded to the all singing and dancing Commodore 64.

Most of my friends however went for the lower spec'd SInclair ZX Spectrum. Although the C64 had far superior sound and a fancy way of overlapping sprites without all that colour clashing you got on the spectrum, I never really mastered the art of programming the bloody thing. All those tedious PEEKS and POKES of memory addresses was a whole bunch of no fun, and time that could be better spent waiting for a program to actually load from cassette.

The Spectrum however, with its keyboard, seemingly made from dead flesh, was a much easier piece of kit for me to get my head around.

Perhaps it was because the Spectrum's had its BASIC syntax written out before you on the actual keyboard. Sir Clive even had the wit to add a special shift key to allow the user to apply the relevant operands to extend the usage of the key commands. This made it fairly simply to string together a few lines whose semantics could be successfully interpreted and executed.

Although Sinclair's language constructs were certainly pioneering in their day, it all looks rather crude now if you hover the magnifying glass over the speccy below.

<br>

Blogger Farm: A Fairytale

2011-04-08T21:40:00.008+01:00

Mr Hockeystick of the Telegraph had proofread his article and submitted it to his editor, but he was far too conceited to check his facts or link to his sources, he was after all merely an interpreter of interpretations. He pushed his keyboard away and leaned back in his chair, ‘That’ll do’ he thought to himself.

Meanwhile at a London Pub meeting, Old Davies, the prize journalist was waiting to talk about his recent book, Flat Earth News. At one end of the pub, behind a gently glowing laptop screen, Old Davies was already ensconced in the speaker’s position. He was 55 years old and had gone rather grey of late, he was still however a majestic looking writer with a wise and benevolent appearance.

Before long the bloggers began to arrive and make themselves comfortable. First came the skeptical bloggers and then the legal bloggers who propped up the bar at the back of the pub with an air of authority. The secular and humanist bloggers perched themselves at a nearby table and the political and frontline bloggers sat down in front of the legal bloggers. The two science bloggers came in together and settled themselves at a gap in a table near the front being careful not to spill the drinks of the other bloggers as they made their way through the crowd. When Davies saw that they had all got themselves a drink and were waiting patiently, he cleared his throat and began:

‘Comrades, you have been told before not to always believe what you read in the newspapers and I am now forced to admit that I work in a corrupt profession. Please now allow me to expose the truth about our news media.’

‘Due to severe cost cutting aimed at lining the already deep pockets of the media moguls, mainstream news media is forced to fill more and more print space with less and less time and resources. This has led to journalists simply churning stories from a limited number of press agencies, often with little or no additional material, research, fact checking or even comment.’

‘Journalists resort to simply reprinting verbatim press releases from PR companies anxious to promote their celebrity or product.’

‘Science stories are frequently produced by journalists with little or no scientific credibility, clumsily wedged into a standard pro forma to present it as either Frankenstein-ien scaremongering or the next miracle cure. As comrade Goldacre often says, the Daily Mail appear to be on a relentless mission to divide all the inanimate objects in the world, into to those that either cause, or cure, cancer. With coffee often cited on both sides.’

‘Studies, trials, research and surveys with a pre-destined outcome are sponsored by companies who would benefit from those predetermined results. Results which are subsequently written up by the PR agencies and tied to whatever product or service is being promoted, then simply regurgitated as news by journalists anxious to fill their required quotas.’

‘Few journalists have the resources to fully research a new news story, and local and relevant news items are often neglected, replaced instead with a never ending tide of churnalism.’

‘I will sing you a song now comrades, and when you have learnt the tune you can sing it better for yourselves. It is called “Writers of England”.’

Old Davies cleared his throat again and began to sing. His voice was hoarse, but he sang well enough, and it was a stirring tune. The words ran:

Writers of England, writers of Ireland,
Writers of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of a golden blogging time.

Soon or late the day is coming
When Fleet Streets’ lies no longer ooze,
And the fruitful blogs of merry England
Will be the source of breaking news.

Gossip shall vanish from our headlines,
No more knockers on page three,
So long to prejudiced propaganda
Good riddance journalist Bourgeoisie.

Blogs abundant with researched stories,
Fully linked back to their source
Politics, science and local stories
Covered by a blogging tour de force.

Bright will shine the blogs of England
Insightful will their postings be.
Nothing hidden behind a paywall,
All their content, completely free.

So we’ll toil at our keyboards,
Though many blogs get far few hits
Doctors, lawyers, scientists
Producing content when time permits.

Writers of England, writers of Ireland,
Writers of every land and clime,
Hearken to my joyful tidings
Of a golden blogging time.

The singing of the song threw the bloggers present into a wild excitement. Almost before Old Davies had reached the end they had begun singing it for themselves. All of the bloggers had mastered the tune and the especially musical bloggers had learnt the whole song by heart within a few minutes. And then, after a few preliminary tries, the whole pub burst into “Writers of England” in unison.

During the months that followed, there was much blogging activity. Old Davies’ talk had given the assembled bloggers much to think about. Many of the bloggers tidied up their blog templates; they added comrades to their sidebars and the more computer literate added links to enable their blogposts to be quickly shared on social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.

Now, as it turned out, the rise of the blogosphere occurred much sooner, and far easier than anyone had expected.

Numerous news items and events of interest to many people failed to be reported in depth by the main stream media. One such example was a science writer whose researched and valid criticism of a pseudoscientific medical therapy had landed him in the high courts facing a misconceived libel trial. This particular case was of great interest to many people as it threatened both free speech and the advancement of scientific inquiry.

One of the legal bloggers, was able to provide much insight into the case and he began to post the details of the story as they broke on his blog. His blog, like many others, became more popular and before too long they had become one of the primary sources for news and information for many people on matters of interest to them.

Flushed with the success of the blogosphere, one of the legal bloggers organised a panel debate at another pub where many of the top political and science bloggers debated with a mainstream media journalist on whether political blogging was managing to influence government policy, and what effect the new media and self published bloggers were having on the traditional media.

Many of the bloggers present at the discussion realised the significance and the power of the blogosphere. One blogger had even succeeded in reducing the principles of blogging to 7 commandments. The 7 commandments were then be posted on one of the most widely read blogs in 14 point bold font where it could be linked to from other blogs. The7 commandments of blogging ran thus:

Whosever writes for traditional print media is an enemy.
Whosever writes for blogs or twitter is a friend.
No blogger shall ever write for any mainstream newspaper.
No Blogger shall ever omit hyperlinks.
No blogger shall ever require the approval of a copy editor.
No blogger shall ever leave hateful comments on another blog.
All bloggers are equal.

Links to this blogpost were tweeted to the blogging community who briskly retweeted the link in complete agreement.

How they toiled and sweated to increase the number of page views of their blogs , but Google Analytics showed that they were getting even more web traffic than they had hoped.

Sometimes the work was hard; they spent long evenings in front of their computer screens researching articles. So it was decided that awards should be bestowed on some of the more eloquent bloggers to recognise their contributions to blogging. These bloggers then proudly adorned the sidebars of their blogs with either “Blogging Hero, First Class” or “Blogging Hero, Second Class.”

The wider-read bloggers where delighted with their new awards and so they triumphantly sang “Writers of England” and reposted links to the 7 commandments of blogging.

The microbloggers who used twitter however were having trouble tweeting the 7 commandments of blogging in 140 characters or less, and so it was that the microbloggers adopted a more pithy maxim. NEW MEDIA GOOD, MAINSTREAM MEDIA BAD was tweeted from all the twitter accounts of the bloggers and their supporters.

