Aston Humanist Society

A Review of The Ledge, by Tulpesh Patel

2011-07-17T16:19:00.001+01:00

The Ledge, written and directed by Matthew Chapman, begins with Gavin (Charlie Hunnam) standing on the titular ledge, biding his time until noon when he must decide whether or not to jump to his death. Trying to talk him out of jumping is a policeman (Terence Howard), who that morning was told that he is infertile and therefore the two children he has raised are most certainly not his. The story behind Gavin’s suicidal mission unfolds through flashbacks: Gavin falls for his neighbour’s wife, Shana (Liv Tyler), hires her to work for him, and starts an affair. Of course the husband, Joe (Patrick Wilson), doesn't take it too well when he finds out, forcing Gavin to choose whether or not to sacrifice his own life in order to save Shana’s. So far, so derivative.

The reason for a review of this film appearing on a humanist society blog, and what is supposed to elevate The Ledge above your bog-standard quasi-psychological thriller, is that Gavin is an Atheist (with a definite capital 'a') and Joe is a fundamentalist, fire and brimstone Christian. The film is set up to be an exploration of life, love and sacrifice in the context of religious belief, and is unique, as far as I am aware, in having a strident atheist take a central role.

The Ledge suffers a great deal from trying to shoe-horn in so many issues that none of them can be given the thought and nuanced approach that they deserve. It doesn’t so much explore issues of belief so much as present reasons why religion is bad. Neither the theist nor the atheist will learn anything from this superficial presentation of ideas. A typical shouty exchange between the god-fearing and the heathen goes something like: "What about war and poverty?!"; "Well, what do you tell a dying child who hopes to see his parents again?!".

A checklist of controversies is ticked off with little thought to how their inclusion might add to anything of real value to the film. Gavin's flatmate is perfect example: does a character who has all of five minutes of screen time have to be gay, HIV-positive, searching for an accepting faith and wanting to get married? There’s a lack of subtlety that pervades the entire film, with a sledgehammer approach also noticeable in the direction. The cool, shaggy-haired atheist's apartment is always presented as bright and breezy; the clean-cut, uptight Christian on the other hand lives in an angular, claustrophobic and invariably dark apartment, as if his faith in god also required him to keep his blinds closed all the time.

I was surprised by the strength of the cast given the potential controversial central issues, but the two biggest names really fail to deliver. Terence Howard's performance as the policeman is reflective of the film as a whole – overwrought and unconvincing. That the cop would pop out to answer phone calls to discuss his wife's infidelities whilst he is trying to talk someone down from the top of a building is also incredulous. His entire side-story adds nothing to the film, save for an opportunity to ram home a message about forgiveness at the end. Liv Tyler's lip quivered a lot and Charlie Hunnam is forgettable. The film's saving grace (for want of a better phrase) is Patrick Wilson, who is impressive as the simmering pot that eventually boils over.

The film’s reception has been mixed to say the least. Whilst nothing that generates debate and reflection can ever be a wholly bad thing, most people I watched the film with at the National Federation for Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies’ AGM were more interested in discussing the inexplicable appearance of a ball gag rather than any of the issues the film tries to address, which I think says a lot about how much The Ledge missed its mark.

Ultimately, the film is unlikely to cause the stir that its makers might have hoped for, or set the box office alight. The Ledge certainly doesn't live up to its potential, but it's still worth a watch and deserves some credit for bringing atheism to the fore.

BBC's the Big Questions - Thoughts on the Young People's Special, by Tulpesh Patel

2011-05-29T20:53:00.000+01:00

I posted with some excitement a couple of weeks back (see below) about being offered the opportunity to take part in the BBC Big Questions Young People’s Panel on the future and relevance in young people’s lives. Sadly it fell through, they managed to confirm someone else to take part while I faffed about with thesis corrections and trying to arrange dentist appointments, but I was happy to see Amber Wright, President of the University of Birmingham Atheist, Secular and Humanist Society, representing a Birmingham AHS society, alongside Alison Rawlinson from (I think) the Coventry & Warwickshire Humanists.

Unfortunately, it took me too long to get round to writing this and it’s disappeared from BBC iPlayer Hopefully it will be up on Youtube soon, because it made for fascinating watching. In the meantime here are some thoughts on the program and the issues being debated.

The main question under discussion was whether religion will survive another generation, with secondary issues such as such as the recruitment of children into religion, the reaction of religion to advances in scientific understanding and the increasingly liberal attitudes of younger generations. The panellists were Shane Lynch of Boyzone and Coronation Street fame, Radio 1 DJ Nihal Arthanayake, writer and critic, Bidisha Bandyopadhyay and Joanna Jepson, reverend at the London School of Fashion and one-time mentor on Channel 4’s lamentable Make Me A Christian.

The discussion covered familiar ground. Joanna Jepson began by basically saying that that religion was for and made by humans, thereby pretty much undermining everything she had to say on the value of religion for the rest of discussion. Debate on the religious indoctrination of children quickly turned to faith schools. Faiths schools are almost required by religions in order to keep them going; exposure of their children to other religions, and secular and/or atheist thinking in anthema to those who wish to foster the narrow minded dogmatism that maintaining religion requires. The arguments against faith schools are many any strong and don’t need to be repeated here.

The real damage is not that children in faith schools leave not ‘believing’ in evolution, but that they are not equipped with the tools of rational, reasoned thought that make an understanding and appreciation of evolution obligatory. An important point made by and RE teacher in the audience, was care needed not to conflate the academic study of religion and the indoctrination of children into a specific religion according to the dictat of the faith schools; it is just the latter that secularists and atheists have a problem with.

Nihal made two important points, that didn’t get the attention that they deserved during the discussion. First that religion is very closely tied up with culture and community, and second that parents often use religion to constrain their children’s behaviour within cultural boundaries – making cultural issues, particularly surrounding the role of women, a matter of punishment and control by a punitive god in order maintain patriarchal hegemony.

Members of the audience, one particularly heatedly, also cried out that atheism and science was also just a faith, when careful consideration of the definition of faith and its concomitants shows that it clearly isn’t. AC Grayling has stated it most clearly: “Faith is the negation of reason. Reason is the faculty of proportioning judgement to evidence, after first weighing the evidence. Faith is belief even in the face of contrary evidence”. Søren Kierkegaard’s ‘leap of [or rather to] faith’, was mentioned on more than one occasion as a virtue by religious apologists in the audience (including, the guy was famous for singing this disco anthem).

Stephen Jay-Gould’s ‘Non-overlapping magisteria’ also featured, but was wonderfully shot down by an audience member who pointed out that this cannot be the case given the number of scientific claims made by religions and their texts. Where religion has anything to say about the natural state of the world, science and faith collide; faith has always been, and undoubtedly always will be, on the conceding side.

To date, religion has also claimed to the sole arbiter of issues of morality, ‘where do athieists get their morality if not from God’ was shouted from the audience more than once. Humanists have their answers based on philosophical thought, but even discussions of good and evil are falling within the realms of scientific understanding. Sam Harris argues in his latest book, the Moral Landscape that neuroimaging technologies like functional magnetic resonance imaging will be able to tell us more about not only how the brain works but also morality, what constitutes good and bad and how we ought to live. Whilst the merits of such a theory are still being discussed, the fact is that the religious fingers around the neck of moral thought are increasingly loosening.

As to whether religion can survive another generation, the answer is most certainly yes. Not even the most optimisticic militant atheist would think otherwise. The indoctrination of children before they are able to think for themselves; the comfort that religion offers to the poor that the bleakness of naturalism can apparently not; the seemingly insatiable need for people to hope of there being ‘something more than this’; that science doesn’t have, and doesn’t have to temerity to claim it has, all of the answers; that that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, whilst wiser men are full of doubts; all these reasons and hundreds more are why religion, whilst apparently in decline, is not going to away completely.

Religion can of course, in some individuals, cease to be important within one generation. I am proof of that. Both my parents were born in India, and whilst an education for my father in the UK wore away at all but the most cultural aspects of his religion, my mother is a Hindu. Just how Hindu, given that I know more about her religion than she does is a matter for another discussion. (I was an ardent supporter of the BHA’s census campaign because it’s most important effect was on people like my dad, who would have reflexively put Hindu on the form before being made to think about what he actually believe, or more accurately what he doesn’t believe). But, the significant caveat in my case is the liberal outlook of my parents, who gave me the choice and freedom to think for myself. Not all children get this freedom, especially not those who are forced to go to faith schools because of their parent’s faith. Making a break from a family and community bound in religiously culture can be very difficult. The growth of organisations such grass-root societies, particularly at university where exposure to different people and ideas is much less under parental control, is vital, as it provides a support network of like-minded young people.

As to the future, Bidisha optimistically hoped for of a future of harmonious secular humanism. I think most would settle for Nihal’s wish that “people believe and love their faith without believing and telling me that they’re better than me”. Surprisingly, it was born again Christian Shane Lynch who captured the essence of what it means to be religious, and the reason that religion will persist: “God gave me my life back, but I still eat lobster.”

BBC's The Big Questions - Young People's Special

2011-05-10T21:03:00.001+01:00

This afternoon a wonderfully exciting email drew me from my MEG data screening slumber. It was from researcher at the BBC saying that they were looking for people to take part in a pre-recorded Young People's Special of the Big Questions being filmed in Birmingham this weekend, and that Andrew Copson, Chief Exec of the British Humanist Association, suggested that they contact me!

For those who haven't seen the Big Questions, here's a little background on the show, lifted straight from the email I got:

"'The Big Questions' is BBC1's flagship live moral and ethical debate show presented by Nicky Campbell. Each week, three topics are discussed on the show – these are ethical or moral questions connected to the week’s news headlines. Some recent topics include: Should Britain be ashamed of its arms trade? Would Jesus be a Catholic? Is it right to rent a womb? Do we have the right to uphold our religious convictions? The Big Questions is broadcast live on BBC1 between 10am and 11am on a Sunday morning."

This series they are are doing four special shows that are being pre-recorded and where the whole hour of the show will be given over to one topic. On the afternoon of the 15th of May they will be recording their young people special and will be asking the question will religion survive another generation? During the debate they will address questions including: should children be recruited into religion at a young age?; can religion survive advances in knowledge?; and is organised religion out of date?

I've got a 'phone interview' with a researcher tomorrow afternoon, after which the editorial team and producer will decide whether I'd be any good on the show.

