Winchester Science Festival, Day 2 — some disjointed ramblings

On Saturday July 21 I went to the middle day of the three-day Winchester Science Festival¹, at the Winchester Discovery Centre. Here are some uncoordinated notes and musings on it.

Arrived in good time after parking in Tower St multi-storey (£8 for the day). Hardly anyone there. Collected my pre-booked tickets (all nine of them) and had a cup of coffee while people came in.

First talk was Peter Harrison on Lucid Dreaming. I had no idea this was anything more than a curiosity, but apparently LD has been very useful in exploring how the brain works. Also it's a relatively recent science.

Lewis Dartnell was ill so we had short fill-ins from Peter Harrison and Simon Watt, which were excellent, and I don't feel short-changed for not hearing about Alien Evolution. Simon Watt then delivered his scheduled talk, "Sperm Warfare" — highly informative, amusing and in parts somewhat alarming.

Andrew Pontzen and Tom Whyntie then gave us an elaborate dramatisation of the hunt for Dark Matter — very funny and informative (but necessarily inconclusive).

Lunch was at a pizza place nearby (but I made sure to have only a starter and drink only water). Sat opposite Alice Sheppard who answered my supplementary² question about spinning galaxies as illustrated in the previous talk — some of them rotate against the intuitive direction: the "trailing" arms do actually lead, in some galaxies. Back in time for Jenny Rohn's talk about the Science is Vital campaign (but despite my abstemious attitude to lunch I found it hard to concentrate).

Stephen Curry talked about how X-rays allow us to see how viruses work. He's a good speaker, and his Powerpoint was one of the best I've seen.

Sylvia McLain let us know what scientists look like and what they do. She is, along with Jenny Rohn and Stephen Curry, part of the Occam's Typewriter blogging network.

Probably my favourite talk of the day (possibly tying with Peter Harrison's) was "String Theory" presented by Milton Mermikides. It wasn't the kind of physics you might expect from the title, being about the science of music, with wonderful demonstrations from Bridget Mermikides and Ned Evett (the "glass guitarist").

With about an hour to spare before the evening entertainment, some of us indulged with tea and cake in the Discovery Centre, before the live set by Ned Evett, whose guitars are all fretless — the "fretboards" being mirror glass. Difficult to play, perhaps, but he made it appear effortless.

Eleanor Curry, daughter of previous speaker Stephen Curry, did a 15-minute stand-up about what it's like to be a sixth-former trying to decide which university to attend. Brilliant stuff — this youngster will be stratospheric.

Helen Arney tunes her ukelele

Helen Arney delivered a preview of her Edinburgh Fringe show, "Voice of an Angle" which included her contention that equilateral triangles are so named for their connection with horses (works for me).

A meal had been booked at a local Asian restaurant, but unfortunately they'd had a power cut and couldn't serve us. The manager, however, guided us to another of their restaurants that could accommodate us — but this one was Japanese. Nevertheless we had a good time, despite the unscheduled switch in cuisine, leaving the place around midnight.

Highly enjoyable and informative day. If they do it again next year I'll go to the whole thing.

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¹Thanks are due to festival director James Thomas — Winchester Science Festival was his brainchild.
²Alice Sheppard answered a previous question of mine about spinning galaxies when she gave a talk at Winchester Skeptics in the Pub.

Not enough 4thought? Channel 4 goes for "balance" on evolution

All this week Channel 4's daily "let's have some controversial views, but not too much — in fact let's keep it down to under two minutes" slot, called 4thought.tv, has been attempting to answer the question "Is it possible to believe in God and Darwin?" An odd question — if to "believe" in something means you think it exists. I think Darwin existed. There's documentary evidence to show that Charles Darwin actually walked this Earth, and — famously — sailed the seas, as well as perambulating the tangled bank, and so forth.

