Cory Doctorow at TAM London 2010

The subject of copyright might not at first appear entirely relevant to the skeptical theme of TAM London, but Cory Doctorow is an engaging speaker and I was keen to hear him in person. (I also had a personal interest in hearing him speak, as I've had my own creative work published beside his, in the podcast fiction anthology Voices: New Media Fiction, edited by Mur Lafferty.) In the event Doctorow's talk fitted the theme perfectly, as he is skeptical of the whole idea of copyright as it is attempted to be implemented in the modern digital world.

Doctorow is himself a pioneer in copyright reform. As a science-fiction writer he makes all his novels available for free under Creative Commons, yet still earns money from the same novels published conventionally. He worked for some years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, so is no stranger to challenging accepted paradigms.

He pointed out that the way copyright-owners currently seek to restrict use of their intellectual property is simply impractical in the age of the internet, and that "yesterday's pirates are today's admirals". As an example he cited the invention of the phonograph, which appeared to threaten publishers of sheet music. When it became possible to mechanically record music played from the printed sheets, the music publishers understandably objected to the recording companies' selling their recordings direct to the public. They considered the recording companies pirates, but now the recording companies are the admirals, protesting at the ease with which their recordings can be shared at very low cost without remuneration to the companies that manufactured the recordings. He described Viacom's attempts to force YouTube to vet — for copyright violation — all uploads to the world's most popular video-sharing website as doomed: there simply isn't enough time between now and the heat death of the universe for YouTube to do such a thing.

Cory Doctorow is always great value as a speaker — clear, provocative, funny and disciplined. He dealt with questions from the floor in typical no-nonsense fashion. Other public speakers could learn a lot from his style. If you want more Doctorow, I recommend his website Craphound.com as a first stop. He's also an editor of BoingBoing, the well-known tech/culture blog.

Libel reform — mass blog posting

I post the following at the suggestion of Simon Singh:

This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.

The English libel law is particularly dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows the High Court in London to have a global reach.

You can read more about the peculiar and grossly unfair nature of English libel law at the website of the Libel Reform Campaign. You will see that the campaign is not calling for the removal of libel law, but for a libel law that is fair and which would allow writers a reasonable opportunity to express their opinion and then defend it.

The good news is that the British Government has made a commitment to draft a bill that will reform libel, but it is essential that bloggers and their readers send a strong signal to politicians so that they follow through on this promise. You can do this by joining me and over 50,000 others who have signed the libel reform petition at www.libelreform.org/sign

Remember, you can sign the petition whatever your nationality and wherever you live. Indeed, signatories from overseas remind British politicians that the English libel law is out of step with the rest of the free world.

If you have already signed the petition, then please encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign up. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can join hundreds of other bloggers by posting this blog on your own site. There is a real chance that bloggers could help change the most censorious libel law in the democratic world.

We must speak out to defend free speech. Please sign the petition for libel reform at www.libelreform.org/sign

Richard Dawkins at TAM London 2010

For many at TAM London 2010 the appearance of Richard Dawkins is likely to have been a big draw. He was scheduled to speak at last year's inaugural TAM London, but pulled out — presumably due to a clash with his US book tour.

As with Sue Blackmore I'd heard Richard Dawkins speak in person on two previous occasions — at Conway Hall in June 2009 as part of the Darwin, Humanism and Science one-day conference, and more recently at the Intelligence Squared debate "Atheism is the New Fundamentalism" at Wellington College in Crowthorne, Berkshire. I've also seen many videos and heard many radio programmes on which Dawkins has featured, so I was especially pleased to hear him deliver a talk I'd not previously heard.

He's proposing that the teaching of evolution can serve as an all-round education in the same way that the teaching of classics has been traditionally considered as an education fit for any profession. An understanding of evolution encompasses many fields and imparts a knowledge of humanity's place in the living world, and relative to the universe as a whole. That's the gist, but the thesis was closely argued — and illustrated — with typical Dawkins clarity and rigour. I didn't take notes, so I'll refer you to someone who apparently did. The Sceptical Banter blog details Dawkins' argument and provides plenty of links to background material. The lecture was enlightening, with much content, and I'd really like to hear it again. If the past is anything to go by, I think that's quite likely to happen.

In contrast to Sue Blackmore's lively talk this was a relatively subdued lecture, with Dawkins' passion for his subject seeming a touch more low-key than usual. Perhaps this was the first time he had delivered this particular talk and was taking it slower than normal (which for Dawkins is pretty slow anyway), testing it out. The photographs accurately suggest that there were few laughs, and there was no Q&A session after.

Given the disappointing news that broke a few days after TAM London, Professor Dawkins may have had other matters weighing on his mind.

The Intelligent Design v Evolution debate isn't going away

Both ID and evolutionary theory attempt to explain how life came to be as it is today. Each side appears to be driven by its own motives, but those motives are largely irrelevant to the scientific debate.

On the one hand we have evolutionary theory, which says that random mutation plus natural selection produces gradual change in populations of living organisms such that subsequent generations become progressively more suited to prevailing conditions, and these small changes accumulate to the big changes we see over geological time. Though the theory seems sound (and immensely elegant), I understand there are some stages in the process that science has yet to explain adequately.