I've already been warned that apparently an appearance on The Big Questions that infuriated Robin Ince so much he started organising the 9 Lesson and Carols for Godless People shows as therapy. I can get quite excitable, particularly when it comes to religious debate, but I'm pretty sure my fury-threshold is much higher than Robin Ince's (although I think, judging by his shows, pretty much every other human being on this planet has a higher threshold than him).

If they decide that I'm not interesting, or annoying enough to be interesting, it was still nice to be even considered. I will probably have to juice up my immediate answers to the discussion questions, which are an emphatic yes, no, no and yes.

3rd Annual AHS convention - Day 2

2011-03-18T22:45:00.001Z

The second day of the 2011 AHS convention was largely aimed at committee members and was that great combination of being fun and informative.

The morning started with a dilemma as I was forced to choose between the Finance and Sustainability talk, which sounded useful but hardly ‘fun’, and the Choir Workshop. I’m so glad I chose the choir as it ended up being the highlight of my day, if not the weekend. A murder of crows can carry a tune better than I can, so heaps of praise must go to the BHA choir leader Chloe Clifford-Frith, and the rest of the choir members that took part, for making all the true amateurs feel welcome, stripping away our self-conciousness and teaching us to sing a whole song in 30 minutes. The fact that the song was Do You Realize was the cherry on the icing on the cake. I’m glad my excitability and lunatic grinning didn’t put the proper singers off when we performed for everyone who had attended the other workshops.

I was really inspired by the singing and wish I had the opportunity to sing in a humanist choir in Birmingham. Someone suggesting started up my own choir, but I’m finding it hard enough to get atheists/humanists together as it is, nevermind getting ones that have either the talent or inclination to sing!

The next workshop was holding one-to-one debates with people of faith, with Chief Exec of the BHA Andrew Copson and David Pollock, President of the European Humanist Federation pretending to be Christians. Andrew and David took it in turns to contest that faith schools were a good thing, that god existed and that morality only exists because of god. Well done to the three brave people who volunteered to put forward the case for atheism, who more than held their own against the typically ludicrous arguments that are usually put forward by religious folk when discussing these issues.

Andrew had some simple, practical advice:

Respond to the opposition’s points as systematically as possible
Defend without getting defensive
Be prepared to attack and score your own points
Avoid ad hominem arguments – attack the ideas not the person
Have good examples of evidence prepared – anecdotes are not evidence
Take a deep breath and sit up straight, it can make all the difference to how you feel and are perceived.

The breaks between sessions were also a great chance to network. Whilst we were all there because we were atheist/humanist and valued secular values, the pluralism of ideas was special; every discussion I entered into, one on the merits of Justin Bieber’s existence and views spring to mind, was fiercely and intelligently contested. I met some wonderfully interesting folk from across the Irish Sea, who brought an 11 strong contingent from Cork Uni and who were voted into the AHS fold during the Extraordinary General Meeting. Closer to home, I managed to get to know some of theUniversity of Birmingham Atheist, Secular and Humanist Society (UBASH) better and get the ball rolling for pooling resources and holding our own Reason Week.

I wasn’t quite sure how to react to the responses to my happy humanist and Darwin tattoos, from both folk at the workshops and an anthropologist from LSE who’s writing a book about the humanism and humanist organisations. Both are tattoos that don’t think I’ll live to regret but I suppose I’m in a pickle if I undergo a religious conversion; although as Andy Copson suggested, I could always just stick a little halo over the happy humanist’s head. You can see the photos from the second day of the convention (including my gurning Bo-Selecta face next to my tattoos) here.

After a group session where we got together to discuss ways of improving how the AHS works, the day finished with the presentation of some awards. Whilst the best kind of charity goes unspoken, I can’t say I wasn’t chuffed to bits when AC Grayling (via a pre-recorded message) announced that Aston had raised the most money during Non-Prophet Week!

Together with the special efforts of Emma Moseley, Jack Hooker and Nick Martin (and a helping hand from the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub), we managed to raise a bucket-load of money , which was split between VESL, Amnesty International, Book Aid International, One World Action and Childreach International.

Congratulations must also go all the award winners, including Bristol Atheist, Agnostic and Secular Society, who won the award for best overall society

I ended the weekend pretty tired out, but, just as when I left the launch event two years ago, I was energized and excited. A huge thank you must go to Richy Thompson, President of the AHS, and the rest of the Executive Committee for doing such a fantastic job, not only of organising the convention, but the running of the AHS as a whole. The value of the kinship and support that the AHS provides cannot be underestimated.

3rd Annual AHS convention - Day 1

2011-03-18T21:25:00.001Z

Saturday 12^th to Sunday 13^th of March was the 3^rd annual convention of the National Fedration of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies’ (confusingly, also AHS for short).

It was strange but reaffirming to back at Conway Hall, home of the long-standing bastions of free-thought, the South Place Ethical Society. Arriving there with a couple of our society’s members was special because it meant that I’d started and kept the Aston Humanists running for more than two years. I was at the press launch of the AHS when it was just a small clutch of societies, to see how big it has become since (it’s more than doubled from an initial 14 to at least 32 societies), is testament to all the hard work of the AHS founders, committee members and the support of the British Humanist Association.

Walking around the stands before the talks kicked off was a great opportunity to put faces to Twitter names and flesh out relationships that had previously only existed via Facebook. It was also a good chance to pick up some free literature, talk to the NSS about their campaigns, and of course, amass a collection of cool badges.

Thanks to the very brilliant Pod Delusion you can hear all the talks from the Speaker’s Day, which included Humanist MP Lord Warner, Gerard Philips from the National Secular Society, Chief Exec of the BHA Andrew Copson, the brilliant blogger and journalist Johann Hari, distinguished philosopher AC Grayling and a trademark scatological rant, sprinkled with morality, profanity and scientific deference, from Robin Ince.

I urge you to listen to the talks as they are all fascinating and full of thought-provoking ideas, calls to action and not a small amount of humour; I heard someone in the audience say that the talks were rousing and I’m very much inclined to agree.

In the break, two of the Aston Humanists got to speak to Johann.Nick Martin got a chance to talk to him about his experience of the Dalai Lama's homophobia and here's Sandra Nimako-Boatey very excitedly getting his autograph. (I apologize for the skewiff photograph, but blogger just doesn't want to play ball with pictures for some reason.)

You can also see some some of the photos (the right way up) from the speakers day on the AHS facebook album.

The afternoon of talks ended on a real high, with a fantastic performance by the BHA Choir. Their set was peppered with excellent versions of well known songs of an atheist bent, including Monty Python’s hilarious Every Sperm is Sacred, but I was blown away by their performance of The Flaming Lip’s Do You Realize? I was (and still a little bit am) obsessed with the album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (and frontman Wayne Coyne) and must have heard that song millions of times; whilst I appreciated it’s profundity at the time, I never really got just how humanist the song was.

The trip to the pub after the event was a chance to catch up with some familiar faces and make new friends. Andrew Copson joined us for a drink and delighted us with stories of his time as a student, including an occasion when he woke up with a mouse in his mouth! As well as being one of the most personable people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, the man’s dedication to the cause knows no bounds: he’s arranged his civil partnership ceremony forward to a day before the official census so that his marriage can be recorded, and will then head straight from the ceremony to March for the Alternative, the huge protest planned against student fees and government spending cuts!

The price of a London pint precluded any excessive drinking, but the fun company meant that I still didn’t collapse into my hostel bed until nearly 1am; exhausted but with my head buzzing with excitement.

Upcoming public inter-faith panel discussion

2011-03-07T22:44:00.001Z

The Birmingham City University Islamic Society, Birmingham City University Debating Society and al Hakima Media, (a group who hold Islamic conferences/conventions in the Midlands and Greater Manchester regions) have teamed up to hold a public “Question Time-style” inter-faith panel discussion. There are representatives from the Christian, Sikh and Muslim faiths on the panel and members of the Aston Humanists and the University of Birmingham Atheist, Secular and Humanist Society have been asked to represent ‘non-religious based organisations’.

The event will be open to the public, with around 70-80 people expected, and will cover a number of different themes including:

Women, society and religion,
Freedom of speech and religion,
The world with or without religion
The contribution of religion, if any
Current issues faced by the Middle Eastern countries

As Chair of the Aston Humanists I’ve gladly taken up the offer to take part. Whilst I’ve spoken in front of bigger audiences before, it has been in academic settings, where the audiences have definitely been less religious or partisan. The chosen topics cover a lot of controversial ground and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into some juicy discussion but I’m quite nervous having never had been part of a formal public discussion before. By a very happy coincidence, however, I’m attending the National Federation for Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies annual convention this weekend where there is a workshop on debating held by BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson and European Humanist Federation President David Pollock. Hopefully the advice on debating will stand me in good stead not just for this event but also my PhD viva voce a week later!

These are all the details of the event as I have them so far:

When: 5pm to 6.30pm, Thursday the 17th of March
Where: Baker Building room 508, City north campus, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU
How much: Free!

I’ll update with more information as and when I get it. It should be a cracking event so please do come if you can!

American postal censorship?

2011-02-20T22:38:00.000Z

Last year, whilst working in University of California, Los Angeles, a friend tried to post me this book: When Atheism Becomes a Religion by Chris Hedges, that she found in a Borders bargain bin. Two weeks later it was returned to her with "Unauthorized Circulation: Religious Content (Int'l) RTS" written on the package. She kept the packaging and just recently gave it and the book to me in person.

Hmmm.. going to follow this up and write this up in full as and when.

Non-prophet week: Update 3

2011-02-12T18:48:00.001Z

After bake sales, silences and bucket shakes, the last of our Non-prophet Week events was the Donation Station, set up to collect unwanted items that would then be donated to Barnardo’s. All told, we didn’t quite get the response that we’d hoped for, despite the very obvious enthusiasm on show. Although plenty of people still generously donated their spare change to the bucket, over the course of the two hours that we were open, we only managed to get a few bits of clothing.

I think this was largely down to poor promotion of the event on our part; whilst there were plenty of posters up around campus, we could have done more to promote the event beforehand so that people could plan ahead. Short of giving us the clothes of their backs there was little people could do for us on the day however keen they were to support us!

That said however, coupled with the few bits and bobs from the Donation Station and the stuff I’d accumulated at home, we did still end up with four full bags worth of stuff! Judi (left), the manager of the Barnardo’s charity shop in Banbury, and her assistant, Pauline (right), were pleased as punch when I turned up this morning and even graciously offered to pose for a photo.

One of our members, Emma Moseley had managed to cajole some of her flat mates to make a donation but by the time they’d got there we’d already packed up! Their donations will be collected on Monday and taken to Barnardo's next weekend.

