Upcoming events
Just to say I'm photographing at quite a few secular/skepticky events over the next month, in various cities. If anyone's at / around any of these, it'd be cool to meet up. I'll nag closer to the time, but I'm currently booked for:
- Protest the Pope debate on the topic of "The Papal Visit should not be a State Visit". AC Grayling and Peter Tatchell vs. Austen Ivereigh and Christopher Jamison.
Wednesday 1st September. London. Conway Hall.
- Come along to the Department of Health and become a registered practitioner of Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine. Sense about Science are highlighting the Department of Health's proposed regulatory scheme for traditional medicine practitioners that doesn't check whether the practitioner has any medical training, nor whether the medicine works.
Wednesday 8th September. London. Department of Health, Whitehall.
- Relief-o-matic comedy show, raising money for AIDS prevention and relief projects. Robin Ince, Ed Byrne, Natalie Haynes, Ben Goldacre, plus special guests.
Monday 13th September. London. Bloomsbury Theatre.
- Nope Pope: The Party. This is going to be an interesting one. Live music, dancing, deity-free weddings from 'Pope Steve', and fancy dress prizes.
Friday 17th September. London. Conway Hall.
- The big Protest the Pope march / rally. Starts Hyde Park at 1pm, then marches through Picadilly and Trafalgar Square to Downing Street.
Saturday 18th September. London. Hyde Park.
- BHA Liberal Democrat Conference Fringe Event. Discussion on 'What role, if any, does faith have in the 'Big Society'?'.
Sunday 19th September. Liverpool. Liverpool Hilton.
- BHA Labour Party Conference 'No-prayer' breakfast. Tea. Coffee. Secular pastries.
Tuesday 28th September. Manchester. Manchester Central.
- BHA Conservative Party Conference Event. A panel discussion on faith, multiculturalism and the 'Big Society', with Q&A.
Tuesday 5th October. Birmingham. Hyatt Regency.
- BHA Holyoake Lecture. Professor John Harris speaks on 'Taking the "human" out of Humanism'.
Thursday 21st October. Manchester. St Peter's House, Precinct Centre.
Brian Cox photos
I've just uploaded the photos from the Brian Cox lecture (higher quality Flickr set here), and I'm happy they turned out ok. It was the first big gig I covered with the 7D, and I needed it - five minutes in they turned down the lights to make the projected image brighter, and the rest of the stage plunged into darkness. It was...challenging! My old 400D would have imploded, I think. I concentrated on photographing him framed by the projector light, but for the wider shots I was saved by very high ISOs and the Lightroom 3 beta. I love technology.
BHA Voltaire Lecture with Prof. Brian Cox
I was at the BHA's Voltaire lecture this evening. It's an annual talk, and this year it was given by Brian Cox - who was /excellent/.
Prof. Cox has catapulted to the forefront of UK science in the last year, particularly after his recent - brilliant - BBC1 show 'Wonders of the Solar System', and the lecture sold out weeks in advance. His subject was the nourishment science provides to both the imagination and the economy.
The former was a great primer on the current frontiers of physics and the work of the LHC, as well as an ode to exploration. It covered everything from the Standard Model and the search for the Higgs Boson, to the astonishing images being sent back by space probes - he had a couple of very new, as-yet-unprocessed shots from Cassini, showing ice geysers on Enceladus (it was awesome). Prof. Cox has a gift for explanation - think Lawrence Krauss, or Dawkins on biology - and he didn't shirk from the more complex areas. For example, he showed how (hopefully I'll get this right) the fundamental mathematics of the fundamental forces beautifully falls out of field invariance equations. I love theoretical physics, and while many of the concepts were familiar (although not always so clear in my head), this last info was all new.
So was the economic side of the talk. I was photographing the lecture so couldn't catch everything, but, roughly: science research & development gets only a few billion of the UK's budget (which is a low percentage compared with most first-world countries) yet makes up 40% of the GVA economic output (more than finance). This needs fixing. It's hard to disagree.
It was engaging and fascinating - I want to see it again to pick up all the bits I missed. Beforehand I managed to photograph the Prof for a uni project, which I'm very pleased about. I haven't been starstruck at a BHA gig for a while (Dawkins) but I was tonight - hopefully I didn't say anything too weird. He was very friendly, gracious and down-to-earth, and certainly knew his cameras. After the lecture he spent an hour signing books and posing for photos, too. I'm glad he's becoming a household name - he's a great advert for science all round.
