Burnee links for Monday

A new humanist book by Grayling, and a critique by Appleyard « Why Evolution Is True
Based on Jerry Coyne's review of Brian Appleyard's review, I'm looking forward to reading A. C. Grayling's new book.

What is it like to be a cat? « Why Evolution Is True
Not rigorous science, but certainly a pointer towards further research.

Atheist Ethicist: How to Refute Desirism
Step by step instructions. But so far no-one has done it.

National Secular Society - The Catholic Church must change or die
Personally I think it's going down either way. Not fast, not soon, but definitely down.

National Secular Society - Sexual segregation at a UCL event a scandal, say students
Professor Krauss kicked up enough fuss to ensure this disgraceful lapse got publicity.

Guest post on the “debate” at UCL » Butterflies and Wheels
More on the UCL farce.

Might Christianity be both true and terrible? » Pharyngula
Well, no. But what if? PZ turns the tables on Damon Linker.

High ideals in Red Lion Square

Via James O'Malley (and Sid Rodrigues), a fascinating half-hour BBC documentary from 1975 about Conway Hall:

http://youtu.be/YZzKwCa0oGA


This is my era (I was studying in London about then), and though I well remember the embarrassing 70's fashion, I'd forgotten the clipped accents. The programme is notable for its forthright message towards the end, which these days would have been softened and countered in the interests of so-called balance.

CFI-UK one-day conference: Tricks of the Mind

I'm going to this. I've been to several of the CFI-UK events organised by Stephen Law, and they've all been excellent.

Tricks of the Mind - Centre for Inquiry UK conference

Come and hear some of the world’s leading experts explain how our minds can distort and deceive, including how they often play a role in generating a wide range of paranormal experiences. Discussion will include magic, time distortion, hypnotism and past-life regression. 

Presented by the British Humanist Association, the Centre for Inquiry UK, and Conway Hall. Organised and introduced by Stephen Law.

Date: Saturday, 30th March 2013 Venue: Conway Hall (main hall), 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1R 4RL London (nearest tube Holborn) Time: 10.30am registration (for a 11am start). Ends 4pm

Programme

11.00 Daniela Rudloff: Mental ‘Short-Cuts’ - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Can we trust our eyes? Why does a footballer’s performance usually drop right after they’ve been sold to a high-paying football club? What exactly is “anchoring”, and why are we doing it on dry land?

Daniela Rudloff will answer these and other questions by giving an introduction to the everyday mental shortcuts and biases we often employ, arguing that even though they might be misleading, they are also necessary – and almost impossible to avoid.

Daniela has always had a profound interest in critical thinking, leading her to join the German Skeptics in 1994. In 2006 she commenced a PhD in Psychology to find out what keeps Joe Bloggs from being a rational, reasonable and sceptical person.

12.00 Claudia Hammond: Time Warped 
We are obsessed with time, but why does it play so many tricks on us? Why does time slow down when you're afraid and speed up as you get older? Drawing on the latest research from the fields of psychology, neuroscience and biology, and using original research on the way memory shapes our understanding of time, the awarding-winning writer and broadcaster Claudia Hammond delves into the mysteries of time perception and how the mind creates a sense of time.

Claudia is an award-winning broadcaster, writer and psychology lecturer. She is the presenter of All in the Mind & Mind Changers on BBC Radio 4 and the Health Check on BBC World Service Radio every week and BBC World News TV every month. Claudia is a columnist for BBC.com and the author of "Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception" and "Emotional Rollercoaster - a journey through the science of feelings" which won the Aoen Transmission Prize in February 2013. 

2.00 Martin S Taylor: More Lives Than One?
Martin S Taylor became interested in hypnosis when he was studying for a PhD at Imperial College, and soon became well known on the student circuit with his science based lecture-demonstration. At first he believed in the traditional view that hypnosis is a special induced state of mind, but discussions with friends and his experience with his own hypnotic subjects led him to subscribe to the 'social-compliance' view, namely that hypnosis is best explained by normal, well-understood psychological principles.

He now makes a living as a lecturer and consultant on hypnosis, talking and demonstrating at schools, universities, and anywhere else they'll pay him. It was at one of Martin's lectures that Derren Brown was inspired to take up his career, and Martin has worked with Derren on a number of recent television shows. Recently he has been working as a hypnosis consultant for Paramount Pictures, producing promotional videos for horror films.

In today’s talk, Martin will be examining the notion that hypnosis can be used to get people to remember past lives, a phenomenon taken by many as evidence of reincarnation.

3.00 Robert Teszka: Mind and Magic
Robert Teszka is a cognitive psychologist, magician, science promoter, and massive geek. He uses the techniques of misdirection to study the psychology of attention and awareness at Goldsmiths University, and has travelled internationally to give lectures on the surprising insights of cognitive psychology.

Mind and Magic is a talk about how our own minds deceive us as readily as any magician, and how magician's tricks can help us understand our minds a bit better. Expect a curated collection of demonstrations, experiments, and original research - and perhaps a magic trick or two - as Rob attempts to convince you that sometimes, you just can't trust your own mind.

March 30th, 2013

Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square
Holborn, WC1R 4RL
United Kingdom

Click here to buy tickets.

An essential aspect of management

I'm a fan of YouTuber QualiaSoup's counter-apologetics videos, and was surprised to discover that his comprehensive and concise presentations range beyond the goddy. This is a video about workplace bullying, and ought to be viewed by all managers.

http://youtu.be/wAgg32weT80


(Via Ophelia Benson.)