Here’s a quick roundup of where we all are with the rest of the fund-raising totals:

Emma’s sitting pretty at £276 so far for her fundraising for Volunteers for Eductational Support and Learning. Although her sponsored silence is over she’s still taking donations!

I’ve raised £80 online and £40 offline so far for my runs for Amnesty International, the routes from Wednesday to Friday are below. The runs have been strange because I’ve alternated between pleasant runs and decent times of around 23 minutes (like Thursday and today) to absolutely awful slogs of 26 minutes (like yesterday), where it felt like sawing my legs off with a rusty spoon would have been easier and less painful. I still can’t wrap my head around how Eddie Izzard managed 43 marathons in 51 days!

Including proceeds from the two bakes sales and the random change we’ve managed to collect, we estimate that our fundraising bucket must have had around £70 in it by Friday afternoon. The grand total from our bucket will also include a donation from the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub very generously offered £50 from the profits from their last talk to our societies’ funding raising total! We have now handed over our bucket to Aston RAG who will count the money, split it 50/50 and raise two cheques for Book Aid International and One World Action at the beginning of next week.

Finally, it’s still early days for Jack Hooker, but he’s raised £30 on his way towards a final target of £2440 as he attempts to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Childreach International.

Not sure what the exact total raised by the Aston Humanists will be just yet, but I’m pretty sure we’ve broken the £500 barrier!

Non-prophet week: Update 2

2011-02-10T00:05:00.004Z

Not many photos from Monday’s bake sale as I forgot to charge the battery in my camera, and the photos that were taken on my phone have been lost into the digital ether as my memory card decided to inexplicably corrupt itself. I’m doing my best to try and retrieve them, but you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Work commitments of the various people helping out got in the way of bucket shaking on campus yesterday, but we more than made up for it today with our second bake sale. I baked blueberry and apple crumble-cake (a hotch-potch recipe that was semi freestyled), honorary humanist Emma Birkett baked apple and toffee cakes, which were out of this world, and Jack Hooker lived up to his promise and baked some dark chocolate muffins with a luminescent orange frosting that even the most bleary-eyed student could spot from a distance!

We braved the biting wind for an hour and managed to sell pretty much every bit of cake we had. One of my favourite reactions: “Mmm.. Godless cakes are they? Could do with one of those right now”. 15 minutes more and we would have sold out but I decided to save some for some colleagues and friends who I knew would be more than happy to make a sizable charitable donation in return for an afternoon sugar pick-me-up!

By my guess we raked in at least another £40 today from the bake sale today. Most people were happy to pay a £1 although the suggested donation was 50p and we even had someone donate £2 even though they couldn’t take a cake because of a nut allergy (none of the cakes were nut based but we couldn’t guarantee that they hadn’t been near nuts). To top it off, we were approached by a lady who wanted to commission us to bake cakes for her personally!

A few bits of each of cake were saved for entry into the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub bake-off at this evenings talk with paranormal researcher Hayley Stevens (check out her excellent sceptical blog here and the consistently brilliant Righteous Indignation podcasts here).

Patrick Redmond, co-organiser of the Birmingham SITP let me say a few words at the beginning to the meeting to plug Non-prophet Week and then very generously offered to donate the profits from that evening’s talk to Aston Humanist’s fund-raising total, which ended up being around £50!

Unfortunately, none of the humanist entries won the cake-off (we lost out to a super-moist carrot cake), but the feedback from those that tasted our cakes were all the right side of brilliant! The total money raised from the bake sale, bucket shaking and Birmingham SITP will be split evenly between Book Aid International and One World Action.

Emma Moseley completed her sponsored silence at 9pm on Tuesday. She managed to go 120 hours without saying a word. (First words: “Yah! I can speak!”) What a star! You can reward her fantastic achievement by donating to Volunteers for Educational Support and Learning here.

I am now 3 runs into my seven day challenge and doing pretty well. After a disappointing 25:02 run on Tuesday (left pic) I managed a decent 23:04 along the canals this morning (right pic). The most important thing is the amount of money I manage to raise, not my best time; including my offline sponsorships I’ve now surpassed my (admittedly modest) fund-raising target! I’m not resting on my laurels though. Still four more runs and four more days of fund-raising to go!

We now also have another longer-term event added to the rosta. The aforementioned Jack Hooker will be climbing (or at least attempt to climb) Mount Kilamanjaro in June this year to raise money for Childreach International and needs all the help he can get to raise a mammoth £1,900 in the next 5 months! More information about the project and his sponsorship page can be found here.

The next event will be Friday’s Donation Station. Lots of posters have been put up across Aston’s campus encouraging people to donate any unwanted items that in good condition. Everything collected will be donated to the Banbury branch of Barnardo’s. We’ll also have our bucket there to take spare change and if a couple of us have any spare time there might even be one final cake sale too – like children, students just cannot get enough of very brightly coloured sweet things!

Estimated mid-week total stands at around ~£500!

Non-prophet week: Update 1

2011-02-07T22:56:00.001Z

A short while back I wrote about how, contrary to what a some religious people think, non-believers give aid too, and now with the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Socieities’ Non-prophet Week, we really get to show that is the case!

Non-prophet week has been organised as a series of events running from today to next Sunday, with nearly 20 student societies across the UK all banding together. Raising money for charity has always been high on the agenda for the Aston Humanists so we jumped at the chance to be involved!

Here’s a run-down of the events that we’ve organised and the charities that we are supporting and how they are going so far:

From 9pm last Thursday (that’s 97 hours and counting!) Aston Humanist, Emma Moseley, has not spoken a single word as part of a sponsored silence to raise money for Volunteers for Educational Support and Learning. Through VESL, Emma will be going to India in August to spend 4 months as a volunteer in Andhra Pradesh (Southern India), running English activity lessons within 3 local schools during the school day and running after-school clubs as well as generally helping to care for the orphans as many will be disabled or HIV positive. At the time of writing she’s more than half way to her £500 fund-raising target. You can sponsor her on her JustGiving page.

I myself have once again managed to marry my twin passions of running and charity by setting myself the challange of running 5km every morning for the duration of Non-prophet week. All the money raised will go to Amnesty International. You can sponsor me here, either as a lump some, or per km that I run.

I started the first of my 5km runs this morning in not exactly the best shape, having spent the weekend in Manchester at the rationalist-oriented QED conference, but still managed a time of 24:01, which I’m pretty pleased with.

One of our members, who has moved on to pastures new, has promised to treble their donation if I beat my personal best of 20:42, so the pressure’s on! I’m planning on running 7 different routes, both for a little variety and to prove that I’m not cheating (it's all recorded on my GPS watch). Here’s the route from this morning.

We’ve also planned a series of bake sales throughout the week. Today, Nick Martin baked a batch of his special, secret recipe white chocolate brownies, which went down an absolute storm! The whole lot sold out in 45 minutes and we had countless people telling us how delicious they were! With £2s worth of ingredients we managed to raise £30 for Book Aid International, a charity that promotes literacy by providing books to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Having a collection bucket really helped as, more often than not, the people that didn’t want a brownie still chucked in a few pence. It all adds up! No cakes tomorrow but I’ll be out and about on campus with the bucket during my lunch break.

For Wednesday we’ve got more cakes planned. Jack Hooker’s baking some of his mind-bogglingly multi-coloured cupcakes, honorary humanist member Emma Birkett’s baked some toffee and apple muffins (the apples are from her garden!), and my very lovely wife will be baking something too (although the first she might know about that is when she reads this). The money from Wednesday’s bake sale and the next day’s bucket shake will go to One World Action, a charity that helps marginalised populations, with a particular focus on women’s rights.

On Friday 11th we thought we’d mix it up a little and organise a Donation Station so that people who don’t much spare cash can still contribute by donating unwanted items. We’ll be accepting anything and everything in good conditions, with everything we collect donated to a Barnardo’s charity shop. Non-prophet week won’t end on the Friday though, I still have the last of my runs on Saturday and Sunday morning!

It’s definitely been tougher than previously to raise money, which is understandable given the financially constrained times we are in, but the support we’ve had so far has been great, and we’re all the more appreciative for it. We've decided to spread the money we raise across a number of difference charities to reflect the diverse causes that humanists and our society in particular support.

At the time of writing we’ve raised around £350!

5k a day for Amnesty International

2011-01-25T10:05:00.000Z

As part of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies' Non-prophet week the Aston Humanists will be holding a series of charity fund-raising events. Tulpesh Patel will be running 5km a day every day for the duration of the week to raise money for Amnesty International. Please donate generously!

A full list of all the stuff we'll be organising will be up soon!

Having a discussion

2011-01-17T10:44:00.000Z

Aston Humanist raising money for Indian orphanage

2011-01-09T16:41:00.000Z

Late this year, Aston Humanist Society member, Emma Moseley will be volunteering for four months in an orphanage in Andhra Pradesh (Southern India), running English activity lessons within 3 local schools during the school day and running after-school clubs as well as generally helping to care for the orphans as many will be disabled or HIV positive.

She will be doing a week long sponsored silence from 4th to the 11th of February to raise the money needed to fund the project. All the money donated will go directed to Volunteers for Educational Support and Learning, which is charity she will be working with.

Please donate generously on Emma's Just Giving page.

Letter from Hardcash productions

2010-11-24T16:18:00.000Z

Received this a couple of days back (unfortunately only just had time to catch up on the emails):

---
Dear Aston Humanist Society

My name is Andrew Smith and I am a producer with a TV company - www.hardcashproductions.com - which makes documentaries for Dispatches on Channel 4. Naomi Philips gave me your contact details from the BHA. I'm developing a documentary looking at Islamic faith schools - primary and secondary schools, especially independent ones - in the light of concerns which have been expressed over the nature of some of the teaching which may be taking place, and wanted to know if you had come across concerns in your local community area of this nature? I'm also interested in teaching and child protection at unregulated madrassas.

I would very much welcome a confidential chat over any issues of this nature you may have come across in your area. Could you give me a ring on *** or email me a number to contact you on?

Thanks very much and I look forward to hearing from you
--

No idea what to really make of it, or why they would ask me! I've got some opinions on faith schools, sure, but I'm less sure that I'm brave enough to get involved in TV stuff.

No harm in ringing him and asking for more details I guess.

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis: Islam or Atheism?

2010-10-30T11:23:00.002+01:00

During Aston University’s Freshers’ Week back in September, I got talking to a chap from the Aston University Islamic Society who was very excited by the prospect of working with the Aston Humanist Society, and particularly with getting us involved in debates with some of the speakers they had lined up.