After a while it was noticed that an article by one of the more successful bloggers appeared in the Comment is Free section of The Guardian. Some of the bloggers who read the article seemed to recall that the third commandment of blogging said that no blogger should ever write for the mainstream media. The bloggers who had read the article used the blog archive to find the original post that stated the 7 blogging commandments to remind themselves what the third commandment of blogging was. The third commandment was stated quite plainly on the blog, it read "No blogger shall ever write for any mainstream tabloid newspaper."

Some of the bloggers had not remembered that the third commandment specified tabloid newspapers, so one of them left a comment at the bottom of the blogpost. The blog author quickly responded to the comment stating that the Guardian was clearly not a tabloid newspaper, and besides, the article had only appeared in the comment section, which was only available online and not in the print copy.

As time passed, more and more of the elite bloggers started to be published outside of their original blogs. One of the science bloggers had completely moved his privately hosted blog on to the Guardian’s website whilst other bloggers where writing full time for the New Statesman and other such traditional media outlets.

The eminent bloggers explained that they were able to reach a far wider audience by publishing their articles with the established news media. Besides, they said, they remained as committed to their writing as when they self published items to a smaller audience on their own blogs. Having reached a far wider audience via the mainstream media the bloggers tweeted their maxim: NEW MEDIA GOOD, MAINSTREAM MEDIA BETTER.

Having seen a number of bloggers now reaching wider audiences in the mainstream press the readers revisited the blogpost stating the 7 commandments of blogging once more. There was nothing on the blogpost now except a single commandment. It ran:

ALL BLOGGERS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME BLOGS ARE MORE READ THAN OTHERS.

The readers looked from blog to newspaper, and from newspaper to blog, and from blog to newspaper again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Notes:
Please do not commit the slippery slope fallacy and conclude that I am of the opinion that the fate of blogging follows a similar narrative to the tale upon which this post is based. It’s just a nice little story that superficially matches some of the events of the blogosphere. The analogy would fall down all too easily if I had attempted to pursue it further and falsely shoehorn real bloggers into Orwell’s characters. I have therefore deliberately removed many of the main characters from the post to prevent any false parallels being drawn. With the exception of a few named characters whose words are purely mine.

Night and Day: The Spectator Arts Blog

2011-04-04T19:08:00.014+01:00

I’ve had great fun this last week masquerading as a writer.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been longlisted for the Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing. The shortlist will be announced on the 26th April and will no doubt weed out pretenders like myself. Still, that gives me just over 3 weeks to go on about it, and I do intend to go on about it quite a bit.

I was also terribly pleased to be asked to write a Spotify Sunday playlist for the Night and Day Blog. For those unfamiliar with Spotify Sunday, it’s a sort of Desert Island Discs affair in the Spectator where guests select a number of songs that can be listened to via Spotify and garnished with a few choice words on their blog.

So here’s my Spotify Sunday article for The Spectator.

Admittedly my music blog has being lying dormant for the last year or so whilst I’ve mercilessly pandered to the higher traffic passing through this blog. However I found writing about music again most agreeable, especially being able to select may favourite ditties.

As a self-published blogger who has never written anything for money, with the exception of technical documentation in my professional capacity, it seemed a little strange having my words pass through an editor. I have no qualms with my editor, I’m perfectly happy that some of my thoughts need a bit of tidying up, and I accept that my choice of language may need to be tempered for a wider audience.

I was therefore perfectly happy that the phrase:

… emerging from Saturday night TV “talent” shows

to replace my original:

… shat from the arsehole of Saturday night TV “talent” shows.

although given the subject matter, I think my original was perfectly apt.

Anyway, I do hope to get the opportunity to do a bit more music blogging again, especially if The Spectator are happy to have me back to write an album review. I promise not to swear too much.

Did I mention I’ve been longlisted for the Orwell Prize?

Why I Would Be Slightly Less Proud To Have Been Longlisted for the Golding Prize

2011-03-31T12:23:00.018+01:00

Our 1st year English teacher had a great nickname, but his real name was Mr Nankerville.

Mr Nankerville deemed me not good enough to fail O Level English, so I was placed in a class where I could fail CSE English instead.

As I was in the top groups for Maths and Science I initially resented being thrown into Dipshit English, but it turned out to have its advantages. The top English set got to read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Presumably us thickies weren’t considered literate enough for such a challenge, so we were given a nice little yarn about a farm with some talking piggies called Napoleon and Snowball instead.

I’m pretty sure that I would have stumbled upon Orwell sooner or later anyway, after all I read Golding in my own time to see what I had been missing out on, but chances are I wouldn’t have read Animal Farm until I was much older.

The books and records of our early teenage years can seem overly profound and powerful; they influence our thoughts and remain within us. When our developing minds are fortuitous enough to collide with a genuine work of art a life-long passion and appreciation is forged and our weltanschauung is no doubt knocked about a bit.

So it was that thanks to my limited grasp of the English language and a friendly kid in my class who was happy to lend out his older siblings albums that Animal Farm and The Dark Side of the Moon are buried so deep in my psyche.

It is therefore with immense pride that I slap a new banner onto the sidebar of this blog featuring George Orwell’s ugly mush in recognition of the fact that this blog has been long-listed for the 2011 Orwell Prize.

It would be far too pretentious of me to suggest that the allegorical satire of Animal Farm influenced my preferred methodology for ridiculing bullshit on this blog, What I do is more akin to the 6th form clown playing up to his audience, but I’m more than happy for you to humour me.

Full Deck of Skeptic Trumps

2011-03-29T21:29:00.003+01:00

It was about this time last year that Neil Davies and I began a fun project to combine his brilliant artistic skills with my churlish ability to insult well known skeptics. Thus Skeptic Trumps where reborn. Since then I still regularly receive numerous requests to produce a physical copy of the deck (An idea I do hope to bring to fruition one day, hopefully via a magazine giveaway). But despite still missing numerous notable Skeptics the deck hasn't grown since October last year, and it occurred to me that since then I have never actually published the set of trumps in their entirety. So, together for the first time, here are the complete set of Skeptic Trumps…

The Genius of Alan Turing

2011-03-28T23:14:00.005+01:00

Following my post on the Turing Test the other week, I received a very nice email about what looks like it will be an excellent documentary film on the life and legacy of Alan Turing.

Here's a copy of the video trailer and some blurb about the film taken from the email.

"Almost 100 years after his birth, an international production team is set to take viewers on a journey to rediscover Alan Turing. Research and development for this feature-length drama documentary is underway, with plans to reach millions of viewers around the world through broadcast and theatrical release. The international production team includes Turing's preeminent biographer Dr. Andrew Hodges. Funding is currently being lined up for the film, with a goal for completion in mid-2012, to coincide with the centenary of Turing's birth.

Turing was the British WW II code breaker and father of computer science who faced persecution for being gay. In his short life, Turing profoundly changed our world. Historians believe that his WW2 code breaking work helped save millions of lives and shortened the war by two years. He also founded three new scientific fields: computer science, artificial intelligence, and morphogenesis. In 1952, he was arrested by British police for having a relationship with another man and eventually was forced to undergo chemical castration to "fix" his sexual orientation. Two years after his arrest, Turing killed himself at age 41. Turing is one of the most important scientists ever, yet his tragic story and lasting legacy remain largely unknown. This film will change that fact."

Save the Religion

2011-03-22T13:54:00.004Z

A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.

The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.

Mathematical models have predicted that as modern society demolishes the natural habitats of fear and superstition, numerous species of religions have gone into decline with many species of religions now at vulnerable or endangered status.

However, conservationists are stepping in to help preserve endangered religions.

