Year: 2013

Hi, thanks for responding.
First I must assume since you replied to my tweet that you at least saw this post linked in that tweet?
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=5492

You will find linked in that post links to other specific relevant posts. (And of course if you were to browse, there are many more on the relevant topics on that blog over the past 12 years.) Following a previous email exchange @ BHA, I did contemplate writing an open letter to Jim, since it was clear his style is much more open to the issues.

Here goes:

In a nutshell the problem is BHA seems to be defining itself in terms of what it is against. For secularism sure, but secularism defined in terms of being against any forms of religious faith in any positions of public authority or even influence.

The whole 3-Horsemen or “Ditchkins”  crusade against the “excesses” of religious faith – Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, plus Dennett, plus Pinker, and more recently Krauss getting on the celebrity bandwagon. 6 Horsemen of which 4 are US and 2 British? Not to mention the other celebrities in the social media. Gervais, Fry, Izzard and many more.

As Jim says these guys and the various campaigns hitching themselves to their media celebrity have already “cleared the way”. To keep knocking the religious is like “flogging a dead horse” or “shooting fish in a barrel” – too easy – that easy argument is already won. So easy that their styles are often sarcastic, sneering and mocking against their religious adversaries. Even the “bit of fun” in the BHA questionnaire had this sarcastic tone. The whole thing has become very destructive and polarising.

It seems you must be either FOR rationality (defined in “scientistic” terms) and AGAINST irrationality (defined in terms of religious faiths). Or you are FOR religious faith.

Err no. Reality is that NOT ALL aspects of religious faiths are irrational. Certainly not when it comes to traditions that capture structures of human value, where decisions require “policy” that can’t immediately be resolved by science in the governance of public and economic life generally – personal local, national, international, cosmic. Sure, no religious faith has ever had any monopoly on these, but the history of humanity has many values that happen to be enshrined in traditions that have been maintained by the humanities and institutions beyond science, including religions. We can’t wipe away history. We can’t start again like the fabled Irishman who, when asked for directions, said “If I wanted to get there, I wouldn’t start from here.” The rational thing to do would be to investigate and debate where real human value lies, here and now for the future.

By polarising the debate into science vs religion, either / or, we are in danger of throwing out a valuable baby with the bathwater. Ending up like The Only Way is Essex. There is a massive middle-ground to be taken into account, to be integrated, accommodated, valued. Rationality comes in many varied forms and science is NOT the sole arbiter of human value, any more than TOWIE should be representative of “British” humanity. God forbid 😉

Simplest recommendation:

Take a leaf from Jim’s book, and look at what that Cambridge debate (or the more recent Oxford Union philosophy of science debate) would have looked like if it had been Jim on the humanist side of the debate. The people on the other side are not “opponents” they are fellow humans we need to integrate (accommodate) into a balanced world view of human values.

If the BHA itself – as an organisation – cannot recognise the issues, I’m not sure what else to suggest. The current flavour of the BHA is “inhuman”. I could suggest intelligent and constructive topics for public debate. Take some clues from Melvyn Bragg’s “The Value of Culture” for example:
https://www.psybertron.org/?p=5241

Generally – What are human values? Where do they reside? How are they maintained and developed? More specific example – If our history of values lies in culture, where does science fit with culture? Many more possible. Articles, papers, debates, examples from real public life.

Put the humanism back in the BHA. Leave the “knocking” to the court jesters, that’s what they’re for.

Regards
Ian

[Slightly edited for the blog context.]

Would everything be better if women ruled the world asks BBC Magazine.

Yes, actually. I always recall a study I did, where gender and women in management was NOT the point, but I had the data to correlate gender responses, that the statistical average responses from women were significantly different from those of the men. Led me to conclude that a better balance of change management decisions and implementations would be achieved if female influence reflected the balance of the population.

As the dominant sample, response to both questionnaires from the men more or less reflect the overall sample analysed earlier.

Women perceived higher average problem levels for both questionnaires. Both sexes agreed on the four most problematic issues in questionnaire 1, but women perceived COMMITTMENT and ACCEPTABILITY issues of specific recent change as significantly more problematic. In questionnaire 2, women are also unique as a group in perceiving the definition of KEY TASKS and objectives as one of the most problematic issues.

The survey sample summaries in appendix S show that the distribution of women’s roles are skewed into certain grades and departments, however to pursue any correlations and causal connections is beyond the scope of this dissertation.

The fact that the women do emphasise different issues from men supports the idea that encouraging women into a wider range of roles and levels can only improve the balance of issues addressed in future decision making.

Great interview of Jim Al-Khalili with Caspar Melville of the Rationalist Association. So much better face for the BHA.

[An] introduction to the man who has recently become, at least in principle, the most important and high-profile non-believer in Britain. In January Al-Khalili was confirmed as President of the British Humanist Association.