Then, over the last few weeks this poster has been plastered on all the noticeboards all over campus. This is exactly the kind of thing that I set the humanist society up to take part in! Given that I’m supposed to be in the middle of writing my thesis, I hoped to be able to attend but wasn’t sure if I would be able to fit it in, but a couple of phone calls and texts from the Islamic Society reminding/urging me to come sealed the deal.

First a little about the speaker. Hamza Andreas Tzortzis’ was a humanist, as his parents still are, but became a Muslim around 8 years ago. His blog introduces him as “an international public speaker on Islam, a writer and intellectual activist. He has debated prominent intellectuals and academics. Some of his interlocutors include the leading humanist and best selling author Peter Cave, the editor of the Philosophy Now magazine, Rick Lewis, and the highly acclaimed Professor Simon Blackburn. More recently Hamza debated one of the leading American atheists and secular activists, Dr Ed Buckner, the president of American Atheists.”

Only an hour before the talk I was sent a link to this post on the Harry's Place blog on Tzortzis, along with a warning not to engage with him. I read the post with interest and admit it did set some alarm bells ringing, not least allusions to Tzortzi’s ties to an extremist Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain (HTB), which the Centre for Social Cohesion called a “revolutionary Islamist party that works to establish an expansionist super-state in Muslim-majority countries, unifying Muslims worldwide as one political bloc, or “ummah”…”

The article also urges that, in the same way that Richard Dawkins now famously refuses to share a platform with Creationists, humanists should not debate with people like Tzortzis for fear of lending them credibility. It’s clear from the way Tzortzis introduces himself on his blog (and during the talk) that he is certainly proud of the people he has shared a platform with. He has managed to secure time with some significant atheists ; it certainly does give him an air of respectability to have gone up against such prominent and intelligent speakers.

The Harry’s Place and Richard Dawkins articles propose taking the high road in order to avoid giving the public the false impression that there was some to debate about at all. I gave this idea some real thought and still decided to go; that’s not to say I’m not struggling properly answer to myself whether it’s more important not to lend them credibility, or to actively show that their arguments lack credibility.

I decided to go for a number of reasons. First, I’m concerned that not engaging with groups like the Islamic Society and speakers like Tzortzis gives the impression that atheists and the like are ‘above all that’, which I hope is not the case, and certainly isn’t the case for me. Second, I’m not sure avoiding lending credibility outweighs the obligation to challenge the anti-secular, anti-science, anti-liberal ideology which is actively undermining progress and societal cohesion; there is an argument to be had because one side is already doing the arguing. I think it would have been a real shame to simply ignore him and leave his potentially dangerous opinions unchallenged. Third, Tzortzis was on campus preaching to my fellow students, even if I wasn’t going to take him on in a debate it is important to know just what he is saying and how he is saying it. I was curious to see what the group thought of his ideas and just what kind of reactions he would provoke.

I have to say that I was impressed by the sheer size of the crowd. A 120-capacity lecture theatre was full with around 20 people sitting on the floor. It started off with a quick talk by a representative of the Qu’ran Project a scheme started to distribute a compendium containing a full up-to-date translation of the Qu’ran , with additional chapters aimed at addressing issues like the role of women and science in Islam. I bagged my free copy and made it next on my reading list – although I might skip to the Science in the Qu’ran chapter first. It’s interesting to note how much time religious people expend trying to convince us that their texts have scientific credibility, given the little credence they give to science. If science doesn’t really matter, why bother?

My initial intention was just to sit in on Tzortzis’ talk, make copious notes and report back what was said, and perhaps deconstruct his arguments. I don’t think it would be particularly fruitful to provide a transcript of his talk, especially as it won’t be verbatim and I don’t want to be accused of misrepresenting his ideas. I did record the talk on my phone, but was told that the Islamic Society own the rights to the video that it would be appearing on Tzortzis’ YouTube channel shortly. Almost all of the content of the talk is covered in various articles on his blog:

How do we know God is one? A theological and philosophical perspective.
God’s will and power. Answers to common questions.
Questions: How does the Qu’ran’s uniqueness make it a divine and miraculous text?
Comment: Assisted suicide and subjective morality.

Much of what Tzortzis said during his talk for the Islamic Society can also be seen in the first 35 minutes of his debate with Ed Buckner from the American Atheists.

I do hope that people will read his articles and watch the above video, because they make for an interesting insight into the mind and opinions of someone who has the respect of many Muslims, but to even the half-inquisitive eye comes across like someone that’s read a lot and perhaps understood little. I just read Alex Bellos’ Alex’s Adventures in Numberland (which I highly recommend) and as a result I have a better grasp of probabilities and the concept of infinity than Tzortzis. The writer of the Harry’s Place blog has it exactly right in stating that “he is a particularly confrontational character with a host of tricks up his sleeve to make up for his deficient philosophical arguments”.

I made a list of a few things that Tzortzis did which would undermine his claim to be anywhere near a good debater:

Blinding the audience with philosophical terms. When I attempted to call him on the fact that his use of complex terminology in a room full of non-philosophy students did little to explain his arguments, he became personal and suggested that ‘I was a typical atheist who thinks that just because he didn’t understand no one else did either’. When I asked for a show of hands of who actually understood any of the phrases like 'Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam' or ‘ontological argument’ meant, only four people in a room of 140 put their hands up, and when he asked for a show of hands for who actually understood his arguments little over third did.

Avoiding answering any question directly and instead, diverting the question into areas where he was able to go on long, self-serving rants. His rhetorical loop-the-loops would have politicians gushing in admiration.
Baseless, flippant asides, which actually needed to be discussed, were frequently followed with ‘but that’s for another discussion’. Examples include:

“Atheists don’t have no objective morals so they think it’s OK to bomb children in Baghdad because it’s just ‘the rearrangement of atoms’.”

“For atheists, ‘nothing’ [in the context of the physics and scientific theories of the origin of the universe] is a nothing word, it’s like the term collateral damage when they kill people. In words, it doesn’t mean anything.”

And my absolute favourite: “We live in a post-secular society – it’s time we got our guns out too”, perhaps not the most appropriate metaphor in the current climate.

Littering the talk with names and texts. It’s a great trick as it certainly makes you sounds clever and well read but remembering names and quotes is not the same as understanding the arguments. His other favourite move was to make a big deal out of the fact that he was attacking people like Stephen Hawking’s ideas, as if by the very fact that attacking them made him somehow smarter.

I could go on.

The Q&A session started with the announcement that whilst the Brothers in the audience were allowed to address the speaker directly, the Sisters had to write their question on a slip of paper which was then passed down to the front and vetted before being answered. Unbelievable. Perhaps what is more unbelievable is that the practice is being defended, and not labelled the outright misogynistic behaviour that it is. This was posted on the Islamic Society group page on Facebook.

“Just one side-note regarding the point which one of the atheists (I don't know who) raised regarding our sisters etc. The reason why sisters write questions on paper is because many of them feel shy, its called "hayaa". Its not because they're less than us!!! And also, there were so many brothers sitting on the floor, can we say: Muslims disrespect men because they had to sit on the floor?? If he didnt know, thats ok, but he should have asked. Isnt asking the cure to the disease of ignorance?”

For a start, ALL the sisters were told to write their questions on paper, not just the shy ones. I can’t imagine that none of the 40-odd women in the room were so shy they couldn’t put their hand up. And surely a room full of fellow, sympathetic Muslims is the best place to overcome your shyness? Yes, asking is the cure to the disease of ignorance. It’s just a shame that the Brothers seems to be keeping the cure for themselves. Around 10 bits of paper were passed to the front and not a single question from them was answered. In fact he actually chastised one woman for ’‘writing an essay’.

Thank goodness that the men were not subject to the same vetting scheme, although the Q&A was the clearest demonstration that debating’ with people like Tzortzis is a completely futile exercise. I’m afraid I did start to monopolise the floor, but I wasn’t going to let him get off lightly. Whilst he acknowledged that my question on the problem of evil and suffering was ‘one of toughest’ (the answer was we can never understand God in his infinite wisdom and life is a test and isn’t just one, ong happy party), many of the questions he received from the audience just resulted in his derision.

His answer to the question ‘What sets Islam apart from other religions that have clearly documented and recent origins, like Scientology and Mormonism?’, asked by the only other openly non-believer in the room, was answered with a reiteration of his arguments about how Allah must be the one, with no specific comment on the question he was actually asked. This was followed by a Muslim member of the crowd who asked ‘As a Muslim, how can I sincerely pray if I’m standing by a billionaire Saudi Sheikh who lives in a palace and is doing little to alleviate the poverty as Mohammad taught?’ This was met with a long rant which can be summarised as ‘What do you know? How much money do you give? Don’t judge others before you judge yourself, and even then only God can judge’. And he even managed to shoe-horn in the claim that believers give more aid that non-believers .

I was apprehensive about taking on a speaker who had travelled the world and debated many prominent atheists, but the feeling dissipated not more than 5 minutes into his talk, once I realised the extent of the logical behind his arguments. His self-proclaimed reputation as a ‘great debater’ who’d taken on all these famous speakers didn’t count for anything, as his ideas were still nonsense and were presented in such an illogical way. I in no way profess to know or understand a fraction of the physics and philosophy spilling from Tzortzis’ mouth, but what little I do know was enough to take his ideas to bits. Alom Shaha recently wrote an piece on how Skeptics should avoid navel gazing and engage with people who might benefit from what you have to say, and I think the argument applies here. We can take the moral high road scoff amongst ourselves at thei crazy ideas, or we can talk to and in front of the people that matter. I understand that not all people are comfortable with the idea of incurring the wrath of religious folk, and whilst I’ve been called brave for going along and confronting him, I don’t think it is bravery; I felt it was my duty to show that people like Tzortzis won’t get an easy ride as they tour universities filling the hearts and minds of students with illiberal, ill-thought out, divisive jargon. I don’t think for one minute that anyone in the audience will change their mind and abandon Islam after listening to me, but I hope that perhaps just one person listened to his arguments and my attempts at addressing and dismantling them and seriously considered whether Tzortzis and his ideas were genuinely worthy of admiration.

I went to this talk in the anticipation of learning something from someone who appeared to have something intelligent to say about the opposing ideologies of atheism and Islam but left ultimately disappointed. I’m glad I went as had I not, his visit to Aston would have remained largely unreported outside of Aston, and I don’t think we can afford to just ignore these kinds of speakers are touring universities and preaching to students in this way.