Giles Fraser speaks the truth

I've said some things about Giles Fraser on this blog in the past, but recently — since his resignation from St Paul's — he's been pleasingly unpredictable, and my previous minimal respect for him has grown. He still says stuff I disagree with, but his performance on this morning's Thought for the Day makes me want to put previous disagreements aside. As I soaked in the bath I could hardly believe what was coming out of the radio: no-nonsense speaking of truth to power — and on Thought for the Day!

Well done Giles.

Downloadable mp3 from here, for 30 days:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/thought/thought_20130304-1117a.mp3

Streaming audio here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p015vmw9

Text transcript from BBC website:

This morning the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland is waking up to one of the biggest crises in its modern history. A few weeks ago, Cardinal Keith O’Brien was expecting to be in Rome electing the next Pope. Now he’s in disgrace, vowing that he’ll never again take part in public life.

We still don’t know the details of what he did, simply that he’s admitted to sexual misconduct amongst his fellow priests. Charges of hypocrisy have been swift to follow. This month last year, the Cardinal was on this very programme attacking gay marriage as evidence for the “degeneration of society into immorality”. Indeed, he insisted: “if the UK does go in for same sex marriage it is indeed shaming our country.”

So why is it that all the churches - and not just the Roman Catholic church - seem to attract so many gay men who are themselves so virulently hostile to homosexuality? Perhaps it has to do with a misplaced sense of shame about being gay, a sense of shame that they go on to reinforce by being vocal supporters of the very theology that they themselves have been the victims of. As the novelist Roz Kaveney tweeted yesterday: “I feel sorry for O'Brien. I hope one day he realises that the sense of sexual sinfulness the Church forced on him was an abuse.” And that “O'Brien needs to distinguish between his sexual desires and his bad behaviour and not see all of it as sin.” I totally agree.

The election of a new Pope provides an opportunity for real change. The culture of secrecy that fearfully hides this bad behaviour – and not least the clerical abuse of children – needs dismantling from its very foundations. Inappropriate sexual relationships, relationships that trade on unequal power and enforced silence, are the product of an unwillingness to speak honestly, openly and compassionately about sex in general and homosexuality in particular. The importance of marriage as being available to both gay and straight people – and indeed to priests – is that it allows sexual desire to be rightly located in loving and stable relationships. I know there are people who see things differently, but I’m sorry: the churches’ condemnation of homosexuality has forced gay sex into the shadows, thus again reinforcing a sense of shame that, for me, is the real source of abuse.

Things may now be changing. It is encouraging that four priests have had the courage to speak out against a Cardinal – though one of them has expressed the fear that the Catholic church would “crush him” if they could. This is precisely the climate of fear that does so much to create the conditions of clerical abuse.

“It seems to me that there is nowhere to hide now,” said Diarmaid MacCulloch, the professor of the history of the church at Oxford University in a recent interview. He goes on: “We have had two Popes in succession that have denied that the church needed to change at all. The Roman church has to face realities that it has steadily avoided facing for the last thirty years.” And I might add, not just the Roman church, but my own church too.

---

Clearly I'm not alone in my assessment of this particular TftD:
http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php?entry=entry130304-081648

Burnee links for Sunday

I get email: explosive beginnings » Pharyngula
A great response to a recurring smug question.

I can defend both Lawrence Krauss and philosophy! » Pharyngula
I think philosophy is important and worthwhile, except when it crosses the line into theology (when it becomes unimportant and worthless). But that's just my opinion.

Please don’t use this argument » Pharyngula
Think before you post (or speak, or...).

Intelligent Design Gets Peer-Review… Sort Of | Smilodon's Retreat
Intelligent Design isn't science.

Humanism's faith in reason represents our best hope | AC Grayling | Comment is free | The Observer
Succinct outline of humanistic principles; the comments are interesting too. (Not sure about the "faith" in the title, but that could be the sub-editors....)

Stephen Law: Tricks of the Mind event CFI, March 30th.
This looks good. And Martin S. Taylor was excellent at Winchester Skeptics last Thursday.

Confessions of a Medium — BBC Radio 4

This was on BBC Radio 4 a couple of days ago and should be available for the rest of this week. It's a radio drama by A. L. Kennedy about a spiritual medium in the 19th century (played by the inimitable Bill Nighy). He's not quite what he seems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pn34n/Saturday_Drama_Confessions_of_a_Medium/

From the iPlayer:

Confessions of a Medium

Starring Bill Nighy as Thomson and Robert Glenister as Mr. Parker. A gothic, shadowy, and darkly comic drama about illusion, delusion and desire. Based on a true story in 1870's London. Mr. Parker is a sincere and kind man in search of a higher meaning to life. He has moved from conventional religion to séances and spiritualism. He believes he's met his saviour in the guise of Mr. Thomson - a charming, erudite, and utterly mesmerising medium, but unbeknown to Parker, Thomson is a complete and utter fake.

DIRECTED BY PAULINE HARRIS BBC DRAMA NORTH

Credits

Thomson Bill Nighy
Parker Robert Glenister
Morton Jonathan Keeble
Mr Gordon Jonathan Keeble
Gentleman Jonathan Keeble
Wilson Jonathan Keeble
Waiter Jonathan Keeble
Mills Andrew Westfield
Butler Andrew Westfield
Miss Foster Fiona Clarke
Mrs Gordon Fiona Clarke
Lady No.1 Fiona Clarke
Miss Blackstone Daryl Fishwick
Woman Daryl Fishwick
Pianist Daniel Browell