(written on WordPress for iPhone - please forgive any formatting weirdness.)
The Telegraph’s oh-so-shocking David Miliband story
The Telegraph are happily reporting that David Miliband, an atheist, sends his son to a faith school. He 'has been accused of hypocrisy', we're told in the most passive of passive voices. It's not the Telegraph accusing him of hypocrisy, in their website-front-page top-section headline; oh no: it's other people. And what a terrible hypocrisy it is. It means...wait, what does it mean?
As ever with this type of story, it doesn't mean much. 99% of hypocrisy stories are dickish, because they don't go beyond risk-free attack. When newspapers accuse someone of inconsistency, they're not making any statement on the rights or wrongs of the positions, so there's no comeback. Media pure-hypocrisy stories conjure up an air of vague wrongness, without ever honing in on a specific problem. What is the Telegraph trying to say, here? That hypocrisy is a binary personality trait, and David Miliband can't be trusted on anything, ever? That there's something wrong with faith schools? What? It's meaningless.
Everyone's a hypocrite. Everyone fails to meet their ideals, and everyone has to compromise sometimes. Government ministers more than the rest of us. I suppose continuous, spectacular hypocrisy could eventually become a point unto itself, but most of the time you have to go beyond the inconsistency. You can use hypocrisy as the starting point - the minister says x, but does y, because the problem with x is... - but isolated it's just trolling. If you want to be completely ridiculous you point out inconsistencies across the entire government, as if such a massive organisation could avoid such problems. This is all Private Eye does, as far as I can tell. Such things only feed cynicism, and stifle useful argument.
And, aside from that, mentioning a minister's children is pushing it. There could be all sorts of reasons for the choice of school, none of which need bringing up in a newspaper. Anyway, the Telegraph eventually finds someone who'll say the word 'hypocrisy', albeit more gently than you'd imagine from the headline. But they don't have much luck elsewhere:
The British Humanist Association, which wants to remove the right of faith schools to discriminate on the basis of religion, said Mr Miliband’s choice of school was a private matter.
This is why I like the BHA: they're classy.
Evolution in primary school science lessons
News came out this weekend that the theory of evolution is to be included in primary school science lessons for the first time. As of April this wasn't the case, and the change is down to a successful campaign and a lot of hard work by the British Humanist Association - huge congrats to them for getting this through.
I left school knowing what vaguely what evolution was, but with no understanding of how it underpins all of biology. Now I don't understand how you can teach biology without it. I remember GCSE biology just being a bunch of disparate facts about animals and plants. The closest we got to evolution was having it drilled into us that a) camels have large feet, as they're adapted to the deserts, and b) polar bears have clear fur, the relevance of which is still a mystery1. These two facts were all we needed for the exam, so I duly wrote them down and paid no more attention. My science teacher obviously noticed this problem, and at the end of our final year gave a friend a copy of The Selfish Gene. Looking back, that was a pretty awesome thing to do. I didn't find that book until three years later.
Hopefully these developments will see evolution built more fundamentally into the textbooks, and not just as another thing to learn.
- and, now I look it up, a bit more complex than is perhaps necessary for an introduction to evolution [↩]
Dancing on the Plinth
So I finally decided on an idea for my spot on the Fourth Plinth. I'll be teaching the Thriller dance routine to anyone willing to learn, in front of an enormous 'There's probably no God...' bus sign (kindly provided by the BHA). Do feel free to come along! There's a Facebook event page here.
We've put the word out to as many London-based atheists and humanists as we can, so hopefully there'll be a decent crowd.
If you fancy watching, I'm on 16:00-17:00 this Sunday, and it'll be streamed live on oneandother.co.uk (it'll also be archived to watch later). And if you get a minute, it'd be lovely if you could 'Pledge to Watch' on the oneandother site. Hopefully we can attract the attention of The Guardian's PlinthWatch, and other plinthspotters.
Right. I'd better go practice...
Happy Humanists response
So I showed Happy Humanists at the BHA's AGM last Saturday. I had a table at the back of the room with three copies of the book and a monitor looping through the photos. I was pretty nervous, as I hadn't shown it to anybody disinterested, and by the time it was all set up I really had no idea what the reaction would be. Thankfully, people seemed to like it. A couple of people actively tried to buy a copy - just some random people, not in the book or anything! - which pretty much made my day. Plenty also expressed interest in getting a copy, and one person came along specially to see me and the project, which was lovely. I was most chuffed, actually.