Tzortzis closed the talk at just before 5pm (having to go off and pray), with a closing proviso which I can only dream of feeling like I could get away with at the end of a talk: “If anything I have said is wrong it’s due to Shaitan (Satan); anything good, has been the will of Allah. That just about sums the potency of his arguments up really.

A report from day 1 The Amazing Meeting (TAM) London 2010, by James Ellor

2010-10-23T17:58:00.000+01:00

Well, as some of you might know, I went to TAM London this weekend, and I kindly volunteered to write a blog post of my experiences. There’s only one problem: I don’t know where to start.

The weekend was so jam-packed full of talks and comedy and music and random photography, and yet flew by so quickly, that I would need my own blog (which I do have, but that’s beside the point) and much more time than I have now, to even begin to do it justice. But I’ll give it a go. I may miss some important details but I do hope I’ll be able to portray the sheer awesomeness that was TAM London 2010.

Firstly, I didn’t go alone. My good friend Darryl Hewitt, who introduced me to Dawkins, atheism, scepticism and all that malarky some time in 2006 offered to come with me ever since I rang him up a few months ago, hysterically shrieking that we must go to this thing in October! We stayed at a dingy but cosy hostel near Piccadilly Circus for a couple of nights, and got the tube to TAM each morning, excessively bleary-eyed on the Saturday due to a lack of breakfast, caffeine and sleep.

The first ‘celebrity’ I saw was the YouTuber AndromedasWake (aka Tommy K) who was first in line outside the Monarch Suite of the Hilton Metropole. For those of you who don’t know, AndromedasWake makes some simply superb videos focused on debunking the astronomical claims of creationism (that’s astronomical as in pertaining to astronomy, not as in large or immense, though either definition is apt). He also has a sister channel, SiriusStargazing, which is very useful for amateur or novice astronomers in identifying some of the features of the night sky. He is also one of the co-founders of the League of Reason, a collective of skeptic YouTubers who host BlogTV discussions every other Sunday.

Anyway! The next was Richard Dawkins who hurried past (he did a lot of hurrying past, but we got him in the end) into the main room, where we soon entered after failing to find coffee. After a quick performance by the Amateur Transplants, Richard Wiseman introduced James Randi, who rightly received a standing ovation before even saying anything. The first speaker was ex-parapsychologist Susan Blackmore, who gave a talk on her fruitless attempts to prove ESP and psychics, which eventually led her to become a professional skeptic.

She was followed by Richard Dawkins, who gave an interesting talk on evolution being “The New Classics”. Classics being the study of ancient Mediterranean philosophy, literature and art, seen in the past as essential study needed to fully understand the rest of academia. Evolution, he argued, is a modern equivalent; one can only fully understand biology if there is a full understanding of evolution.

American journalist Cory Doctorow followed with a chilling talk on the possibilities of heavier copyright laws being pressed by the US government and record companies. Adam Rutherford, editor of Nature and columnist for The Guardian was next, who told us about his experiences when he joined the Alpha Course (a 10 week course on Christianity hosted at churches throughout the country ) and met its founder, Nicky Gumbel. Apparently it’s very very homophobic. I might join one myself to have a look.

Then there was lunch, and the tea/coffee tables there had actual chests of Twining’s tea which I made full advantage of.

On our return were talks by Andy Nyman (good friend of Derren Browns and a co-writer of many of his shows), Paula Kirby (journalist and writer, who gave a talk on the hilarious horrors of Britain’s right-wing religious parties) and Karen James (spokesperson for the HMS Beagle Project, aiming to rebuild and re-sail the HMS Beagle in commemoration of Darwin’s 19^th Century voyage).

Robin Ince then had a delightful interview with James Randi which honestly could have gone on for a hundred times longer and been just as fascinating. He told stories of how he debunked many fraudulent ‘psychics’ over the years, including Uri Geller and the faith healer Peter Popoff. The lamentable fact is, of course, is that these are still at it, garnering followers decades after they were exposed for the money-grabbing frauds they are.

After an interlude of two hours (during which Darryl and I searched the Edgware Road for half an hour before finding a restaurant that wasn’t a McDonalds’ or KFC) we hurried back to the hotel for an evening with Tim Minchin. He gave us a rousing knees-up rendition of the infamous Pope Song, plus a new song called ‘Cont’ (short for ‘Context’… and that’s a clue) before we were treated to the premiere of an animated version of his beat-poem Storm (not released until January 2011).

We finally arrived back at the hostel at around 1am, fully aware we’d be up again at 7am for another day of intellectual fascination…. Which I’ll cover in the next blog post :)

Book review of Micheal Ots' What Kind of God? by Tulpesh Patel

2010-10-17T23:05:00.000+01:00

What Kind of God is a collection of 10 short answers to common questions, or ‘accusations’ made by atheists, of religion, such as: What kind of god doesn't prevent suffering? What kind of god sends sincere people to hell? What kind of god would limit my sexuality? It’s written by a Minister of Evangelism at Landsdowne Baptist Burch in Bournemouth, but by happenstance grew up just down the road from where I did.

I wanted to review this book not on the arguments presented, but on the writing and book itself, but realised that would be a impossible and not entirely useful. I won't spend time dissecting the answers given to these questions, save to say that, as is par for the course with these kind of books, they are just one long non sequitur.

Paraphrased answers to the questions posed above are: ‘God, in his justice, is perfectly fair in punishing our sin, but, in his love, he is patient with us, and thus every day the world continues is a sign of his patience’, ‘just like ourselves God does not tolerate the evil that is inherent in us and demands justice – it would be evil of God not to judge and punish us for our sins’ and ‘when it comes to sex, it is because it is good and precious that God places restrictions on it’ (and what I found most laughable as a ‘Christianity isn’t a homophobic religion, honest’ defence: ‘there is a difference between the orientation and the act’).

The book is written in an affable, blokey style and is peppered with little snippets of the author’s life, which I suppose is meant to appeal to the Christian Union students it is aimed at and demonstrate that ‘Christians are people too’. It’s not the worst kind of book in defense of Christianity, but don’t read it expecting a serious theological discussion – it’s well short of any solid argument or philosophical discussion, and as I’ve already said, is just a series of illlogical appeals to emotion built around a scaffold of biblical quotes.

It’s a quick enough read, and it’s always good know what the religious feel is something resembling the antidote to amassing and incisive anti-religious literature.

Science is Vital, unlike Tory MPs

2010-10-10T20:37:00.002+01:00

The Science is Vital campaign is a response to the drastic and devastating cuts to science funding proposed by the government in an attempt to alleviate the UK’s financial, shall we say, ‘difficulties’.

I would hope that to most sensible folks, questioning the importance of funding scientific endeavour at all would sound unnecessary. Such is the time we live in, and the government that we have, however, that the question is being asked in all seriousness. Thankfully, it seems that scientists have united under the Science Is Vital campaign to provide an emphatic answer. And why is science vital? Science is Vital provide a neat answer: “Investing in research enriches society and helps drive the economy. It led to our pre-eminent position in the 20th century, and will be vital in meeting the challenges of the 21st – whether they be in energy, medicine, infrastructure, computing, or simply humanity’s primal desire for discovery.”

There are three ways to support the campaign:

1. Sign the petition
2. Write to your MP
3. Lobby Parliament. Science is Vital and the Campaign for Science and Engineering are taking the matter directly to Parliament on the 12th of October, from 3:30 – 4:30pm, in Committee Room 10. If you can be there, and especially if you’ve written to your MP to ask that he/she attend, register here.

There was also a rally held alongside Her Majesty’s Treasury yesterday afternoon. Thanks to the awesome folks at the Pod Delusion, those, like me, that couldn’t make it can listen to the speeches from fantastic pro-science luminaries like Dr Evan Harris, Imran Khan, Simon Singh, Dr Petra Boynton and Colin Blakemore. There are also literally hundreds of photos uploaded from the event. The easiest way to keep up-to-date with all the rally’s goings on and the campaign in general is the Twitter hashtag #scienceisvital.

I sent my Science is Vital protest letter to Tony Baldry, the Conservative local MP for North Oxfordshire, and received my reply yesterday. The cover letter is pictured on the below.

Also attached by way of response was a four-page transcript of Mr Baldry’s recent speech to Bodicote House. You can read the whole speech here. I wasn’t expecting much by way of a direct reply to my letter or the Science is Vital campaign, but Mr Baldy was true to form. As a Conservative MP, there’s plenty in the speech blaming the previous Labour government, supporting the ‘Big Society’ and it also included this choice little quote, which summarises the Tory ideology that will almost certainly stunt scientific progress, and only benefit the wealthy, for some time to come (those of a socialist disposition might want to make sure there are no kids in the room when you read it):

“There is no particular merit or value in having to increases taxes or council taxes and taking money away from people which otherwise they should choose to spend as they would wish”.

One thing I can agree with Mr Baldry on is the opening line to his speech, that “rhetoric cannot overcome reality” (which is ironic, as that’s basically the job description for many a politician!). This is science’s trump card: science is vital and we’ve got evidence on our side, not just political ideology and rhetoric to prove it.

Fresher's Fair 2010

2010-10-03T23:06:00.000+01:00

Aston's 2010 Fresher’s Fair is over and thanks to some of James’ delicious cookies, my constant, over-enthusiastic ranting about humanism, and of course our general all-round geeky charm, we had just shy of 50 people sign up! It might seem a modest figure compared to some student societies, but I can’t stress enough that a humanist society is really up against it at a university with such a large and religiously diverse student body.

I make a virtue of the fact that we were the only society and voice for non-believers on campus, but I dearly wish that wasn’t the case. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intimidated by the sheer number, size, financial backing and enthusiasm of all the religious societies. A quick pan around the stands in the main Fresher’s Fair hall showed three explicitly Islamic societies (although none of them could actually explain why and how they were different to each other, other than vague statements to the effect of ‘we interpret the Qu’ran in slightly different ways’); Hinduism had the Hindu Society and Krishna Consciousness; Christians had the Christian Union and the University Chaplaincy and Sikhs had the Sikh Society. Coupled with these were societies that are not explicitly religious, but are bound into religious-cultural traditions, for example nationality-based societies like the Pakistani and Bangladeshi Societies, or the Bhangra society, which is a form of music and dance intimately woven with Sikh and Punjabi traditions.