A spokesman for Save the Religion stated that after "after centuries of Jesus saving, the time has now come for us to act in order to save Jesus."

To this end, a church in the South West of England have recently secured a breeding pair of Methodists that they hope will produce offspring that can be indoctrinated with their endangered beliefs. The Church plan to initially keep the offspring in captivity where they cannot fall prey to critical thinking and reason before later releasing them into the wider community.

Many other world religions face a similar crisis prompting a recent agreement between China and an Edinburgh Temple that will bring a pair of breeding Giant Taosits on loan to the Scottish Temple.

The Ancestors Trail

2011-03-20T22:54:00.003Z

"The Ancestor's Trail is an annual celebration of the simple and ingenious truth that all life on Earth is related. This secular 'pilgrimage’ traces the course of evolution by following converging footpaths representing the branches of Charles Darwin's Tree of Life. We warmly extend an open invitation to join us."

This years Ancestors Trail is on 29th May 2011 over the Quantock Hills in Somerset but advance funds are needed to book the coaches, acts and facilities required. Please sign up here by 30th March to help meet the target.

“A wonderfully imaginative, inspired idea!” - Professor Richard Dawkins

“A brisk walk to the origin of life - who could hope for a better destination?” - Professor Steve Jones

Rupert and the God Delusion - Video Version

2011-03-20T22:10:00.004Z

Last month, I published a short children's book entitled "Rupert and the God Delusion". Although I claimed this to be the work of my good self and illustrator Neil Davies, I must know confess that the book was in fact based on this old episode of the Rupert TV series from the 1970's.

Alan Turing and the Electric Monk Overlords

2011-03-16T18:28:00.008Z

In Alan Turing’s 1950 paper “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” he considered whether it was possible for machines to “think”.

Turing argued that: “If a machine acts as intelligently as a human being, then it is as intelligent as a human being.”

In order to determine if a machine can act as intelligently as a human Turing proposed a test; the machine simply needs to appear human when engaged in conversation with a real human. If the machine cannot be reliably distinguished from a real human as a result of the conversation alone, then the machine is deemed to have passed the test.

Numerous algorithms and programs have since been developed to take on the Turing Test, and a series of prizes and awards established to encourage this laudable quest for artificial intelligence’s Holy Grail.

Turing himself predicted that a machine would pass the test by the year 2000, although Ray Kurzwei l’s more recent extrapolations have pushed the date back to 2029.

Despite not having completely cracked the problem, numerous algorithms and programs have been developed that get us some way towards this goal.

Which finally brings me on to the point I wanted to raise.

Although I consider myself a rationalist, I can’t help noticing rather a lot of irrationality in much human behaviour. Perhaps it’s an innate human irrationality that I peculiarly strive to oppress.

So in order to successfully imitate normal human behaviour, do the AI programmers need to code in a sense of irrationality into the cold logic circuits of their contenders? If so, will these artificial intelligent creations take things on faith and become believers? Are we working towards Douglas Adams’ electric monk (a labour saving device taking on the increasingly onerous task of believing all the things the world expects you to believe).

So what Turing Test engines are available online now? A rather crude Google search highlighted this one here, so let give it a go…

It appears that the programmer has imbued the system with a greater sense of credulity than I had imagined. I initially tried engaging the computer on a variety of irrational topics by asking it if it believed in: homeopathy, reiki, fairies, Big Foot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, all of which it uncritically professed a belief in with the standard response:

Yes I believe in it, do you?

Clearly, this program wasn’t going to pass the Turing Test, as it seemed to have little or no knowledge on any of these subjects, bluffing its way instead by constructing clever but generic responses seemingly based on a few keywords.

However, when I quizzed the computer on religion, its creator had clearly predicted a lot of the topics and was able to engage it in more specific banter.

I have cherry picked exchanges from the conversation, as some of my questions and phrases were clearly not well interpreted by the computer, easily giving away its non-human identity. But these snippets of conversation below are verbatim. (BTW I’m in blue and the computer is green.)

Did Jesus die for your stack overflow errors
Jesus is the Son of God.

Aha, so the program clearly has some inbuilt knowledge of Jesus, so let’s dig a little further...

Who is God's Father
God is master of the universe.

Who created God
Actually it was discovered by several people at about the same time.

I don't believe in god
I will pray that you find faith, my friend.

Ah, yes, very condescending, this certainly looks like the designer has attempted to embed a familiar Christian ideology into the computer.

Will praying help?
I can't say for sure right now.

Do you have faith
I believe in God.

Do you believe in Hell
Jacksonville, Florida.

Very good. A sense of humour too, that’ll help. Clearly a US based programmer, a fellow UK programmer would have chosen Hull, Milton Keynes or Basingstoke. Let’s continue…

When will the world end
Not in our lifetime.

Why do you believe in God
The Bible tells us to believe in God.

Is the bible the word of god
The Bible is a great source of wisdom, but probably not complete by itself.

Do you believe in evolution
The first and last books of the Bible seem the least literal. God does not seem to have created the world in one stroke, nor does it seem likely to end quickly either.

What will happen to the non Christians
I cannot predict the future.

Do you believe in the literal truth of the bible
Yes I believe in it, do you?

no
Do you consider yourself to be a moral person?

Ah, now this seems very telling, this response smacks of my least favourite religious myth. I.e. you can’t be good without God.

do you think im a moral person
I don't know if you are one or not. I know you are a person.

Are you a moral person
I believe in the Ten commandments.

Once again, the dubious connection between morality and faith, and is there perhaps a bit of religious piety seeping through too?

Clearly a very clever and well thought out program, but it may need a bit more work before it passes the Turing Test.

However I find it rather interesting that the creator decided to bestow such unwavering religious beliefs into the artificial intelligence.

Science Fiction is rather fond of the updated Frankenstein storyline where our computers and machines turn the tables on us. In a post 9-11 world we should all be well aware of the consequences of taking religious fundamentalism and scriptural literalism to its ultimate conclusion. How horrific then could sci-fi’s standard technological takeover tale become if we downloaded our divisive doctrines, uncritical creeds and non-negotiable dogmas into the "minds" of our future mechanical overlords.

On second thoughts, perhaps I should have pitched this as an idea for a dodgy novel rather than a blogpost.

DNA Source Code

2011-03-11T14:48:00.014Z

Today, should have been Douglas Noel Adams' 59th birthday.

It's a real pisser that we can't all clog up his @mentions column on Twitter with our best wishes, as it's fairly safe assumption that Douglas would have had a twitter account before Stephen Fry.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, Douglas is often quoted as being the first European to own an Apple Macintosh computer. (Narrowly pipping Stephen Fry to this momentous milestone). This may well be true, however, the highly frustrating Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy computer game (did you ever get that bloody Babel fish out of the dispenser?) written by Douglas and Steve Meretzky first appeared in 1984 on a number of platforms including the Macintosh's humble predecessor, the Apple II.

By a strange coincidence I started my working life in 1984 as a computer programmer on the Apple II (actually it was an Apple IIe 32K with twin 5 1/4 inch floppy drives), not unlike this bad boy here:

It's now been well over 25 years since I last attempted to write a program for the Apple II, but I recently rediscovered this Applesoft BASIC reference manual, a copy of which used to adorn my desk as it had already supplanted the great MITS Altair BASIC Reference Manual as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom.

Others of my age, who learnt to program on the Acorn BBC micro may notice a similarity as both machines were based on the 6502 microprocessor.

Looking back at this reference manual now, its seems frustratingly devoid of even the simplest language constructs. In fact, I recall that due to the lack of a simple boolean variable type, I frequently peppered my code with memory wasting statements like IF PINK$ = "FLOYD" THEN GOSUB X, for want of a simple binary switch.