He has been [a convinced atheist] since he was a teenager. He is also, as a scientist, a convinced rationalist materialist who believes that there is a real world out there …. his life experience and temperament, have convinced him that a “softer” approach is required: …  if you focus on what’s bad about religion that doesn’t serve any purpose.

Al-Khalili credits the outspoken atheism of Dawkins (though he doesn’t agree with everything about his approach) with clearing a path for a new, gentler and more accommodating brand of public humanism …  it’s because we are winning the battle that we can afford not to be so strident, belligerent, antagonistic, confrontational. Because we’re winning the battle that more and more people can see that humanism is an inclusive thing, it’s not an exclusive club, … it’s not a sect. Because that is changing we don’t need to be on the attack against people with faith. … Al-Khalili represents a new face for British humanism.

[My emphasis] Someone with a constructive streak at last. I’ve been banging my head against a brick wall with the BHA recently, pointing out that they are in real danger of defining themselves solely in puerile terms of what they’re against – just a bit of fun apparently – rather than what they’re actually for in the real grown-up world.

Be interesting to see Jim in debate with Tariq Ramadan and Douglas Murray.

Interesting also that he makes it possible to say you’re an accommodationist. Might not be the word I’d choose – maybe integrationist (after Mary Parker-Follett), but the point is the bigger the issue the less it is about taking sides (after Slavoj Zizek).

Accommodating the positions of others is not about compromising your own. It’s not about compromise at all, nor is it about opposition; it’s about integration.

[Post Note : See also the Geek Chocolate interview with Jim Al-Khalili from last year.]

As I’ve said many a time, when using Ockham’s razor argument, you need to be careful not to cut your own throat. Here neatly exposed by BoingBoing.

Classic meme case – where a simple stated, oft quoted,  but subtly misunderstood adage becomes accepted (by a vocal majority) and applied as some kind of absolute rule.

Interesting potential development in microprocessor technology. (Hat tip to Rayan on LinkedIn)

Interesting, ideas on the source of “Proto-Indo-European” language (aka Aryan) continue to develop – associated with the spread of peoples and trade communications. (from last year).

A coming together of BHA and Baroness Warsi.

Warsi [said] that while genuine, hateful religious intolerance should be confronted [and] incitement to religious hatred remains an offence in Britain, a blasphemy law once on our statute book was abolished in 2008 — in part because […] it was incompatible with the freedom of speech.

Copson […] said […] “Mere criticism of religion — even though it may always be perceived as offensive or blasphemous by some religious groups and individuals — cannot be automatically prohibited as hateful. Rather, the expression of humanist ideas, atheist and critical ideas per se must be protected.”

Warsi has previously been criticised by humanists and secularists in the UK for endorsing a greater role for Christian and other religious groups in national policy, and describing some forms of secularism as “intolerant and illiberal”. “Freedom of religion or belief applies equally to humanists, atheists and other non-religious people […] emphasis on religion or belief as – in her words – a universal right for all, rather than as a privilege for a majority religion in any given country.

Some forms of secularism are indeed intolerant and illiberal, so the real topic here is balanced freedom of expression. My one point to add here is this – it is criticism per se that is protected as a universal right, not  a right to offend. No offence, but …. has to be seen to be meant sincerely by mutual respect of human individuals.

Another one for the “twas ever thus” and “nothing new under the sun” collection (from Punch 1906, from Mike Loukides via Hugh MacLeod):

(Which reminds me, a long time since I’ve looked at BoingBoing.)

Never seen this effect at this scale before; Von Karman vortices formed in the clouds stretching hundreds of miles beyond two small islands off Chile. Hat tip to Milind on Linked In for sharing the link.

Interesting not least (to a geek like me) because this is an effect that works at small and very small scales too – around towers and chimney stacks, around power distribution cables, around old aircraft struts and wires, even around tiny wires in instruments, where the effect is exploited to measure flow rate. (I often hear it at audible frequencies as the wind blows past the leg of my specs.)

Racial abuse from rival supporters, in fact any kind of tribal “abuse” is a no no for me, even at any competitive sporting event, but Diouf has to be the least likely target to raise any kind of outrage. (Maybe that’s why they’ve chosen him.) Talk about water off a duck’s back – is there any bigger wind-up merchant in the game – got to admire him for it. He and Warnock were made for each other, love ’em both.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not “racist” abuse. It’s abuse, a much bigger problem. Where ignoramuses pick on least popular (most effective) members of the opposing club, and find the most abusive taunts to hurl at them, and that’s always going to attack whatever makes them different, whatever is likely to be most offensive.

I could give plenty of examples – even in the Milwall vs Leeds case there is the Jimmy Savile example. Delivered with wit and originality, there can be valid comedic value in offensive material, but, the but matters. The problem is people believing that “abusive attack intended to cause offense” is valid behaviour full stop. Right from PM’s Questions downwards. This is a much more deep seated problem, I’ve blogged about before – most obviously here.