Religious societies have ready-made memberships; a Muslim/Hindu/Christian student will go into that room and home in on their relevant society, and may not engage much, if at all, with the alternative societies. The problem, at least with a humanist society, is almost one of definition: few people know what humanism is or what a humanist might think, do or believe (or more accurately not believe). My favourite response to the question “have you heard of humanism?” was “what, you’re not like Satanists are you? ‘Cause I’m really not into that, yeah”. We’ve still got some way to go before humanisms gains the recognition and even superficial understanding of established religions, but despite reactions like this, which made me chuckle and despair in equal measure, I was heartened to hear more positive responses than last year’s event, so we’re definitely heading in the right direction.

Gauging a student’s reaction was all a matter of reading their top lip. As soon as you say it’s a society for free-thinking atheists and agnostics, you either (1) get a smile, in which case you know you might talking to someone vaguely interested, or (2) watch their top lip curl into a grimace, which reveals that they’re almost definitely religious, and almost definitely not keen on hearing about how non-believers have morals too. Reactions to our stand ranged from “Atheists? Brilliant! Good on you” to “I don’t deal with petty humanists”, with ambivalence and disappointed ”you’re a lost-cause” headshakes in between.

Of course all this diversity has the advantage of throwing up some very interesting characters. I vowed to my colleagues that I wouldn’t get involved in a fruitless ‘religion is just mental, oh not it’s not’ debate, but I just couldn’t help myself. Especially not when a committee member of the Islamic Society starts talking about irrefutable scientific evidence in the Qu’ran, like how ‘salt and freshwater do not mix’, or that old chestnut of how ‘evolution is just a theory’; man must have been made by Allah from water and clay because there is no other way to explain how people, who are 70% water, could have arisen in the desert, where it never rains. These are the conversations that give me even more drive to promote and participate in not just humanist, but also scientific causes. This conversation boiled down to not just misguided theological principles, but a fundamental misunderstanding of just some basic science.

The brilliant, but divisive Richard Dawkins has written an endorsement for all member groups of The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, which very neatly captures exactly the ideals I was promoting to all of Aston’s new, and returning, students.

Students away from home for the first time are faced with a barrage of invitations from religious groups of various kinds, all eager to take advantage of the newcomers' unfamiliarity with their surroundings and their natural apprehensiveness about what lies in store for them, to lure them into the religious fold. I therefore congratulate the Aston Humanist Society for offering a real alternative, creating an environment in which young people can actively explore and celebrate the natural world and formulate an approach to ethics which is not dependent on superstition or myth. Societies like this one offer a tremendous service, both to students who wish to learn about reality, and to the cause of atheism, humanism and secularism as a whole.

Best wishes,

Richard Dawkins

Occasional excitable chats like these aside, we were careful not to alienate those with religious views who might want to engage with humanists in ways other than arguments about the veracity of evolutionary theory. We were keen to emphasise that arguing with religious people was not our main aim (I should tattoo “you cannot reason someone out of something they did not reason themselves into” onto the back of my hands), but rather to promote the positive idea that people can be good, moral, loving and happy without necessarily having God, a holy book or even their mother to tell them to be so and that we champion lots of positive, religion-free causes, for example pro-science campaigns like Science Is Vital #scienceisvital, raising money for charities like Amnesty, Cancer Research UK and Medicine Sans Frontier, and organ and blood donation (the latter being a ‘religion-free cause’ only if you don’t include Jehovah’s Witnesses, of course).

We also had fantastic response to our environmental friendly, pro-literacy, university-wide bookswap proposal, which means that the university may just have to pay a bit more attention this time round, and not just fob us off excuses like ‘it’s a fire hazard’ or that a box of books in the corner is ‘not in keeping with the university aesthetic’. I feel our first petition coming on!

On a lighter note, we also had a competition to find the best science-related joke. The prize: a signed copy of Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science. The best of the bunch submitted on the day was: “What does it take to run the Marathon? 80p.” The competition will stay open all week. If you think you can top the one above, email it to astonhumanistsociety@gmail.com with your name and number. All the jokes will be read out at next week’s meeting and the one that raises the biggest laugh will win the book!

Now that madness of Fresher’s Fair is over, here’s the line-up for the rest of October:

Thursday the 7^th of October will be our first meeting of the academic year and will be a chance for all of our new members to get to know each other over some drinks and nibbles.

Wednesday the 13^th of October we’re meeting at 6.30pm before heading over the Victoria pub to see Simon Singh speak to the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub about his run in with the British Chiropractic Association and the subsequent Libel Reform campaign.

Thursday 21^st of October will be our first discussion: “Having a baby: right or privilege?”, an ethical minefield which is taking on even more importance given potential revisions to government policy with regards to IVF treatment in reaction to the financial crisis and the need to cut NHS spending.

All the scheduled events will go up on the public Aston Humanist Society Google Calendar. To make things easy, there’s a handy button which will automatically add them to your own diaries!

Meetings on campus will be held weekly on Thursdays at 7pm in the Presentation Suite on the second floor of the Aston University Student’s Guild. Membership is £5 and runs for a calendar year from October 2010. £5 is the minimum required fee set by the Student’s Guild to cover the cost of admin., hiring rooms etc. throughout the year. We’d like to be completely free, but the price of a couple of pints is pretty good value for being part of one the coolest clubs on campus.

We'll be over the moon if all the 50 people that signed up today became regular active members, but we're realistic enough to know that probably won't be the case. The main thing is we’re continuing to grow and we’re continuing to provide a voice on campus for those who are proud of thinking for themselves.

If you’re not sure about joining the society or unable to come to meetings, feel free to email astonhumanistsociety@gmail.com for more information about us, or how you can get involved through the blog, Facebook pages and Twitter @astonhumanists!

Fresher's Fair and Future Plans

2010-09-26T22:15:00.000+01:00

The new academic year is nearly upon us and after a summer of slumber the Aston Humanist Society is truly wide awake and ready to set minds alight once again! It all kicks off with Fresher’s Fair next on Sunday 3rd of September in the Aston Student’s Guild at 11 o clock. For anyone that can make it, it’s to speak to some of us in person, find out what we’re all about and join up!

It’s important to stress that we’re absolutely not an 'anti-theist' society that exists just out to ruffle religious feathers, those with religious beliefs are very welcome to join; the main objective of the group is to provide a forum for discussion so that people can express their ideas and opinions on things that interest them.

Membership is £5 and runs for a calendar year from October 2010. £5 is the minimum required fee set by the Student’s Guild to cover the cost of admin., hiring rooms etc. throughout the year. We’d like to be completely free, but the price of a couple of pints is pretty good value for being part of one the coolest clubs on campus. To sweeten the deal (if you’ll excuse the pun), everyone that signed up last year was treated to a special homemade humanist fairy cake, this year we’ve got some special cookies lined up!

Meetings will be held weekly on Thursdays at 7pm in the Presentation Suite on the second floor of the Aston University Student’s Guild. For those unlucky people that can’t make it to meetings and events in person, the blog is the best way to keep abreast of the latest action and contribute to articles and ideas.

At some of the meetings last year, we attempted answer, or at least think about, some of the questions that god wasn’t going to answer for us: “How do we deal with the involvement of religion in major health issues, namely the Pope and his reigniting of the condoms/Aids situation”, “Should we treat paedophiles and criminals or mentally ill?”, “Trust in doctors or trust in god: how should society deal with clashes between people's beliefs and medical ethics?” and “Do criminals should have the right to vote?”.

Members can nominate a topic on anything that they wish by emailing astonhumanistsociety@gmail.com or coming along to meetings. A doozy of a topic we’ve got lined up for one of the next discussions is “Having a baby: right or privilege?” an ethical minefield which is taking on even more importance given potential revisions to government policy with regards to IVF treatment in reaction to the financial crisis and the need to cut NHS spending.

It isn’t all intense, high-brow and heated debates though! Last year we also had regular movie/documentary nights (including Richard Dawkin’s The Enemy of Reason, Religulous and the BBC doc. My Name Is Muhammad, we hosted talks by Ariane Sherine (Atheist Bus Campaign) and Rebecca Watson (Skepchick), and took part in fundraising events like AmnesTEA parties, and the Cancer Research UK Relay for Life.

This year the plan is for a monthly rota of events roughly broken down in to:

1. Weekly discussion meeting on a topic decided by members
2. Documentary/movie night
3. Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub talk
4. Social in the pub, which will be a chance to do a bit of drinking along with the thinking

with other events and guest speakers slotted in as and when then happen.

All the scheduled events will go up on the public Aston Humanist Society Google Calendar. To make things easy, there’s a handy button which will automatically add them to your own diaries!

The first meeting will be on Thursday the 7^th of October and will be a chance for all of our new members to get to know each other over some free drinks and nibbles. The first proper event is a cracker: a trip to the Victoria on Wednesday the 13^th of October to see Simon Singh speak to the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub about his run in with the British Chiropractic Association and the subsequent Libel Reform campaign (which you should definitely sign up to and support!).

We’d also like announce that we are now an official member of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (also confusingly shortened to the AHS), with myself and James Ellor as the two members on the committee.

With the society really finding its feet and promising to go from strength to strength, it looks to be an great year ahead, chock full of fantastic events and opportunities to shares ideas, vent your spleen, or just listen to what others have to say on some interesting and often controversial issues. With the support of the AHS and other societies like ours, we’ll be able to put on bigger and better events and contribute to an ever-growing network of student groups promoting free-thinking!

The Best of the 'Fest

2010-09-26T17:05:00.002+01:00

One of Europe’s biggest science festival came to town in the same week that some bloke called the Pope decided to pay a visit. From Monday the 13th to Sunday the 19th of September Aston University and Birmingham hosted a huge number of events covering a massive variety of science. From particle physics to sexing the brain, how we can know what babies think to bone densities in Neolithic man, dancing on custard to Catholic astronomers; the festival celebrated the richness of scientific endeavour.

The festival started with a (big) bang as 40 of the grooviest geeks in town flashmobbed Birmingham Cathedral and put on one hell of a show! Not bad for only a couple of hours of practice that morning.

A few teething troubles and technical difficulties aside, feedback for the X-change events and the festival as a whole appears to be very positive. Early reports suggest around 88,000 attendees over the week and were literally hundreds of stories in the press covering the news and controversies surrounding the festival. The British Science Association, The Guardian and the BBC had the most comprehensive coverage. The BBC also hosted X-change presenter Sue Nelson’s Daily Reporter’s Log. I particularly enjoyed her sneaking in a mention of my humanism!

By virtue of the fact that I was working on the X-change team, this blog had the privilege of hosting the daily X-change programme of events, which was frantically uploaded each afternoon of the festival. The idea was to have daily blogs, but quite frankly there was so much happening that there just weren’t enough hours in the day! The reports are being collated, however, and will be put together as a yearbook, much the same as it was last year. A few photos from the festival and the X-change can be found here.

