My QED 2012 experience — part 1

For me the stand-out features of QED this year were the range of speakers and the socialising. Unlike last year I didn't stay at the conference hotel so I had to carry everything for the day with me — which turned out to be a raincoat and a fairly large camera bag. These, I'm happy to report, didn't impede me much.

Like last year I arrived on Friday, catching an earlier train than I'd expected from Euston, and took my time ambling from my lodging to the Mercure Piccadilly Hotel for a relaxed meal before the Mixer, which was scheduled for 8 but seemed to be in full swing some time before that. By 8, however, wandering through the packed bar area was like swimming through a sea of skeptic celebrities. It's not called the Mixer for nothing and is one of the things that makes QED special. Whether or not they had read Hayley Stevens' blog, many people seemed to be taking her advice about talking to 'strangers'.

As for the event itself, I shall blog about it in short bursts, with photographs:



On Saturday, after Andy Wilson's official opening — not much more than a welcome and some housekeeping, Deborah Hyde kicked off with the historical context of the werewolf myth. Being the first speaker at an international conference can be, I imagine, a bit daunting, but Deborah displayed no sign of nerves even as her microphone was replaced or adjusted only seconds into her talk. Last year's first speaker was Bruce Hood, and I seem to remember he did take a few minutes (though not many) to get into his stride.

Deborah's talk was a new one, though she had given us a sneak preview at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub about a month earlier. In her QED talk she outlined the popular myths, and how it might have been reasonable, given the context and specific examples, to believe that werewolves were real. Bringing the myth down to earth, she included some real wolves.



Next was Steve Jones, explaining what is meant by natural selection — immediately illustrating the diversity of speakers and topics at this year's QED: from an investigation into the historical basis of popular myths we had moved on to why evolution, as understood by Charles Darwin (though he never used the word in his Origin of Species), is an undirected process. The example Steve used was the generation of effective shapes for nozzles used in the industrial manufacture of powder, by applying random but small variations to successively more effective shapes, thus refining the efficiency and durability of the nozzles without knowing precisely why they work. It's apparently an engineering technique still in use today.



The last speaker before lunch was David Aaronovitch. I was particularly keen to hear what he had to say as I attended the CFI Conspiracy Theories day at Conway Hall, at which David was scheduled to speak, but he had to withdraw due to ill health. So I was not entirely pleased when he began by announcing that his talk would be completely new and unike any of his previous talks. Nevertheless it was lively and off the cuff — conspiracy theories are everywhere so it's not as if there's a dearth of material — and well worth hearing. He spoke mostly about the conspiracy theory that's grown up around the affair of Dominique Strauss-Kahn — that the allegations against him of attempted rape are part of a sting organised by the French government (or more particularly by factions loyal to Nicolas Sarkozy).

After an equally lively Q&A session it was time for lunch. Topics had already ranged far and wide. More next time.

(Click here for part 2.)

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This is my 600th blogpost. I thought you'd like to know.

Doubtful text is no standard for doctrinal accuracy

"This chapter addresses a popular argument that is used against those who hold to an inerrant Bible. Essentially, the argument is posed as a question: How can you claim to have an inerrant original text when we don't even have the original text? On its face, this argument has seemed so compelling that some people never get beyond it. This chapter will show what are the underlying assumptions behind this question and why they are fallacious."

A laudable goal, don't you think? Unfortunately Daniel B. Wallace does no such thing. His chapter — "Inerrancy and the Text of the New Testament — Assessing the Logic of the Agnostic View" (the second in the final section of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God) —  says much the same as did David Instone-Brewer at Unbelievable?: The Conference. Which is, we don't have the autographs but we know what they (mostly) said. This, it turns out, amounts to little more than wishful thinking. As I pointed out in my review of the previous chapter, the lack of the original manuscripts throws everything else into doubt, because there is no provenance for any of the copies. At one point Wallace claims that there are almost 10,000 Latin manuscripts, but it makes no difference how many there are if you don't know from what they were copied. Suppose they're all derived from an early but inaccurate copy — there may be differences between them that can be ironed out by scholarship and statistical analysis, but the resultant agreed text will be nothing more than a reasonably accurate representation of something that itself could be wildly inaccurate.

