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.
Three days
Hello! I am still here. Life is rushy rushy at the moment, and full of ups and downs. I suspect I've forgotten more blog posts than I've written lately. I've been particularly busy over the last few days, and this is the first chance I've had to sit down.
Thursday
I photographed the BHA's Daniel Dennett lecture. I helped them set up the hall, then quietly flitted in and out of fire exits during the talk itself. I also got to meet the Professor and a few other intellectual icons who were hanging around, which was excellent. I had my Professional Photographer hat on for the evening - not that I am in any way a Professional Photographer; this was just the attitude I was trying to adopt - but inside I was poking my brain to make sure it was really happening. The lecture photos have yet to be processed as I literally haven't stopped since that evening, but I'll link to them when they're online. I'm also currently photographing as many humanists as possible for a uni documentary project, and I managed to get a few shots for that too. I was a happy person on Thursday night! I'm having a ball doing this kind of work, even if I can't quite believe it.
Friday
I was at university, which was normal, but had a fairly exciting public contretemps with the head of my course, which wasn't. My class was having a critical assessment, where everybody lays out their work-in-progress around the room. We then form groups, each of which is assigned a few projects to analyse and feed back on in front of the class. My group looked at one project about abandoned toys, and we noticed that of the four images, three had the toys a similar size, while the fourth was a bit larger. We mentioned this in our analysis, and it started to niggle at me. Just because there's a pattern doesn't mean it needs to be maintained, after all. Then another group made a similar comment on a project involving photos of a park - of the five images, two sets of two had some formal similarities, and the fifth 'didn't fit in'. I didn't think this was all that important - documentary images are surely more about the topic than the aesthetics - although I didn't say anything.
Then came time for feedback on my project. My 'happy humanist' pictures are mostly headshots, but two images stand out as being quite different: a couple of people posed in a happy way, and are full body shots. The group mentioned this - not as a criticism, just a comment - and when I had a chance to speak I remarked on it. The conversation is eroded through overaccess, but - with the aforementioned pattern-critiques in my head - I must have said something like 'yep, those two are different, but I don't care much about that as the concept is more important'. My teacher leapt on me: "you should care". I can't remember the details, but it degraded from there. She was clearly very bothered about my 'not caring', and in hindsight I suspect she thought it was a premise, rather than a conclusion - that I was just dismissing the criticism, rather than considering it. But at the time I was a bit lost. I questioned why it mattered that two images were different, given my overall concept, and was told it mattered because of 'consistency' and 'if I want people to take me seriously'. I did not react well to this last comment (it's a conclusion, not a reason, and not a very good conclusion). Then I, not wanting to say 'I don't care' again, must have said 'I'm not bothered about...' which went down even worse. I was being told off for the first time in years, wasn't entirely sure why, but I was bloody well not going down without a fight. It's just a shame it wasn't over something actually important. My classmates did their best to pull me out of the fire, but it was pretty awkward for a while, and it's not something I can remember happening before.
I apologised afterwards in case she'd thought I was being rude or deliberately antagonistic1, but we certainly didn't resolve anything. I think it's great she cares that I don't care, but it's a shame she couldn't see that I do! I was pretty bothered about it for a few hours, mostly because I felt I'd embarrassed myself in front of everyone. A few very nice emails from classmates have reassured me, though - I'm not sure they necessarily agree with my point (hell, I'm not sure I necessarily agree with my point) but they could see what I meant, and didn't think it warranted the attack it got. So that's good.
It's a weird event. I don't argue with people much, let alone authority figures, in public. I might ask awkward questions, but I'll back off pretty quickly if I'm not completely sure of myself. I must be getting more confident about that kind of thing.
Today
Tonight I ran the music at a dance evening. I've done it before, and that time I spent a week worrying. This time I was much more relaxed: I knew it had been fine last time, so after a few hours setting up an iTunes playlist I didn't give it much thought. The evening went ok, but I got a bit grumpy at my inability to use a microphone. I have to announce which dance the next song conforms to, and I just could not do it: no matter what I did, I couldn't make my announcements understood. I tried raising the volume, speaking across the mic, different tones of voice - everything I could think of, and I still got a steady stream of confused looks whenever I said anything. Maybe my voice just isn't suited to amplification - who knows - but this felt like a total failure at the time, and I wasn't Mr Happy Chappy McGurk at the end of the evening. I'm a bit better now, but it's still annoying. Next time I'll just buy a scrolling LED sign.
- I wasn't either - I felt like I'd made myself look silly, but I wasn't worried I'd gone too far [↩]
Coventry Telegraph on non-religious naming ceremonies
This week's Coventry Telegraph has a feature on non-religious naming ceremonies, and they interviewed my sister about her choice of Humanist naming ceremony. They're on page 4:
“I really had no idea you could do anything like that,” said Jane, 23, from Claverdon. “But it is a great idea because otherwise you are stuck with having a christening in a church and making promises which you don’t really believe in or otherwise doing nothing.
Go Jane. The BHA's naming ceremonies aren't as well known as they could be, and it's great to see them getting some publicity.
AHS shots online
My photos from yesterday's AHS launch are now up on the BHA website. In hindsight they could have done with some judicious editing - I sent over everything I thought good enough, so there are a few almost duplicates - but I'm happy anyway.
Hello!
Hey, thanks for coming! I'm Andrew, and this is where my headthinks come to breed. They often dance around humanism, photography and general wonderments, but there's dabblage aplenty.
Do feel free to email me - I get lonely:
Your hair looks swish, by the way - have you done something new?
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