There was too much going on to cover the whole festival in any detail, but there are some personal highlights that are sure to live long in my memory. My participation in a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation experiment with friend and colleague, Dr Craig McAllister, went down very well at Tuesday’s X-change. Craig placed a TMS coil over my motor cortex and, much to the delight and alarm of the audience, used very high-field magnetic pulses that made my arm twitch!

I was also batted away by an amiable and PR-savvy Catholic astronomer who was one of the star guests at Friday’s X-change. My question: ‘how do you square 4 billion year old meteorites with God and the Bible?’ Brother Guy Consolmagno’s answer: ‘Creatonism is a Protestant invention, not a Catholic one’. Case closed then! I also really enjoyed Brother Guy’s t-shirt.

In an irony that we can all enjoy, someone else has suggested that we’re still not sure that God would have said it that way. You can see more of Brother Guy and what exactly being an astronomer for God involves in this interesting BBC documentary about the Vatican Skip to around 22:30 to hear Brother Guy’s astonishing twisting of logic as he explains that ‘my religion tells me that God made the Universe, but my science tells me how it’s done’. He obviously hasn’t read Stephen Hawking’s latest book.

Although it ran until the Sunday, Saturday was the last day of my festival and, despite recovering from some over-enthusiastic consumption of Desperados with the BSA team the previous night, it ended it on an absolute high. Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rapper and straight-up genius. His Rap Guide to Evolution is one of the best rap albums and coolest methods of science communication that I have ever heard. When I heard he was performing at the science festival I jumped at the chance to invite him to the X-change. A busy schedule meant that this wasn’t possible, but he put on a frenetic, funny and informative show, which included this performance and a very surprising inclusion of me in his freestyle! His latest offering is the Rap Guide to Human Nature, which is also definitely worth a few hundred listens.

I finished the week exhausted, but also with lots of new friends, a million and one ideas buzzing in my head, and an ever more enthusiastic passion for science and science communication. I really must thank the whole of the X-change team, Sue Nelson, and all the lovely people from the Science Association that made it such a pleasure to attend and work at the festival.

Of course as a humanist, I was disappointed that I couldn’t take part in the Protest the Pope campaign and lend my support to the National Secular Society, but, on the whole, I was happier that I had contributed to pro-science ideals, rather than the anti-religious ones that dominated the week.

X-change speakers for Friday 17 September

2010-09-17T09:44:00.003+01:00

The X-change events, presented by BBC journalist, Sue Nelson, are like a highlights package at the end of each day of the festival, featuring the most controversial, interesting or downright hilarious people.

The events take place from 18:15-19.30 in the Blue Room of the Aston Student's Guild. You don't need to book in advance, just come along, grab a drink and enjoy the talks and discussion.There are more speakers to come, depending who manages to wow us during today’s talks, but here are the people we’ve already got lined up for tonight:

19:00 to 19:15 Brother Guy Consolmagno, one of the Pope’s 12 astronomers.

Brother Consolmagno’s research explores the connection between meteorites and asteroids, along with the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. Here he is talking about science and religion. This is a real coup for the X-change team and is definitely an event for your diaries!

Matt Parker: Maths Comedian

Fresh from his show at the Edinburgh festival, co-author of the Manual of Mathematical Magic, Matt joins us to demonstrate how magic can be used to to put the thrill back into mathematics.

Colin Wright: 75 years of radar

Radar was invented 75 years ago and has made a vital difference to winning the war and continues to keep us safe in the air (as well as catching us if we are speeding). Colin will describe the history, current use and future possibilities of radar. And maybe even get his balls out.

Professor Jonathan Silvertown: Biodiversity
Professor Silvertown will be talking about the OPAL Biodiversity Survey and its importance in helping people understand the importance of urban and rural hedgerows. For the X-change, he will be talking specifically an urban hedgerow in the heart of Birmingham and discovering what lives there.

Professor Michael Coleman: Building brain ‘tissue’ in the laboratory

With our aging population, in incidences of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Motor Neurone diseases are increasing and without new human experimental models of brain function, it’s unlikely we will be able to understand and treat these afflictions. Aston Alumni, Professor Coleman will talk about creating models of brain tissue and the possible implications of this research.

Professor John Gibbins: Preventing Cardiovascular Disease in the Obese World

Professor Gibbins is Director of the Institute for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research, an organisation that looks at treating heart disease from a variety of angles including prevention and repairing damage. He will outline some of measures that are being using to tackle a problem growing almost as fast as our waistlines.

PLUS! Tell us your favourite science-related joke and the one that raises the biggest laugh will win a shiny new science book, courtesy of the Aston Student Guild Shop.

X-change speakers for Thursday 16th September

2010-09-16T16:57:00.001+01:00

Professor Gina Rippon: Neurononsense and Psychobabble

After having to dash off to other events yesterday, Dr Rippon has kindly offered to come back to the X-change to talk about how brain sciences are being used in research into sex differences – follow the road to neuro-nonsense, learn how to spot brain bloopers and scoff at neuro-trash.

Professor Jim Al Khalili
British Science Festival Trustee and X-change regular, Jim Al-Khalili is Professor of Theoretical Physics, academic, author and broadcaster of a number of TV shows including Science in Islam, Bang Goes the Theory and Chemistry: A Volatile History. Coming along to hear him discuss topics as diverse as medival science, Stephen Hawkins and funding cuts.

Pete Reddy: The beautiful game: How can we all play football into our 50s and 60s?

Football is the national game and is endlessly adaptable. With an ageing population and sedentary lifestyles, participation in sport has never been more important. Pete will discuss how football can be made accessible for the over 50s and contribute to healthier lifestyles.

Matt Prichard aka Johnny Façade: Something about nothing: Magic, comedy and science

Johnny Façade specialises in close-up magic, mentalism and stand-up comedy. His comedy show will attempt to fill in the empty gaps and explain almost everything there is to know about nothing.

Dr Peter Naish: Susceptibility to Hypnosis

Dr Naish is currently working on using the latest neuroimaging techniques to try to determine the regions of the brain involved in time judgment, and looking to see how they are impacted by hypnosis. He will be talking about the different factors involved in susceptibility to hypnosis.

Dr Sarah Beck: Imagination in infants and young children.

Dr Beck is interested in children’s imaginations and how they become able to speculate about events in the past and future and how they handle uncertainty. She will be explaining how imagination develops and the different techniques that are used to investigate this tricky area of child psychology.

Richard Allum: Galileo’s best friend

Come and meet Filipo as he tells the story of a stolen telescope, in full 16^th century costume.

The best way to keep up-to-date is to check out this blog, follow #BritSciFest, @tulpesh and @TheXchangeTeam on Twitter, and keep an eye out for posters and flyers during the week.

X-change speakers for Wednesday 15 September

2010-09-15T16:06:00.000+01:00

The X-change events, presented by BBC journalist, Sue Nelson, are like a highlights package at the end of each day of the festival, featuring the most controversial, interesting or downright hilarious people.

The events take place from 18:15-20:00 in the Blue Room of the Aston Student's Guild.You don't need to book in advance, just come along, grab a drink and enjoy the talks and discussion.

We're happy to announce the fantastic line-up for speakers for tonight's X-change event:

Dr Anthony Hilton: Grime Scene Investigation

You might have seen Dr Hilton on the Grime Scene Investigation BBC 3 show. He will talk about the hidden world of organisms living all over our bodies in order to examine how they survive, what impact they have on us and what purpose, if any, they serve.

Dr Caroline Witton: Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

Dr Witton will talk about how MEG is being used at Aston to investigate how the brain works, and the exciting new scanner that is being built especially for research with children at the Aston Brain Centre.

Professor Gina Rippon: Neurononsense and Psychobabble

Fresh from speaking on Radio 4, Dr Rippon will talk about how brain sciences are being used in research into sex differences – follow the road to neuro-nonsense, learn how to spot brain bloopers and scoff at neuro-trash.

Dr Tara Shears: News from the Big Bang Machine

Dr Shears with talk about the headline-capturing Large Hadron Collider and whether this mind-boggling machine will help us uncover the secrets of dark matter or the elusive Higgs Boson – the so-called ‘God particle’.

Dr Jessica Grahm: Charles Darwin Lecture Award: Hit Me with Your Rhythm Schtick

Dr Grahm will be exploring the cultural influences on everyday musical abilities, touching on interesting theories about why we developed a musical culture at all. Come along to take part in a live audience-participation demo of the difference between Balkan and Western music!

Robin Lovell Badge: The Yuck Factor: Just how 'human' should laboratory animals become?

Stem Cell scientist Robin Lovell Badge will be discussing today's Ipsos MORI report on animals containing human materals (ACHMs) and the ethical implications of this for future research.

Lorelly Wilson: Chemistry of Cabbage

Lorelly will talk about experiments you can do at home using common household products, and maybe even give some live demonstrations. Highlights of the full talk includes a great lava lamp, toothpaste for your elephant, novel uses for constipation remedies and why your mum tells you to eat your greens.

X-change speakers for Tuesday 14 September

2010-09-14T15:50:00.003+01:00

Dr Craig McAllister: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Dr McAllister give a live demonstration on how powerful magnets can be used to manipulate brain activity and behaviour and help us investigate how the brain works.

Dr Nick Lee: Neuromarketing

Dr Lee will provide a whistle-stop tour of recent findings in the brain sciences, and their link to consumer decisions, exploding myths about both advertising and the brain along the way.

Dr Giovanna Tinetti: Planets Outside the Solar System

Dr Tinetti will be talking about how molecules like water, methane and carbon dioxide can be detected on plants outside our solar system, and how we can use this information to find other planets in the habitable zone of stars colder than the Sun.

Dr Kate Bellingham: Colliding Futures

Dr Bellingham, star of Museum of Life, The Big Bang and Tomorrow's World, will be be giving a unique insight into unique career paths in science and how young people are needed to take up the challanges of the future.

FLASH ahah!

2010-09-10T22:12:00.001+01:00

We need you to help us organise a ‘flash mob’ to promote the start of the British Science Festival in Birmingham. It will provide photo opportunity for the papers, good footage for online media and a word of mouth talking point for anyone that comes into contact with the mob.

Ideally we want 100 people to descend on Birmingham Cathedral on Monday the 13th September at12.30pm to dress as Albert Einstein (Mask and Lab coat provided) and dance to Spaceman by Babylon Zoo, Girls Aloud’s Biology and other science-related choruses!