Michael Behe

And on the other hand we have intelligent design theory, which says that unexplained stages in evolution can be explained by positing an intelligent designer. To me this is no more than an "intelligent-designer-of-the-gaps". My main objection to the ID argument is that it isn't an explanation. Hypothesizing an intelligent designer isn't testable by science, so ID can't legitimately be described as science. If I suggest that the gaps in evolutionary theory can be explained as the intervention of magic pixies I don't expect anyone to accept this as a scientific explanation — but as explanations go, it has as much science in it as ID.

Justin Brierley

Despite this, however, there are some scientists who claim that ID is science. One such is Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University, and he will be touring the UK next month, giving illustrated lectures. One of these, at 7 pm in Westminster Chapel in London, on November 22nd, will be hosted by Justin Brierley of Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable? programme. All are invited, at a ticket price of £10 (which includes a DVD), but bookings must be made in advance.

Behe's tour is in conjunction with the newly announced Centre for Intelligent Design based in Scotland (where apparently school curricula have no prohibition on teaching ID or creationism in school science lessons).

Paul Sims

Paul Sims at the New Humanist blog suggests that journalists should ignore Behe's lectures, starving him and the C4ID of the oxygen of publicity. This is tempting but in my opinion misguided. Anyone who cares about science education in the UK should be prepared to challenge those who aim to corrupt it. Intelligent design as a concept may be a fit subject for a philosophy class, but it has no place in science teaching.





UPDATE 2010-10-30:
Some useful resources related to ID:

Fake ID:
http://www.thetwentyfirstfloor.com/?p=1302

British Centre for Science Education
http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/

(Image positions also tweaked.)

Burnee links for Monday

Would you Adam and Eve it? Top scientists tell Scottish pupils: the Bible is true - Herald Scotland | News | Education
More on the Centre for Intelligent Design — includes this quote from Alastair Noble:

“The problem is not, as Darwin saw it, the survival of the fittest; the problem is the arrival of the fittest.”

Nice sound-bite, but it doesn't make sense. He's talking about origins and implying that Darwinian evolution maintains that organisms start off being fit for their environment. It doesn't. Saying "the problem is the arrival of the fittest" is actually describing what ID (or at least creationism) maintains — that organisms are created perfect. There is indeed a problem with this; it's incorrect.

Fighting talk in church | Sue Blackmore | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
"Aggressive atheists" are atheists who say shrill, strident or militant things such as "I don't believe in God."

The Metropolis » Review: The Amaz!ng Meeting - what happens when Cory Doctorow, Stephen Fry, Alan Moore, and the Amazing Randi play host to 1000 of their closest friends | Snipe
A local review of TAM London 2010.

The 21st Floor » Blog Archive » FakeID Campaign
Intelligent Design is not science. If you're resident north of the border, write and tell your MSP.

New Statesman - Who are these Skeptics? And do they matter?
David Allen Green (aka Jack of Kent) reviews the skeptic "movement" in the light of TAM London 2010 (at which he was a participating panellist).

Sue Blackmore at TAM London 2010

It was entirely appropriate that the second Amaz!ng Meeting London should begin with Sue Blackmore's talk on her arduous path to skepticism*. Professor Susan Blackmore is well known on the skeptic/humanist/atheist circuit, and her appearance at TAM London 2010 was the third time I've heard her speak in person — the others being the Humanist Philosophers' one-day event "Evolution: Is This All There Is?" at Conway Hall on 31 October 2009, and a debate about intelligent design following a screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed at Imperial College on 27 February 2010, arranged through Premier Christian Radio.

Her talk at TAM London, however, was of a different and personal kind, being an illustrated account of her own search for actual paranormal phenomena. At college she personally had a paranormal experience — specifically an out-of-body experience, which convinced her that such things were real. She set out, therefore, to do the necessary rigorous research to prove, scientifically, the existence of the paranormal. She was disappointed, however, that her research didn't come up with the categorical proof she was hoping for. There were some positive results, but in terms of statistical significance they didn't count. Nevertheless the "paranormal" is a wide field, so she broadened her research to take in other aspects of paranormal manifestation. Time and again the results showed there was nothing there, and eventually, reluctantly, she had to concede that in fact the paranormal does not exist. No telepathy, no clairvoyance, no precognition, no ghosts. Nothing. It took twenty years.

Woo-merchants are often challenged to produce evidence backing up their claims. What they usually provide (if anything) is anecdotal — rarely is anything approaching scientific  proof forthcoming. Sue Blackmore's story shows why: when such claims are put to the test — rigorous, scientific, peer-reviewed test — they fail. Randi's Million Dollar Prize is safe.

(Sue Blackmore made a point of giving her talk in the same garb she wore at college — she showed photographs to prove it — in a fitting tribute to her former self.)

____________

*Sharp-eyed readers will note that I have succumbed, despite my initial declaration, to spelling skepticism with a 'k'. I've become used to reading it thus, and so thus shall I henceforth write it.

How relevant to skepticism was TAM London 2010?

There's been some discussion in the #TAMLondon twitterverse about the relevance to skepticism of some of this year's sessions. In an effort to gauge the discussion I've created a kind of survey that might yield an actual "percentage of relevance." My own response to my self-created survey is below, and a PDF of the survey form is available from Google Docs.

From the image above — click it to bignify — you can see that I considered TAM London 2010 to be 72% relevant to skepticism. What's your score?

(I'm no statistician, so if anyone has a more accurate or more appropriate way of reducing the form to a single figure please let me know.)