That's not what Channel 4 means, I suspect, which gives us an indication how seriously or rigorously it's taking the real question, which I assume is "Is belief in God compatible with an understanding of Darwin's theory of evolution by random mutation and natural selection?" As a further demonstration of their lack of commitment to rationality, on Monday Channel 4's choice of first participant to discuss this important issue was a Young Earth Creationist:

http://www.4thought.tv/4thoughts/0339-Dr-Sandr%C3%A9-Fourie-Is-it-possible-to-believe-in-God-and-Darwin-

Dr Sandré Fourie comes out with some dreadful nonsense that makes her credentials as a veterinary surgeon distinctly dubious (note the stethoscope round her neck, to add verisimilitude to her utterly unconvincing contribution — though to be fair I wouldn't be surprised if this medical adornment was at the instigation of the show's art director).

Next, on Tuesday, we have a voice of sanity with Simon Watt, an evolutionary biologist, who makes several valid and relevant points — including that the Bible story is not meant to be taken literally and is in a completely different category from what science has shown us about evolution, and that he's not irrevocably wedded to the theory of evolution. If something better comes along, he's ready to take on new scientific ideas:

http://www.4thought.tv/4thoughts/0340-Simon-Watt-Is-it-possible-to-believe-in-God-and-Darwin-

Wednesday we heard Dr. Alastair Noble, director of the Centre for Intelligent Design, telling us that if something looks designed, it must have an intelligent cause. Not that Channel 4 mentions Noble's affiliations anywhere, only that he's been involved in science education (he's actually an ex-inspector of schools) and that he thinks science should take the "theory of intelligent design" seriously. A scientific theory, however, should make specific, testable predictions, which intelligent design has so far failed to do. Noble claims that evolution (he calls it "Darwinism") is inadequate to explain the complexity seen in living things. But then he says that intelligent design is a sufficient explanation, when it clearly isn't an explanation at all. ID is a philosophical idea — there's nothing scientific about it. He mentions that the cell is very complicated, and that anywhere else such complexity is observed (he means in engineering) we infer a designer. As usual he leaves out an important component in this inference: what we actually infer when we see such engineering is a human designer — every time. Even William Paley inferred a human watchmaker. We have no other examples of design intelligence, apart from human intelligence. ID proponents make an invalid extrapolation from an inadequate sample size:

http://www.4thought.tv/4thoughts/0341-Dr-Alastair-Noble-Is-it-possible-to-believe-in-God-and-Darwin-

Thursday and we're back to real science with Alanna Maltby, who announces that she's an evolutionary biologist and an atheist. Echoing Simon Watt she mentions the elegance of Darwin's theory, and the overwhelming evidence in support of it. She also hopes that there aren't too many people who believe in six-day creation and a 6000-year-old Earth. I hope so too, but so far in this series we've had two evolutionary biologists, a Young Earth Creationist and an intelligent design proponent:

http://www.4thought.tv/4thoughts/0342-Alanna-Maltby-Is-it-possible-to-believe-in-God-and-Darwin-

On Friday Dr. Ruth Bancewicz began by saying "My Christian faith tells me who made something out of nothing. Science can't answer that question." She ought to realise that though science does not at present have an answer to that question — if indeed it's a valid one — the idea that her Christian faith does have an answer is obviously absurd. Christianity, or any other religion, just makes up an answer. There's no compelling evidence or reason supporting it, only variable interpretations of ancient texts of dubious provenance. Dr. Banciewicz goes on to tell us she has a PhD in genetics, and she thinks the word creationist has been hijacked by the young-earthers. She prefers to think of all people who believe that God set things in motion — including evolution — as creationists. I think she could  be fairly described as a theistic evolutionist, but of a particularly vague and woolly kind:

http://www.4thought.tv/4thoughts/0343-Dr-Ruth-Bancewicz-Is-it-possible-to-believe-in-God-and-Darwin-

Is it significant that of the five contributors so far, all three of those claiming that evolution is untrue, that "Darwinism" is inadequate, or that Goddidit — have "Dr." in front of their names?

There are two more "4thoughts" on this subject to come — I'm guessing we'll have one believer and one non-believer — as if such a near even split is representative of scientific opinion as a whole.