PHILOSOPHERS
I's been a good week for philosophical/skeptical (my main viewpoint!) stuff. On Monday I went to Skepics in the Pub. On Wednesday I saw two of the UK's top philosophers debating at the London School of Economics. Tonight (Friday) I was in the studio audience for perhaps Britain's best quiz show comedy called QI.
Here's some stuff on each.
Monday's thing was Skeptics in the Pub. There are two such groups in London and this was the first time I'd gone to the smaller (but more seriously 'policy oriented' one) Westminster Skeptics. The main speaker was great - the charismatic, confident journalist who was the main man exposing Andrew Wakefield (the seemingly corrupt scientist/doctor who has spearheaded a decade of nonsensical claims causing people to stop letting their kids have vital MMR jabs). But seeing Dr Evan Harris there was a highlight. He lost his local vote in this week's election by only 176 votes and certainly thinks a last-minute local smear campagn by a local priest and arsonist animal rights guy clinched it against him. He's a superb pro-science, pro-human rights guy and was an asset to our government, but is not jobless thanks to a bunch of idiot smears from (frankly) credulous wankers on both the religious and dogmatic protest side. Google Skeptics in the Pub and see if your own town/city has a Skeptics in the Pub - there are plenty, especially in the USA etc.
Wednesday's philosophical stuff was good. Prof AC Grayling was the highlight. He's an atheist but considers himself more purely philosophical than the rampaging (but lovely) atheist 'four horsement of the apocalypse' who are RIchard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris and the formidable (and mildly anarchic) debater Christopher Hitchens. I leanrt stuff like how the atholic church are the ones who originaly established primary schools in Britain .. to teach people to disbelieve in fairies. A great site for finding out about (often free) intellectual stuff near you is http://lecturelist.org/
Tonight was great. Stephen Fry leads the programme "QI" and is a British institution. As a skeptic, it's so clear that the whole programme is a (highly successful) platform for him to promote his strong skeptical/humanist views. Even his guest comedians etc are often people who've also read plenty of Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh etc and are generally sold into all the skeptical arguments. Robert Webb (from Peep Show and Mitchell and Webb), for example, was name-checking Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and seemed to have a heartfelt skeptical perspective. I've no complaints about that! Just weird to see that the only TV programme where stuff I'm interested in constantly appears is actually a quiz show! The recording was over two hours long, so over 75% must end up on the cutting room floor. Got to confeess that in the studio it felt less fluid than the final cut you'd see on TV, and had more stunted pauses and felt a bit more like a lecture from a skeptical bore (like myself!) in the pub! Was still good though and, edited down, it will be great.
I's been a good week for philosophical/skeptical (my main viewpoint!) stuff. On Monday I went to Skepics in the Pub. On Wednesday I saw two of the UK's top philosophers debating at the London School of Economics. Tonight (Friday) I was in the studio audience for perhaps Britain's best quiz show comedy called QI.
Here's some stuff on each.
Monday's thing was Skeptics in the Pub. There are two such groups in London and this was the first time I'd gone to the smaller (but more seriously 'policy oriented' one) Westminster Skeptics. The main speaker was great - the charismatic, confident journalist who was the main man exposing Andrew Wakefield (the seemingly corrupt scientist/doctor who has spearheaded a decade of nonsensical claims causing people to stop letting their kids have vital MMR jabs). But seeing Dr Evan Harris there was a highlight. He lost his local vote in this week's election by only 176 votes and certainly thinks a last-minute local smear campagn by a local priest and arsonist animal rights guy clinched it against him. He's a superb pro-science, pro-human rights guy and was an asset to our government, but is not jobless thanks to a bunch of idiot smears from (frankly) credulous wankers on both the religious and dogmatic protest side. Google Skeptics in the Pub and see if your own town/city has a Skeptics in the Pub - there are plenty, especially in the USA etc.
Wednesday's philosophical stuff was good. Prof AC Grayling was the highlight. He's an atheist but considers himself more purely philosophical than the rampaging (but lovely) atheist 'four horsement of the apocalypse' who are RIchard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris and the formidable (and mildly anarchic) debater Christopher Hitchens. I leanrt stuff like how the atholic church are the ones who originaly established primary schools in Britain .. to teach people to disbelieve in fairies. A great site for finding out about (often free) intellectual stuff near you is http://lecturelist.org/
Tonight was great. Stephen Fry leads the programme "QI" and is a British institution. As a skeptic, it's so clear that the whole programme is a (highly successful) platform for him to promote his strong skeptical/humanist views. Even his guest comedians etc are often people who've also read plenty of Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh etc and are generally sold into all the skeptical arguments. Robert Webb (from Peep Show and Mitchell and Webb), for example, was name-checking Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and seemed to have a heartfelt skeptical perspective. I've no complaints about that! Just weird to see that the only TV programme where stuff I'm interested in constantly appears is actually a quiz show! The recording was over two hours long, so over 75% must end up on the cutting room floor. Got to confeess that in the studio it felt less fluid than the final cut you'd see on TV, and had more stunted pauses and felt a bit more like a lecture from a skeptical bore (like myself!) in the pub! Was still good though and, edited down, it will be great.