| Date: | 2010-10-21 22:44 |
|---|---|
| Author: | Stefano |
| category: | Meetings, Opinion |
| tags: | TAMLondon |
| slug: | tamlondon-2010-remarks-and-comments-%e2%80%93-part-4-of-n |
`Susan Blackmore <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Blackmore>`_ presented an excerpt of her first years of research on paranormal. She shows intriguing statistics on paranormal evaluation, describes some techniques used for cold reading. A consistent part of her talk was relative to physiological explanations of different phenomena our minds perceive as paranormal or mystic. More specifically, she touches arguments such as sensory deprivation, sleep paralysis, the structure of the visual cortex and the Olaf Blanke experiments (see also here). All these techniques and experimental setups provide good explanations for perceived paranormal events, such as ghost appearances, alien abductions, light tunnels and out-of-body experiences.
`Richard Dawkins <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins>`_ held a thoughtful and poised talk on the preciousness of scientific literature to be considered classic education, while scouting the broad number of scientific disciplines describing the mechanism of our world and life in particular. Dawkins presents a talk both source and inspiration of great quotes, enticing the audience with a profound philosophical vision: "*Science is uplifting, inspirational, poetry of reality*", "*If more of our political masters understood statistics, the world would be a better place*". The humbling tree of life shows our position in the evolutionary development, a twig of a deeply branched bush covering animals, plants, fungi, bacteria.
In addition to its high philosophical tone, the talk presents real case scientific scenarios for disparate arguments, such as: flight stability strategies in dinosaurs and birds to reach the optimal compromise between stability and ease of flight versus instability and high manoeuvrability; Computational evolutionary optimization of windmills and fuel injectors nozzles to achieve the best performance; and evolution of human language, maybe the best platform to explain and demonstrate evolutionary concepts to the general public.
`Cory Doctorow <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow>`_ presented a talk about copyright and the historical background of Intellectual Property (in the early days known as creative monopoly). In his words, Doctorow says that "yesterday's pirates are today's admirals", referring to how past piracy allowed development of companies that are now brands with worldwide recognition and technologies whose revolutionary nature changed our lifestyle. Doctorow presents an example of copyright stifling innovation for databases: while in UK any collection of data was protected under IPR laws, in US no such protection was present, allowing the creation of an incredible amount of databases, and consequently better associated services.
` <http://kejames.com/>`_`|image2| <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HMSBeagle.jpg>`_Karen James talked about the Beagle Project, finalized at rebuilding a replica of the HMS Beagle and set sail along Darwin's travel to promote scientific dissemination, improve public engagement with science and encourage young people to become scientists. As I am starting a sailing course as a crew member next spring, this project hit me on the sweet spot, dreaming to be part of this incredible travel.
A board discussion held by Paula Kirby focused on skeptical activism. Most of my comments were presented in my previous post. The discussion produced interesting resources worth checking out, such as "Sense about Science" and the evidence-based policy initiative from the "Nightingale collaboration". These initiatives are all UK-centric. I personally asked a question about similar initiatives and strategic networking with other European countries. Let's see if it grows into something.
The talk given by `Marcus Chown <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Chown>`_ goes through recent discoveries to provide a mindblowing list of scientific oddities. Did you know that the Sun uses a very inefficient nuclear reaction to produce energy, and it's due to its inefficiency that it lasts enough for us to be here ? What about the fact that if you are at the ground floor you age slower than being at the first floor, and very accurate clocks are able to measure this difference even between two stair steps ? Did you know that a small percent of the white noise you see on an untuned TV is actually the echo of the Big Bang ? Marcus provides a brilliant and really pleasant talk, both conceptually and visually.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Big Bang. Sorta."]`|image3| <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TV_noise.jpg>`_[/caption]
Finally, JREF president D. J. Grothe and P. Z. Myers gave two different talks with overlap and disagreements, concerns skeptic activism and atheism. Grothe points at the need for skeptics not to be "dicks" in their positions, and have a tender heart with a tough mind. I share his point of view, and I wrote about the same topic some weeks ago. P. Z. Myers on the other hand claims a different, more intransigent attitute, in particular when it concerns skepticism on religious issues, i.e. atheism "Do be a dick. Be the best dick you can be." or, in his words "do be a Richard".
Myers' point is supported by his observation that by their very nature, atheists are "honest, assertive, humorous, angry, critical, militant, scientific, uncompromising, rude". I don't share his point of view on some of these terms, but I do agree that for some people, even the pure questioning of a belief (regardless of it being religious or not) is automatically classified as rude, no matter how positive assertiveness and smiles you can put in presenting your evidence. I already wrote about the case: haters gonna hate, stick their fingers in their ears and start singing. No matter how much evidence is carried, people don't like to be proven wrong, and they will continue using their "miracle cure" or "magic bracelet". In this sense, Myers says that when there's basically no possible way of not being classified as a dick, the solution is to try to be the best dick possible.
My opinion on the point raised by Myers is different: you should choose your goals wisely, and work for something, not against something, with patience, passion, and righteousness. While it's clear that immediate and firm stance must be taken against people selling poison or sugar for medicine, or scamming old people and grieving mothers, or giving a free pass to intolerance and discrimination, the long term goal for skeptics should be to increase scientific education, promote correct popularization of science, explain with a clear and accessible language, and dispel fear and myths. These, in my opinion, are the productive long terms goals skeptics should focus on.
This is my last post regarding TAM London 2010. I want to thank the speakers, the audience and the organizers for the fantastic experience.
In an upcoming post, in a couple of days, I will introduce a symbolic action I am going to take to promote goodwill and personal growth, while making someone happy in the meantime. My hope is that other people will appreciate this idea, so that it becomes a pleasant activity and potentially a way to promote skepticism and concrete actions towards better science. After this upcoming post, it will be back to science at ForTheScience.