I'm still not sure what happens next. I was worried about model agreements, but a bit of research - tipped off by a helpful tweet from Damian - suggests that's not too big a problem. Much more difficult is cost - the individual Blurb-printed books cost £18.95, which is obviously way too much. Bulk deals of over 200 - if there were that kind of interest, which is unlikely - would bring the price down by 10%, but that's still not good enough; I reckon a tenner is about right. So I'm not sure how to get around that, other than looking for other printers.
I'm really pleased it went down so well! If I can just get over this final hurdle and produce something to sell, I'll be happy indeed.
Odd reply from my MP over teaching evolution in primary schools
I recently emailed my MP to ask for his support in the campaign to include evolution in the primary school curriculum. I've emailed him a few times before, to no reply, but yesterday a somewhat curious letter arrived. It starts off pretty positive:
Let me say first of all that I support the teaching of evolution. In the modern era, the importance of science cannot be overestimated. It is critical that, from an early age, children learn the core principles of scientific thought and, more importantly, are instilled with an understanding of the way that science shapes our lives.
Great! That's the spirit. Then there's a quick dig at the government (he's a Conservative):
I have a number of concerns about the Government's proposals in general. I am concerned that the changes to the primary curriculum will lead to children learning less not more. It is also important to recognise that the move away from traditional subject areas will lead to a further erosion of standards.
Any argument with the word 'traditional' raises red flags with me, but whatever - I don't know enough about the other proposals to comment. Then, though, there's this:
It is important that children are educated to a standard where, should they wish, they can read about alternative theories and histories, thereby expanding independent thought. Given your strong views about the issue, I would recommend responding to the consultation [he gives the link]
Wait. What? 'Alternative theories and histories'? Where did that come from? What's an alternative history? What does this have to do with primary school curricula?
It's probably innocuous, but is nonetheless strange. Perhaps he's saying the education system should provide a solid grounding in fact so that children are well prepared for the 'alternative theories' when they're older? It's unclear, but it's a touch worrying to see 'alternative theories' mentioned - this kind of tricksy language is more often used by advocates of intellgent design. I strongly doubt that's the case here, and google doesn't have any other suggestion, but I'll keep an eye out.
Interestingly, he doesn't actually state any explicit support for evolution in the primary school curriculum in the letter, but there's a copy of a letter to Ed Balls in which he does. So that's cool.
*pops head above parapet* *waves*
Hello! I am still alive. Apologies for pulling a vanishing act - I think that's one of the longest periods I've gone without blogging since I started. You noticed, right?
I've been in London since last we spoke, sorting out family stuff. It's been a curious couple of weeks, as - I feel bad saying this - independent of home stuff I've actually been having a great time. I photographed the big BHA Darwin / Humanism / Science day, as well as a memorial celebratory service, a book launch, and the International Humanist & Ethical Union international conference. I was also in the audience for the Radio 4 News Quiz, as well as upcoming BBC3 sitcom We Are Klang. Someone flirted with me in a coffee shop. I failed to understand bus routes a lot. And this morning I nearly got splatted.
So a strange mix of highs and lows, but starting to calm down now. I'll head home - officially the most charming town in the world (they clearly haven't met the swans) - soonish.
The BHA takes out the Daily Mail
Friday: The Daily Mail publish an article essentially describing the British Humanist Association as a bunch of Christian-hating nutbags.
Today: The BHA publish a line-by-line refutation, demonstrating how the DM is wrong about almost everything. It's pretty funny.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often meander around humanism and photography, but they're flighty and you can't trust them, so anything is possible.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
Recent Comments
- vicky: going up this weekend having done all the welsh peaks except 4 snowdon, cant wait
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: what, how can u live in the 21 c and say that, probably a sexist thing
on Climbing Snowdon. - vicky: da iawn laura, cant believe what im hearing, all this fuss, anyway love the site, and i agree, normal people who swear and curse clomb mountains cos we live in the...
on Climbing Snowdon. - Andrew: Did a few quick test shots to check the light levels, then balanced the camera on the arm of a bench, set it for a 20s exposure and hoped for the best
on ISS. - lynsey: Wow, how did you take that photograph?
on ISS.