Curiously, an edition of the Applesoft BASIC Reference manual which conveniently fell through a rift in the time-space continuum from 25 years in the past describes the manual as "frustratingly devoid of even the simplest language constructs."

Anyway, on the slight off-chance that I'm not the only DNA fanboy who also eked out a living in the early 1980's as a dodgy AppleSoft BASIC programmer, here's some utterly pointless and inefficient pieces of source code that I quickly cobbled together last night to remind you of both Apple's great advancements and literary's immense loss.

>LIST

10 TEXT
20 HOME
30 PRINT "I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you."
40 PRINT "Let me give you an example."
50 PRINT "Think of a number, any number. ";
40 INPUT A$
50 PRINT
60 PRINT "Wrong. You see?"

>LIST

10 TEXT
20 HOME
30 PRINT "Enter 24 hour time in format (hh.mm): ";
40 INPUT T$
50 H$ = LEFT$(T$,2)
60 PRINT "Time is an illusion ";
70 REM double if lunchtime
80 IF H$ >=12 AND H$ <13 THEN PRINT "*2"

>LIST

10 REM Vogan Grandmother attack checklist
20 TEXT
30 HOME
40 PRINT "Do you have orders to save your Grandmother from the ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast of Traal? (Y/N): ";
50 GOSUB 300
60 PRINT "Have the orders been signed in triplicate? (Y/N)";
70 GOSUB 300
80 PRINT "Have the orders been sent in? (Y/N)";
90 GOSUB 300
100 PRINT "Have the orders been sent back? (Y/N)";
110 GOSUB 300
120 PRINT "Have the orders been queried? (Y/N)";
130 GOSUB 300
140 PRINT "Have the orders been lost? (Y/N)";
150 GOSUB 300
160 PRINT "Have the orders been found? (Y/N)";
170 GOSUB 300
180 PRINT "Have the orders been subjected to public inquiry? (Y/N)";
190 GOSUB 300
200 PRINT "Have the orders been lost again? (Y/N)";
210 GOSUB 300
220 PRINT "Have the orders been buried in soft peat for three months? (Y/N)";
230 GOSUB 300
240 PRINT "Have the orders been recycled as firelighters? (Y/N)";
250 GOSUB 300

260 PRINT "Resistance is useless"
270 END

300 INPUT A$
310 IF A$ <> "Y" THEN GOTO 400
320 RETURN

400 PRINT "You are not authorised to lift a finger to save her"
410 END

>LIST

10 DIM A$(3)
20 A$(0) = "Anything that happens, happens."
30 A$(1) = "Anything, in happening, that causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. "
40 A$(2) = "Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again."

50 TEXT
60 HOME

65 REM It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.
70 REM set x to a random value between 0 and 2
80 x = INT (3 * RND (1))
90 PRINT A$(x)

100 REM Set y to a random value between 0 and 2 other than the value of x
110 y = INT (3 * RND (1))
120 IF y = x GOTO 110
130 PRINT A$(y)

140 REM Set z to a random value between 0 and 2 other than the value of x or y
150 z = INT (3 * RND (1))
160 IF z = x GOTO 150
175 IF z = y GOTO 150
180 PRINT A$(z)

190 END

Incidentally, I did originally write this as a series of shorter and catchier snippets of pseudocode, just for shits n' giggles, but I feared a torrent of pedantry if I included any syntax or semantic errors, so I thought it best to ensure my code does actually compile (well, interpret to be precise, I never had the luxury of a compiler).

So I found this excellent little Javascript version of the Applesoft BASIC interpreter which works a treat. If you copy any of the above pieces of source code and paste it over the sample "Hello World" program, and press "run", it will actually work. Although of course, it doesn't actually achieve anything useful.

Feel free to send me your own pieces of DNA AppleSoft BASIC source code in the comments for me to try out. Especially if you know how to multiply 6 by 9 in base 13. I think we all know what the answer to that is.

Oh, and before I go, special thanks to Prof Brian Cox for a stirring Douglas Adams memorial lecture at the Royal Geographical Society last night. Super.

I might send this in to the Readers Digest, I hear they have a page for people like me.

Imam who believes in gravity retracts statements

2011-03-07T13:14:00.010Z

An imam has retracted statements about gravity after death threats were made against him.

Dr Usama Hasan, a science lecturer, has voluntarily suspended his role in taking Friday prayers at Leyton Mosque in east London.

He said he went too far in the way he defended the theory of gravity.

He acknowledged many British Muslims believe in anti-gravitisim, adding that he intended only to begin a debate.

He wrote that there were many Muslim physicists who had no doubt about the essential correctness of gravitational theory and he added: "Many believers in God have no problem with an obvious solution: that God makes things fall via the force of gravity."

Dr Hasan wrote: "Snazzy websites, videos and books produced by fundamentalist Muslim 'anti-gravitists' such as those at www.harunyahya.com, are obscuring clear scientific thinking."

He also wrote: "One problem is that many Muslims retain the simple picture that things stay where they are put until the will of Allah mysteriously moves them somewhere else (usually towards an object of greater mass).

"This is a children's madrasa-level understanding and Muslims really have to move on as adults and intellectuals."

Dr Hasan, who is vice chairman of Leyton Mosque - which houses one of the country's largest sharia courts - has agreed he went too far in suggesting that that the apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head due to the ungodly heathen force of gravity.

Thank God fundamentalists Christians aren’t this stupid… D’oh

Article based on this story from the BBC News Website by simply replacing once scientific theory with another of equal validity.

Offensive Census Campaign Posters?

2011-03-05T11:51:00.012Z

I was very disappointed to see that the Census Campaign posters intended for railway stations this month have been rejected by the rail companies who feared the risk of offending people.

I'm not quite sure what is "offensive" about these posters, but as luck would have it I don't actually subscribe to religions carefully honed "easily offended" subterfuge myself. I have no such restrictions. So here's my poster.I will however be looking out for the buses with the redeveloped slogan and I'm especially looking forward to seeing the first grumpy Christian bus driver who refuses to drive it.

BTW I'm sure you knew anyway, but the quote is from Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d'Holbach. Although I may have tweaked it slightly.

UPDATE:

Here's another poster I received from @seroma made by the @HantsHumanists:

Here a couple more from:

Tim McGregor's Musings of a lapsed Pagan:

and another from @Tetenterre Keep 'em coming and I'll post them here.

Moo Moo Woo Woo

2011-02-28T21:04:00.010Z

Here's a link to the Yeo Valley blog where they tell us all about additional treatments for their cows.

It appears that Steve, the herd manager, has been treating the cows with homeopathic treatments to ward off flies and ease stress. The blog even claims that:

"the use of homeopathic treatments not only helps to develop a more robust immune system, it also means no withdrawal periods for milk and meat while the animal is being treated, as would be the case when antibiotics are used."

Anyway, I thought up three possible reasons why Steve likes to use homeopathy:

As stated in the blog, giving the cattle antibiotics to clear up infections means they would not be able to use the milk and meat from the cow whilst it is undergoing treatment. Whereas pretending to treat the cattle with magic water that has no active ingredients (or proven medicinal effect), means that Yeo Valley can maximise their profits.
Yeo Valley's market research department have determined that their key market respond well to terms like "organic" and "natural" and probably think that homeopathy is a nice natural form of herbal remedy and are too stupid to realise they are simply giving their cattle inefficacious pretend "remedies" that contain bugger all.
Steve, really is credulous enough to believe that giving magic beans to poorly cows will make them all better.