Wallace spends many words (indeed this chapter is the longest in the book so far) on whether acknowledged discrepancies are significant, and claims that in terms of doctrine they are not. But he's basing his judgement of what conforms to doctrine on the text that he's trying to validate. This is begging the question. If the doctrine happens to be stated in the missing or disputed text, he cannot know whether the text conforms to doctrine or not, because the doctrine itself is therefore in doubt.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952779
PDF available here:
http://www.kintera.org/atf/cf/%7B3B69BDFD-EA8B-40FF-9448-410B4D143E88%7D/NTTCinerrancyNAMB.pdf

Intelligent design in the pub

Today I received email from someone willing to give talks on their chosen subject, anywhere in the UK, for free. This person is also "happy to participate in more intimate settings like a dinner or supper event."

Sounds to me a bit like Skeptics in the Pub, so I'm wondering if I should suggest this person to Trish — the convenor of my local (Portsmouth) Skeptics in the Pub — as a possible future speaker. My emailer's subject is one that concerns many skeptics, and is often discussed when skeptics get together.

The talks seem likely to be of a professional standard, after all the email states: "I have a number of illustrated presentations which are suitable for college, university, church or public audiences..."

Seems too good to be true, although that fleeting reference to "church" might give one pause. Perhaps I should write back to the sender, thanking him for his kind offer, and (after consulting with Trish) suggest a few dates. Of course I'd have to come clean as to my own identity and my own stance on his particular subject, as I've blogged about my emailer before — which might make him think twice about travelling the length of the country in order to give a talk to an audience who would most likely disagree with him.

So despite his claim that he's happy to "speak at any event, anywhere in the UK, which you may wish to organise," I think this is one invitation Dr. Alastair Noble, Director of the Centre for Intelligent Design, would probably decline.

Religious comfort at my expense

"As the NHS looks to find at least £20bn of savings between now and 2015, could the provision of chaplains be one area where the service could save money? Edward Presswood, a doctor of acute medicine based in North London, and Rev Debbie Hodge, chief officer of Multi Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy, debate whether there is a place for spirituality on hospital wards."

This was a brief discussion on BBC Radio Four's Today Programme this morning, and though four and a half minutes isn't enough to explore the issues in detail, it proved sufficient to reveal the underlying concerns of both sides. Edward Presswood made the point that a religious chaplain could not cater for the "spiritual needs" of someone who was of a different or no religion, though he stated he wasn't against hospital chaplains on principle — only their being funded by the National Health Service.

Debbie Hodge offered a similar argument to that used by the Lords Spiritual when attempting to justify seats in the House of Lords for Anglican bishops: that "religious" care isn't the forefront of the care they provide, but their religiosity gives them unique expertise. This ties in with the suggestion that clerics have some special spiritual power that only they have access to, perhaps because they have a hotline to the Almighty. Unjustified assumptions like this lead to taxpayers funding hospital chaplains to the tune of £29 million per year. Edward Presswood ably skewered the assumption with his football-fan analogy.

Listen to the discussion here (fast forward to 2h45m — available for a week):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01dhqfb/Today_22_03_2012/

Given more time, I'd like to have heard the Rev Hodge explain precisely what she means by "spiritual care" as it seems this is a term bandied about with little idea of what it's actually supposed to be.

Incomprehensible actions for unknown reasons

There is a theme in the affairs of apologists, which taken at the flood, leads on to incoherence.*

At Choosing Hats, contributor McFormtist considers what constitutes successful apologetics. As the type of apologetic usually in question at Choosing Hats is "covenantal" or "presuppositional" apologetics, and my own limited encounters with presuppositionalists have led me to the conclusion that presuppositonal apologetics is spectacularly unsuccessful in the declared purpose of apologetics in general, naturally my interest was piqued.