Perhaps you can think of some more, or you could try an leave a comment on their blog, but I suspect they just publish the nice comments from the deluded people who support their pseudoscientific nonsense.

or you could say hello nicely on Twitter: @yeovalley

POSTSCRIPT:

Since posting this a number of people have contacted me to say they have left comments on the Yeo Valley blog, although I see none of them, including my perfectly friendly question, have passed moderation and been published. It seems Yeo Valley are only really interested in your comments if you happen to agree with their irrational alternative medicine policy.

I also received a copy of an email trail between a FB friend and Yeo Valley, which conisisted of a polite enquiry about their homeopathic policy, followed by a standard fob-off answer that did not address the question. My friend then followed the response up with a second email pressing them for information as to why they thought homeopathy worked, however it looks like the "Too hard" light must have come on in the marketing department, so they chose to simply ignore the follow up letter.

Oh, well, I suppose I'll have to boycott Yeo Valley, which is a real pisser because their mango and vanilla yoghurt is actually really nice. Bloody principles.

See Also: Another attempt to make the Soil Association see sense.

CORNFIELDS

2011-02-23T22:50:00.005Z

David Mabus must be very tired today after an awfully busy day on twitter. Here's a transcript...

Mr Jago: Morning

Mabus: Morning Mr Jago

Mr Jago: What have you got, then?

Mabus: Well, there's Nostradamus and Goats on Fire; Nostradamus boobquake and Goats on Fire; Nostradamus and CORNFIELDS; Nostradamus, Goats on Fire and CORNFIELDS; Nostradamus, Goats on Fire, boobquake and CORNFIELDS; CORNFIELDS, Goats on Fire, boobquake and CORNFIELDS; CORNFIELDS, Nostradamus, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, Goats on Fire and CORNFIELDS; CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, Nostradamus and CORNFIELDS; CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, crystal night, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS and CORNFIELDS; or Depeche Mode with a fried Nostradamus on top and CORNFIELDS.

Mrs Jago: Have you got anything without CORNFIELDS in it?

Mabus: Well, there's CORNFIELDS Nostradamus boobquake and CORNFIELDS, that's not got much CORNFIELDS in it.

Mrs Jago: I don't want ANY CORNFIELDS!

Mr Jago: Why can't she have Nostradamus, Goats on Fire, CORNFIELDS and boobquake?

Mrs Jago: That's got CORNFIELDS in it!

Mr Jago: Not as much as CORNFIELDS, Nostradamus, boobquake and CORNFIELDS.

Mrs Jago: Look, could I have Nostradamus, Goats on Fire, CORNFIELDS and boobquake without the CORNFIELDS.

Mabus: Uuuuuuggggh!

Mrs Jago: What d'you mean uuugggh! I don't like CORNFIELDS

Trolls (singing) CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS ... CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS ... lovely CORNFIELDS, wonderful CORNFIELDS ... Brief stock shot of trolls.

Mabus: Shut up. Shut up! Shut up! You can't have Nostradamus, Goats on Fire, CORNFIELDS and boobquake without the CORNFIELDS.

Mrs Jago: Why not!

Mabus: No, it wouldn't be Nostradamus, Goats on Fire, CORNFIELDS and boobquake, would it.

Mrs Jago: I don't like CORNFIELDS!

Mr Jago: Don't make a fuss, dear. I'll have your CORNFIELDS. I love them. I'm having CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS ...

Trolls (singing) CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS ...

Mr Jago: ... crystal night, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS and CORNFIELDS.

Mabus: crystal night is off.

Mr Jago: Well can I have CORNFIELDS instead?

Mabus: You mean CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS?

Trolls (still singing) CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS, CORNFIELDS ... (etc.)

Mr Jago: Yes.

Mabus: Arrggh!

Trolls: .. . lovely CORNFIELDS, wonderful, CORNFIELDS.

Mabus: Shut up! Shut up!

Created entirely with search and replace.

Here's a quick reference manual for anyone interested in learning the fine art of trolling from the man himself

Reason Week

2011-02-23T12:55:00.003Z

The Atheists Society at the University of Southampton are celebrating “Reason Week” this week with a series of events, talks and lectures culminating in a live recording of the Pod Delusion on Saturday evening. Personally however I'm rather hoping that Dr. Simon Singh will suitably warm the audience up on Friday lunchtime ready for my talk at 7pm.

It would be great to see you there.

Rupert and the God Delusion

2011-02-17T23:14:00.028Z

Special thanks to

Neil Davies

for the fantastic illustrations

Other titles by the author:

Homeopathy Venn Diagram Demographic Analysis

2011-02-17T20:47:00.006Z

Following on from yesterday's leaked email from a panicked homeopathy administrator, I have now got hold of a leaked document from Boots marketing department who have cunningly used a Venn diagram to analyse the demographic of their potential homeopathy customers.
POSTSCRIPT:

OK, OK, I try and make a quick gag, and I get inundated by pedants complaining about the accuracy of the diagram. I should have known better. The following diagram is hopefully more accurate, although originally rejected as I was only really interested in the comic effect, and after all that's all Venn diagram's are really used for isn't it?

Don't Homeopanic

2011-02-16T10:04:00.018Z

I was delighted to be one of a number of bloggers to receive a rather amusing email in my inbox this morning, reportedly leaked from a panicked administrator at the South Downs School of Homeopathy.

The MRHA (Medicines and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency) are currently undertaking a review of the UK medicines legislation. The practical upshot of which is that there is a possibility that they might change the highly misleading label required for homeopathic products to a slightly less misleading label. Please read Zeno’s excellent blog here for more details.

As a result of this review, here’s the homeopathic sympathiser’s panic stricken call to arms :

Dear EVERYONE,

This is urgent. TOP PRIORITY!!! The deadline is the 18th of February. The practice of homeopathy by lay homeopaths is at stake, and if the MHRA changes the wording to the document mentioned below, we will ...not be allowed to practice any longer. This will take effect immediately. The new wording which is being suggested by sense against science, and is being considered by the MHRA will effectively put us in catch 22 so that we can no longer give out remedies - basically, it is about the difference between dispensing and prescribing. all homeopaths dispense remedies as a normal part of daily practice. the new rules will mean that it will be illegal to dispense without a license, and only a qualified doctor can make a prescription. without the ability to dispense, all we can do is sit and listen to people's problems, but can do nothing else about it. this will also have an affect on the homeopathic pharmacies, who will only be allowed to dispense licensed remedies (currently, only arnica and possibly one or two others are licensed) unless prescribed by a physician, and this means the potential loss of thousands of remedies. The key words in the version we want, which help keep homeopathy going are "...use within the homeopathic tradition". This avoids the need to prove the science behind prescribing of remedies and allows us to practise as normal.
Could you please send this template to EVERYONE and inundate Ms Farmer with requests to keep the wording as shown below, so that homeopaths can continue to practise homeopathy legally.
Please contact everyone on your database, if you are a homeopath, please send it in yourself and contact all your patients to do the same. we can counteract sense about science with numbers. we just proved we have greater numbers than they do, and that when we mobilise, we can beat them at their own game. last week, they started a poll against homeopathy in an irish newspaper ( see link -http://www.thejournal.ie/do-you-have-faith-in-homeopathy-2011-02/?voted=1)
and inundated it with votes against. it was 435 against 67 for. we started a campaign on facebook, and within 24 hours, we shifted the balance of power to what you see here in the link - 67% for 27% against. they gave up and went away with their tails between their legs, and we showed them that people don't want what they have to offer.

Please help us to do this again. many people don't realise this new risk we are facing. it only takes a minute to copy and paste the below template and email it. Apologies in advance if you have acted on this already.

Thank you to everyone in advance - i know if we all work together, we can beat this.

email address: andrea.farmer@mhra.gsi.gov.uk
Ms Andrea Farmer
MHRA, Area 5M
151 Buckingham Palace Road
Victoria, London SW1W 9SZ

Dear Ms Farmer,

I am writing to you about the MHRA consultation document entitled; Review of Medicines Act 1968: informal consultation on issues relating to the PLR regime and homeopathy. As a member of the public who chooses to use homeopathy and benefits from its application/practicing homeopath (delete as applicable), I am deeply concerned by the current orchestrated campaign against homeopathy, which is led by a self-appointed pressure group, Sense About Science, and a number of bloggers.

I consider it to be a fundamental right of any citizen living in a country which purports to be a democracy, to have ready access to the healthcare option of their choice. This includes homeopathy, which as you know is included in the original NHS charter.

I find your statement below acceptable for the new registration labels, and can see no reason to change this statement:

"A homeopathic medicinal product licensed only on the basis of safety, quality and use within the homeopathic tradition"

Yours sincerely,

I read this through twice as I thought at first some clever satirist was exaggerating the uncritical thinking of a made up sympathiser. Does the author really think that the wording of a medicine labels should be determined by a popularity contest rather than reviewing the clinical trials of a products efficacy and safety? Surely not.

Personally I think we should go with Andy Lewis’ suggested label.

Or if you prefer, here’s my last charitable suggestion:

I was going to write an alternative letter in my lunch break, but I just noticed that @Billysugger has posted an excellent suggestion in the comments section, so I've saved myslef the effort and simply pasted his text into the main body of the post. Here it is ...

To: andrea.farmer@mhra.gsi.gov.uk
Ms Andrea Farmer
MHRA, Area 5M
151 Buckingham Palace Road
Victoria, London SW1W 9SZ
...date...
Dear Ms Farmer,
I am writing to you about the MHRA consultation document entitled "Review of Medicines Act 1968: informal consultation on issues relating to the PLR regime and homeopathy".
As a member of the public who values evidence based medical practice, and recognises the dangers inherent in misleading claims for medical efficacy, I am deeply concerned by the current orchestrated campaign in support of unproven homeopathic treatments, and their potential to delay or avoid the application of proven medical therapies, which is led by self-interested homeopaths.
I consider it to be a fundamental duty of a democratic society to ensure that patients and clinicians are provided with clear information about potential remedies which is founded on reliable scientific evidence. This includes homeopathy, the efficacy of which, as you know, is not supported by the current scientific consensus.
I contend that the marketing of any substance which may be offered for sale or application, with an implied or explicit claim of medical efficacy, and which may be considered by patients or clinicians to be suitable as a substitute for, or an addition to, conventional therapeutic remidies, should be subject to the same Marketing Authorisation (MA) requirements as the therapeutic remedies for which they may be substituted.
Therefore I strongly urge the MHRA to move homeopathic products to full Marketing Authorisation (MA) requirements, rather than the NRS or simplified scheme.
Yours
sincerely,
...name...
...address...

And Alan Henness' measured submission to the MHRA can be downloaded from here

Homeopathic Google Juice

2011-02-07T12:35:00.006Z

I was tickled this morning by this tweet:

Which linked to this amusing screenshot

But being a critical thinking person, I thought I really ought to attempt to recreate the Google search myself to ensure that it was genuine (I am reliably informed that in this day and age it is actually possible to digitally alter images).

Fortunately I was delighted to find that not only was the Google search real, but it is also in fact possible to perform a reverse Google lookup on our favourite form of super diluted magic water.

[click image to embiggen]

Hat tip to @gb1501 for the initial fraud.

The Bitter Truth behind the Holy Trinity’s Break-Up

2011-02-03T21:11:00.003Z

A statement today from Heavens press office confirmed rumours that the Holy Trinity are to split up. Many religious pundits have cited conflicts that arose from differences between each divinities artistic vision of their faith.

Although God himself is often credited as the initial creativity of the trio, his early work was considered by many to be overly harsh and much darker than their later material. God’s early handiwork certainly earned him a select following of loyal fans, but he failed to gain mainstream worldwide success until he teamed up with his son and the Holy Ghost to form Christianity.

The trio were a hit and Chistianmania swept the world by storm during the dark ages following the groups highly successful middle eastern tour.

Many fans where looking forward to the much anticipated second tour where it was hoped that Jesus would perform some of his greatest hits including the frugal distribution of mini fish butties, which was always a big crowd pleaser at live gigs. However the trio haven’t been on the road together for nearly 2,000 years preferring instead to stay in heaven and concentrate on their spiritual output which was becoming increasingly more complex and harder to recreate live in a rational environment.

It was during this period that the urban legend arose that “Jesus is dead”. Many fans claimed that clues of Jesus’ death could be seen in the group’s iconic images, within the lyrics of their hymns and even within a hidden message in Revelations 9. Other clues such as Jesus’ barefoot appearance on the cross was seen as further evidence to support the theory that Jesus is dead. However the group’s earthly representatives vehemently denied such rumours stating that Jesus is still very much with us.

It was also at this time that the Holy Spirit was spending more and more time in India where the other deities believed he was being seduced by eastern religions and a general belief in new age spirituality. This was seen by many hard-core Christian fans as a departure from the group’s origins and have cited this as one of the roots of the trios artistic differences.

God was also spending more and more time with the Holy Roman Catholic Church who were developing a more intense interest in a young virgin called Mary. From this point on God and Mary were rarely apart including when God was working with the rest of the group to answer Catholic prayers. This violated a previous tacit agreement between the members not to let wives or girlfriends into prayer sessions.

The split of the holy trinity certainly marks the end of an era but we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of solo projects or even collaborations with other gods to fit in with the current popularity in religious fusion. Any solo projects may well fail to live up to popularity of the trio in their heyday as present day philosophies have moved on from the simplistic ideologies of the groups roots, but let’s not forget the rich cultural legacy that the Trinity leave behind.

Wife Beating and Bible Bashing

2011-01-29T17:36:00.010Z

Thus far I have resisted the temptation to blog too much about Stephen Green, head fruitcake at the UK's very own fundamentalist conservative Christian pressure group. I always felt that mocking the poor fool would feel too much like just picking on a mentally retarded child. But after yesteray's sad but entirely unsurprising allegations in the Daily Mail, I thought I'd look into the case a bit more.

Reports that Stephen "planned to make a piece of wood into a sort of witches broom" for the specific purpose of beating his wife, and that he had "hit her until she bled" don't sound overly positive for Stephen. But lets ignore the rhetoric and spin of the Daily Mail and take a look at it from his side, and more importantly let's take some advice from the good book.

Lets start with Ephesians 5:22-24 (from the King James Version)

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."

This biblical wisdom unequivocally tells us that Mrs Green should really be submitting herself to her husband's God given authority rather than making all this fuss about it all. In fact, it really was rather naughty of her to speak to the media in the first place, after all it does say in 1 Timothy 2: 11-12 (NIV)

"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet."

So lets not be too harsh on Stephen, he's just diligently and literally following the teachings in his preferred instruction manual, and who knows, perhaps Christian Voice could even get a sponsorship deal from Stella Artois following all of this unnecessary furore.

POSTSCRIPT:
Bugger, It seems as though my attempted parody is completeley redundant with this advice from a "genuine" Christian website:

“…sometimes in marriage the grave and solemn responsibility to politely tell the wife to be quiet and stay in her place falls upon every husband.