Early on in the piece comes this:

1. Our theology dictates to us that it is God who changes men’s hearts. As Reformed Christians, we understand that God in His Holy Sovereignty is superintending everything that comes to pass, including the salvation of men, and that the conversion of men starts and ends by God’s active working in their hearts, and this moving is not dependent in any way upon man’s efforts, whether they be those of the evangelist or of the one being evangelized. (Eze. 36:26, John 3:8)

...which I found puzzling (emphasis in the original). If "...this moving is not dependent in any way upon man’s efforts, whether they be those of the evangelist or of the one being evangelized," then apologetics would seem to be irrelevant. If the moving of men's hearts is not dependent in any way upon man's efforts, the whole enterprise seems redundant. I posted as much (albeit briefly) as a comment to McFormtist's post.

McFormtist was good enough to reply, and it was in the reply that I saw the recurrence of a theme I've encountered before when Christians are questioned about their evangelism. They don't do it because of its results — the purpose of apologetics is indeed irrelevant to its effect. They do it because God told them to do it. It's all about obedience. Men must do what God tells them to do, regardless of whether it makes sense or leads to unintended consequences. That's unintended by man, of course: God works in mysterious ways — who can fathom the depths of His intention?

This theme is also present in the Westboro Baptist Church. When Shirley Phelps-Roper and her husband Brent were guests on the Skepticule Extra podcast, they made it clear they were not concerned with the effect their uncompromising brand of evangelism (if you can call it that) might have on the people they were picketing. The results of what they did were irrelevant to them and their purpose. Their only purpose — a purpose they appeared determined to pursue regardless — was to obey God. Anything else was a side-issue and of minimal importance.

So, coupling God's "mysterious ways" with His commands interpreted from scripture, we end up with groups of devout believers earnestly carrying out incoherent actions for reasons they accept they cannot understand. These people are doing incomprehensible stuff and they don't know why.

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*With apologies to William Shakespeare

Christianity's seminal documents still missing

We come at last to the final section of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, which is entitled The Question of the Bible. But I have to ask, why did the editors consider the question of the Bible to be the final thing worth addressing after the foregoing sections on Jesus, on Science and on Philosophy? Much of the book has already quoted copiously from the Bible, and yet only now are we to consider if the Bible is ... what? Reliable? True?

Of course it's possible Dembski and Licona take the truth of the Bible as self-evident, and only included this section as an afterthought. Unlikely? Perhaps, but nevertheless I feel that The Question of the Bible should at least have come before The Question of Jesus.

Now that we are addressing the biblical question, what does Andreas J. Köstenberger have to say in his chapter, "Is the Bible Today What Was Originally Written?" Two things: the Bible was transmitted accurately, and it has been translated accurately. The latter can be — and is — continually debated. Translation from one language to another is never set in stone as long as the original language text is available to be re-translated by anyone who feels, for whatever reason, that another translation is necessary.

But the availability of the original language text remains problematic, for one very simple reason: we do not have any original autographs. All we have are copies, and no matter how much comparison of different copies is done in an effort to recreate the original, we can never be sure that it is actually the original that we are recreating. What all the careful comparisons might be achieving is a reasonably faithful re-creation of an early — but erroneous — copy. It's impossible to tell. All the arguments about the number of copies — and how similar or different they are — cannot get us reliably closer to the actual originals, because we have no way of knowing for sure if the re-creation is accurate.

Köstenberger, however, appears unfazed by this towering uncertainty:

Today, when someone opens any English Bible (NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV, TNIV, HCSB), he or she may know that generations of faithful scholarship have managed to preserve and protect that Bible as it was originally given.

He may devoutly desire that to be the case, but merely asserting it doesn't make it so.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952765

Skepticule Extra 22

Late (as usual) but all the more superbly great for having to be waited for. (And yes I know that a conjunction is something you're not supposed to end a sentence with.)

It's Skepticule Extra, episode 22! (that's an exclamation mark, not a factorial — which incidentally would be 1.12400072777760768 x 10^21 according to Wolfram Alpha).

In this episode the three Pauls discuss, among other things, skeptical and godless conferences, non-skeptical (but highly lucrative) books, and debating delusion.

http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2012/03/skepextra-022-20120226.html