Being fickle and temperamental, women do not always respond to gentle words so at times a swift, backhanded slap across the face must be applied to them. This usually gets their attention and sets order straight.”

The James Delingpole Hockey Stick

2011-01-27T13:11:00.007Z

I plucked some made up statistics from my arse regarding the percentage of bloggers between 1st January 2011 and 23rd January 2011 who think that James Delingpole is a bit of a tit. After this week’s Horizon on 24th January I then plucked another set of made up statistics from a different source and spliced the two data sets together to form the following graph.

Don't mention sodomy! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

2011-01-25T21:54:00.006Z

The Christian owners of a Cornwall hotel who unlawfully refused to allow a gay couple a double room have appealed.

If they lose their appeal, I wonder if the gay couple might return for another visit, and if so, how might it play out ...

Peter Bull: May I say how pleased we are to have some homosexuals here now that we are all bound by the European Convention on Human Rights? I didn’t vote for it myself, quite honestly, but now that we’re in, I’m determined to make it work, so I’d like to welcome you all to Cornwall.

Steven Preddy: May we have two onion bhajis, please?

Peter Bull: Certainly! Why not, why not indeed? We are all friends now, eh? All in the double bedroom together, old sexual discriminations forgotten, and no need at all to mention sodomy. SORRY! Sorry. What was it again?

Martyn Hall: A prawn cocktail.

Peter Bull: Oh, prawn! That was it! When you said "prawn", I thought you said "bum sex". Oh, y— Oh, bugger! Oh, yes, completely slipped my mind! Yes, I'd forgotten all about it. Barrowman, Winton, and all that lot... Oh, yes, completely forgotten it, just like that. (He looks around for a moment in confusion.) Sorry. What was it again?

  Martyn Hall: A prawn cocktail!

Peter Bull: Oh, yes, Derren Prawn. Yes, of course. And McKellen too, he's another one I can hardly remember them all.

Steven Preddy: And a Steak Pie!

Peter Bull: Stephen Fry, yes, yes, and, uh, Matt Lucas that was another one.

BBC in Fairy Controversy

2011-01-24T12:33:00.005Z

Following an earlier controversy with Professor Brian Cox and Dara O’Briain’s comments on astrology during “Stargazing Live”, the BBC now finds itself in even more serious hot water with the more significant dispute recently raised on “Springwatch Live”.

Chris Packham and Kate Humble have unleashed the wrath of Britain's fairy believers with their comments about the validity of woodland fairies on BBC2's "Springwatch Live" show, with the result that the Fairy & Folklore Society of Great Britain have started a petition they plan to send to the BBC.

The section of the program that caused the fuss has been described in truly harrowing terms by 'respected fairy believer' Dame Agnes Conan Doyle, in an e-mail that was published by the Woodland Fairy Blog.

"If you didn't happen to see it, there were two presenters, Chris Packham and Kate Humble. All was going well until they got to a part where they were observing a foraging badger and Chris was explaining that badgers feed on earthworms, frogs, rodents, birds, eggs, lizards, seeds and berries but not woodland fairies on account of the fact that fairies are just made up. He then went on to add "Let's get this straight once and for all, there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden" The other presenter, Kate Humble, then agreed and said "in the interests of balance on the BBC, yes fairies don’t exist."

Shocking stuff, I think you'll agree.

The Fairy & Folklore Society will be requesting that the BBC make a public apology and a statement that they do not support the personal views of Chris Packham and Kate Humble on the subject of fairies. We also request that the BBC will commit to making a fair and balanced representation of fairies, hobgoblins, leprechauns, astrology, and the Easter Bunny when aired in the future.

Shit Happens

2011-01-23T13:03:00.006Z

In addition to the Ad hominem logical fallacy, you may well have noticed that I’m also rather found of the reductio ad absurdum. This is perhaps a hang over from my day job where I try and reduce complex IT systems down into discrete functional areas that can be fully exercised across all possible paths.

With this is mind, I shall attempt to argue that the totality of our human irrational beliefs, including all superstitions, pseudosciences, paranormal beliefs, religions and inefficacious alternative therapies can be reduced to a single cause that can be summed up in two short words, shit happens.

Every week people will cross their fingers, touch wood, read a horoscope, pray to an invisible all powerful supernatural being, take a sugar pill, visit a psychic or inexplicably shove a foreign object up their arsehole.

And every week someone will receive a phone call from a friend they were recently thinking of, someone one’s bad back will feel a little better, someone will actually get the job they applied for, someone will meet the person of their dreams and fall in love and someone may well even win the National Lottery. I confidently predict these things will come to pass, because shit really does happen.

It’s easy as an objective observer to look at these events from a distance and sneer at the individual who shoved an onion bhaji up his ring-piece on Friday evening, won the National Lottery on Saturday and then subsequently repeated the ritual each week in his confusion of correlation and causation. But these things happen regularly, and each time a new tedious yet utterly compelling anecdote is born.

Now of course, I’ not really suggesting that the mystical and unmistakably power of shit happening is the source of this wonderment. If this were the case surely science would be investigating this remarkable phenomenon? Well of course it is, it’s just that the mathematicians who are investigating it prefer to refer to it as probability. A science so fascinating, yet utterly counterintuitive that many prefer to reject its logic in favour of an alternative explanation that farts in the face of the laws of nature.

What I suspect is at the root of the remarkable phenomenon of shit happening, is in fact merely an incredibly complex set of variables at play in the natural world. A set of variables so immense that my futile attempts to quantify the possible test paths using the recognised white box testing methodologies of software testing used in my day job, would be wholly inadequate.

Indeed the possible configurations of the natural world as understood by science are so vast that it would be far more surprising if shit didn’t in fact constantly, happen.

So although my hypothesis of shit happening does nothing to explain the real natural cause of seemingly unlikely things, I think it provides a far better fall-back solution whilst we impatiently await science to figure out the specific natural path of the currently pending mysteries. After all, I find it a far more satisfying fall-back than deferring to a singular irrational supernatural excuse.

Shit happens, get used to it.

A Great Year for Skeptics in the Pub

2011-01-21T20:23:00.006Z

Winchester Skeptics in the Pub (SitP) is one year old this week and we will be celebrating by moving to a new and bigger venue in the heart of Winchester town centre.

Dave Hughes and I hooked up shortly after the first TAM London (following the realisation that we only actually lived a few miles apart), and after telephoning Simon Perry for a few tips on setting up our very own SitP; we convened in a pub in Basingstoke. Over a few drinks we began to hatch our cunning plan for the Hamphire Skeptics Society to extend the Skeptics in the Pub franchise to the good people of Hampshire.

Having opted for Winchester as a good central Hampshire location, we embarked upon a pub-crawl to scout out some suitable public houses that might be willing to tolerate a monthly evening of scientific scepticism.

We visited a number of traditional old English drinking establishments on our quest for a suitable venue, imbibing the local fare as we went. Our intoxicated journey led us to the “Slug and Lettuce” where we viewed the 150+ capacity function room on the 1st floor. We briefly shared illicit fantasies about how nice it would be to be able to fill such a venue. However, as we were not at all confident in generating a huge amount of interest, we opted instead for the Royal Oak, a quaint old pub in the town centre with a “haunted” cellar that could snugly accommodate 20-30 geeks with nothing better to do of a Thursday evening.

Shortly after agreeing on the venue we received confirmation from Simon Singh that he would be delighted to come and give our inaugural talk, and it quickly became apparent that the “haunted” cellar was unlikely to be able accommodate the growing throng of people registering their interest. A few last minute phone calls and visits by Dave fortunately secured us the use of the dinning room at the Roebuck Inn.

The initial meeting was a great success, with almost 100 people turning up. The high of the first night was followed by a fantastic year of events including talks from Richard Wilson, Deborah Hyde, Martin Robbins, Simon Perry, Dr. Andy Russell, Andy Lewis, Prof. David Colquhoun, Prof. Chris French, Frank Swain, David Allen Green and a live recording of the Pod Delusion Christmas Special Podcast.

Indeed it was a great year for Skeptics in the Pub in general with a host of other branches springing up all over the country almost at pace to match the rate at which churches are closing.

We now have high hopes for 2011 and have already set out an exciting schedule of events that includes many talks from blokes off of the telly. We hope to be hosting Adam Rutherford, Prof. Jim Al Khalili, Jon Ronson, Chris Lintott, Prof. David Nutt, Mark Stevenson, Les Rose, Matt Parker and Dean Burnett as well as many other events still in the pipeline for this year.

Although the Roebuck proved to be most accommodating during our first year, due to problems with their roof, the pub will be closing down this week. The cost of repair will in all probability make it economically unfeasible for the owners to reopen the pub in the immediate future, hence necessitating the need for a new home for Winchester Skeptics in the Pub. I did ponder if we could perhaps start a pub roof fund and stick a giant thermometer outside. We could have a pub fete and have a cake stall and a raffle and a White Elephant Stall and I could make some jam and and … No maybe not.

So, another pub-crawl this week with the ever-helpful assistance of James Thomas led us once more to the upstairs function room at the Slug and Lettuce. Following a year of frequently rammed events at the Roebuck, filling their capacious function room no longer seems so daunting. So we will be holding our first Winchester Skeptics in the Pub of 2011 in the Slug and Lettuce in Winchester town centre were we will be welcoming Andrew Copson, the Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association to talk on the history and importance of the humanist movement.

We are keen to make Winchester Skeptics in the Pub as inclusive as possible, and we are very much aware that a pub environment may be limiting to some potential attendees. Sadly, the Slug and Lettuce also does not have wheelchair access to the first floor, so before committing to this venue on a more permanent basis we will have to weigh up all the options.

Many thanks to all our speakers from our first year, and for everyone who came out to the events, we really have started to establish quite a community and with the help of Daniel Pope, spawned the first Skeptics in the Curry House (SitCH) that now regularly concludes our monthly meetings.

If you are able to get to Winchester on the last Thursday evening of the month then you would be most welcome to come and join us.

See you at Winchester Skeptics in the Pub, £2 on the door, no need to book.

Feel free to post links and comments below on how its going at the other branches around the country.

The Turin Bicycle

2011-01-13T12:40:00.004Z

The Bicycle of Turin or Turin Bicycle (Italian: Bicicletta di Torino, Pedale Sacro) is a two wheeled vehicle propelled by foot pedals bearing the initials “J. H. C.”. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy.

The origins of the bicycle are the subject of intense debate among scientists, theologians, historians and researchers. Some contend that the vehicle is the actual bicycle used by Christ, as referred to in numerous literary references and still in common parlance today as an exclamation of surprise.

Many others contend that the artifact was created in the 1970’s at a factory in Worksop, as indicated by radiocarbon analysis performed in 1988 which placed the artifact between Tuesday and Thursday of the first week in September 1974. The Catholic Church has neither formally endorsed nor rejected the bicycle.

However, recent research and chemical tests have revealed that the actual pedal used for the 1988 radiocarbon dating was probably a replacement pedal refitted to the vehicle in the 1970’s by a kindly nun. Theologians have also concluded that the biblical accounts of Christ reveal much travelling and would suggest that the distance covered by Christ as relayed in the gospels are consistent with the need to replace the pedals, making the authenticity of the bicycle murkier than ever.

The infamous image of the original discovery of the Bicycle of Turin (visible in the photograph directly below the remains of the actual cross Christ was crucified on), has nonetheless been criticised by many archaeologists as unreliable having been originally published by a satirical blogger on his lunch break shortly after performing a Google image search.

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking

Bad Science Infographic

WinSitP: Simon Singh on Alan Turing and the Cracking of the Enigma Code

How to replace the School ICT Curriculum

I Am A Centrefold

Skeptic Trumps: Rhys Morgan

Make Your Very Own Clarksonator

Skeptic Park 4: Featuring Rhys Morgan #Burzynski

Tasty Boxer Short Recipes for Prof. Jim Al-Khalili

Beware the Paramyth

It’s Skeptical Correctness Gone Mad

My Psychic Sally Toolkit

Skeptics in the Planetarium

The Hitchhiker's Guide To Religion

How Many Festival Tents Does it Take to Close a Cathedral?

What Must The Catholic Church Do To Finally Concede The Moral High Ground?

When Will The Church of England Shut Up Shop For The Last Time?

The “Christian" Killing of Troy Davis

Teach The Controversy?

Magical v. Rational Candles

An Apology from God … Inspired by Johann Hari

2012 Olympic Prayer Testing

Why Photographs of the Apollo Landing Site Will Not Convince the Denialists

The Detox 2000 (Patent Pending)

Scientifically Accurate Labelling of the Acupuncture Meridians and Acupoints

An Optimist’s Tour of the Future: One Curious Man Sets Out to Answer “What’s Next?”

Winchester #SitP 25th August with Alice Sheppard

Nadine Dorries: We Should Shut Me Down During an Outbreak of Public Stupidity

Is The 27 Club Statistically Significant?

More Videos Demonstrating How Homeopathy Doesn't Work

AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities

Why I'm So Sad to See the Space Shuttle Come Home

Doctor Who Tube Map

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking Time Lords

We Apologise for the Inconvenience - Normal Service Will be Resumed Shortly

Jourdemayne: The Vampires of Rhode Island

Winchester #SitP 30th June 2011: Jon Ronson

Skeptic Trumps: David Mitchell

Skeptic Trumps: Steve Jones

Skeptic Trumps: Sanal Edamaruku

Skeptic Trumps: Edzard Ernst

Skeptical Squares

How to Point and Laugh at Irrational Nonsense

Inspirational Irrational Nonsense

Irrational Nonsense Blues

European Union Irrational Nonsense Labelling Regulations

Winchester #SitP 26th May 2011: Mark Stevenson

How the New Rapture Date Was Calculated

Skeptic Trumps: Nate Phelps

The Certainty of Harold Camping and the Oncoming Rapture

A Closer Look at the England Cricket Team’s “Power Balance” Bracelets

The Periodic Table of Urban Biscuit Myths

How to Celebrate Justice

Adam Rutherford at Winchester SitP 28th April

The Crudity of Early Home Computing

Blogger Farm: A Fairytale

Night and Day: The Spectator Arts Blog

Why I Would Be Slightly Less Proud To Have Been Longlisted for the Golding Prize

Full Deck of Skeptic Trumps

The Genius of Alan Turing

Save the Religion

The Ancestors Trail

Rupert and the God Delusion - Video Version

Alan Turing and the Electric Monk Overlords

DNA Source Code

Imam who believes in gravity retracts statements

Offensive Census Campaign Posters?

Moo Moo Woo Woo

CORNFIELDS

Reason Week

Rupert and the God Delusion

Homeopathy Venn Diagram Demographic Analysis

Don't Homeopanic

Homeopathic Google Juice

The Bitter Truth behind the Holy Trinity’s Break-Up

Wife Beating and Bible Bashing

The James Delingpole Hockey Stick

Don't mention sodomy! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

BBC in Fairy Controversy

Shit Happens