The whole event will take no more than 5 minutes to perform with a 3-hour rehearsal in the morning at Aston University in room G63

The dance routine is available to practice on Youtube:

Britscifest flashmob 1
Britscifest flashmob 3

If you are a friend of a Festival assistant or volunteer, you will receive a £20 cash incentive upon completion of event and return of lab coat, mask and Festival t-shirt.

Pease contact Kate Sinclair from British Science Festival on DL: 02070194947 mobile: 07549708417 email kate.sinclair@britishscienceassociation.org to take part.

Provisional list of speakers for X-change events

2010-09-10T14:35:00.004+01:00

It’s less than a week to the British Science Festival, and things are really shaping up!

The British Science Association and X-change Team have been hard at work putting together a list of great speakers for 2010. You can watch some of the best bits from the 2009 festival here. To whet your appetite, here’s a list of some of the people we’ve get so far and the latest details of their talks. If you would like to attend the proper event for each speaker, there are also links to the ticket booking page.

18:15 – 20:00 Tuesday 14 September

Professor Mike Hulme: Why we disagree about climate change

Professor Hulme will be talking about a few themes from his book Why We Disagree About Climate Change, including how knowledge of climate change is constructed and the interactions between climate change, knowledge and policy.

Dr Elizabeth Moores and Emma Birkett: Discovering Dyslexia

Dr Moores and Emma Birkett will talk about task development in cognitive psychology using examples of spot the difference tasks and recognising impossible objects. Members of the audience will also be able to volunteer to take part in an interactive example of timing problems in dyslexia.

Dr Tim Grant: Forensic Linguistics

Dr Grant will talk about how Aston's Centre for Forensic Linguistics has helped the police investigate crimes including murder and terrorism.

18:15 – 20:00 Wednesday 15 September

Dr Anthony Hilton: Grime Scene Investigation

You might have seen Dr Hilton on the Grime Scene Investigation BBC 3 show. He will talk about the hidden world of organisms living all over our bodies in order to examine how they survive, what impact they have on us and what purpose, if any, they serve.

18:15 – 20:00 Thursday 16 September

Dr Caroline Witton: Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

Dr Witton will talk about how MEG is being used at Aston to investigate how the brain works, and the exciting new scanner that is being built especially for research with children at the Aston Brain Centre.

18:15 – 20:00 Friday 17 September

19:00 to 19:15 Brother Guy Consolmagno, one of the Pope’s 12 astronomers.

Brother Consolmagno’s research explores the connection between meteorites and asteroids, along with the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. Here he is talking about science and religion. This is a real coup for the X-change team and is definitely an event for your diaries!

Professor Frank Close and Stephen Brown: Lasers

Lasers are used in many different areas form medicine to communication and there are a number of laser- related events during the festival. Professor Close and Stephen Brown will talk the relevance of lasers in topics as diverse as fusion energy, quantum computing and disease diagnosis.

Matt Prichard aka Johnny Façade: Something about nothing: Magic, comedy and science

Johnny Façade specialises in close-up magic, mentalism and stand-up comedy. His comedy show will attempt to fill in the empty gaps and explain almost everything there is to know about nothing.

Here are some more speakers (in no particular order) that have kindly volunteered their time for the event, but we’re still working on confirming the dates.

Lucy Moorcraft Solar Sparks: The future of solar technology.

This will be an exclusive talk for the Xchange event as it’s not actually part of the Science Festival program.

Professor Gina Rippon: Neurononsense and Psychobabble

Dr Rippon will talk about how brain sciences are being used in research into sex differences – follow the road to neuro-nonsense, learn how to spot brain bloopers and scoff at neuro-trash.

Lorelly Wilson: Chemistry of Cabbage

Lorelly will talk about experiments you can do at home using common household products, and maybe even give some live demonstrations. Highlights of the full talk includes a great lava lamp, toothpaste for your elephant, novel uses for constipation remedies and why your mum tells you to eat your greens.

Chemistry of Cocktails with the Jekyll & Hyde

The manager of The Jekyll & Hyde (which apparently does 50 different types of gin!) will be talking about the art of pousse-café – spirit and liqueur layering that requires knowledge of gravity and liquid density.

Professor Nadrian C. Seeman – Kavli Prize winner

The Kavli Prize is presented every two years to scientists in the fields of Astrophysics, Nanoscience and Neuroscience. The 2010 prize winner in Nanoscience Professor Nadrian C. Seeman will talk about his work in the field of DNA nanotechnology.

Dr Nick Lee: Neuromarketing

Dr Lee will provide a whistle-stop tour of recent findings in the brain sciences, and their link to consumer decisions, exploding myths about both advertising and the brain along the way.

Professor Kevin Kendall: Fuel cells in Birmingham

Professor Kendall will talk about fuel cell science and technology, especially for domestic houses.

Please note, that the times and dates are subject to change. The best way to keep up-to-date is to check out this blog, follow #BritSciFest, @tulpesh and @TheXchangeTeam on Twitter, and keep an eye out for posters and flyers during the week.

Why I love Sense About Science by Tulpesh Patel

2010-09-05T21:11:00.001+01:00

Sense About Science is a charity organisation started as a reaction to the way the media was being swamped by bad science stories. It was set up to actively work towards improving the public perception and understanding of science and campaign against bad science coverage. Rather than give a rambling introduction to all the stuff they do and how amazing they are, you can read for yourself here, and watch Alice Tuff, Voice of Young Science Coordinator, talking to the British Pharmacological Society here.

I first came across Sense About Science a couple of years back when I got an email about one of their Voice of Young Science workshops, which are aimed at early career researchers who are interested in getting involved with science communication. Whilst I haven’t been directly involved with the organisation, I’ve followed their work closely and can honestly say that the workshop I attended really impacted how I consider science in the media and how I could become actively involved to improve media coverage of science. In fact, it was one of the motivations behind my starting the Aston Humanist Society.

Although it was a while ago, I remember the panel discussion at the workshop really well because the speakers were so engaging. Dr Dominic Williams from the University of Liverpool demonstrated his personal experience of how a peer-reviewed, published piece of research into the toxicity of food additives to murine neuroblastoma cells in culture snowballed into ‘Combination of additives, food colourings toxic to brain cells’ in the online paper the Crime Times, a publication which aims to ‘link brain dysfunction to disordered/criminal/psychopathic behaviour’. Professor Raymond Tallis (one of my humanist heroes) had a very positive message: don’t be afraid of ‘putting yourself out there’, promote the work you do and speak up for what you believe (this was the kick up the backside I needed to finally get moving with starting the Aston Humanist Society). Dr Trevor Cox from the University of Salford explained the other side of the science-media relationship: how scientists can take advantage of television, radio and newspapers to engage with the public and make science accessible, interesting and fun. Incidentally, Dr Cox will also be at the British Science Festival as part of the judging panel for the Radio 4 competition amateur scientist competition, So You Want To Be A Scientist?, which will be well worth checking out.

I have wanted to write about just how important Sense About Science is, especially in the current climate, where unreason seems to be increasing exponentially and in surprise correlation with the number of people actively getting involved to combat it. Sense About Science have a whole series of articles on their website covering the MMR vaccines, food additives and climate change, which collate the views of experts and those working in the area to help explain the science and combat the misconceptions propagated in the media. The malaria campaign got a lot of coverage as it formed part of the huge (and ongoing) Ten23 campaign to raise awareness about the absurdity, and danger, of homeopathic remedies.

Their latest campaign is ‘You too could have a Diploma in Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine’ (#oldwivesmed), which highlights the Department of Health’s ludicrous scheme to register and regulate practitioners of traditional medicines. If you’re in and around Whitehall on Wednesday 8 September at 11:30, give them your support at the flashmob! As well as the event at Whitehall on Wendesday, Sense About Science are holding a Standing up for Science event as part at the British Science Festival. I urge everyone to attend, especially if you are involved in science research; if it’s anything like their workshops it will be fascinating and very inspiring.

For scientists, especially young career scientists like myself who are interested in wider science communication, the goal is to perform sound research, report findings and share opinions with due care, accuracy and diligence; when trying to get the work further than publication in a specialist journal, it is up to us to do our level best to maximize the understanding of the science and minimize the opportunity for the research and ideas to be misconstrued. This is where Sense About Science’s excellent Voice of Young Science guides come into their own. These clear and concise handbooks are full of full of practical tips on how young scientists can confidently engage with the media to their advantage, and also challenge bad science reporting.

Standing up for Science and Standing up for Science II– nuts and bolts contains great hints and tips on things like contacting the media, companies or MPs, or putting together blogs and podcasts, and the best bit is that they’re all written by other researchers and science communicators. There Goes the Science Bit… is a series of reports on what happens when I bunch of young scientists took on companies who made ludicrous health claims about their products. The results are by turns both a scary and (not necessarily intentionally) funny account of the state scientific understanding of some companies (or at least their marketing departments). It’s an excellent example of what people with a little science knowledge and the ability to ask the right questions can achieve. My favourite might just be the Making Sense of Statistics guide, which should be made required reading for all undergraduates. I might even go as far as to say a copy should be posted (or emailed – better for the environment of course) to every household.

I’m only just getting round to embracing blogs, Twitter and Facebook, which offer limitless opportunity to voice your opinion and join the debate. Part of the reason it’s taken me so long is that I haven’t always been confident about sharing my ideas and opinions for fear of being shot down or coming across as an ill-informed moron. I unhappily admit that I used to find it far too easy not to bother reading yet another crazy science story, or give a sad shake of the head when I saw something in the media that was blatantly ridiculous, put the newspaper down or click to Football365 and do nothing more.

The more media-savvy young scientists become, the broader the range of voices that are available to speak up. I am slowly learning to be to be more assertive with my love for science and the defense of the good science that is being done. Reading blogs written by peers and others that I admire, and being armed with guides like the ones produced by Voice of Young Science, has made me more confident about following up stories that rub my brain the wrong way and sharing my opinions on them. We definitely need more Sense About Science, and they deserve all the support they can get.

You can donate to Sense About Science here and @voiceofyoungsci on Twitter.

Book Review: Why Does E=mc2? (And why should we care?) by James Ellor

2010-08-30T12:34:00.001+01:00

Ask a person on the street about the famous E=mc²equation and you might get a vague response about it having something to do with Einstein. A person with some degree of scientific training (like myself) could tell you it has something to do with energy, mass and the speed of light squared, but how and why we know this and more importantly, why it is so, would stretch even those with a physics degree.

With Why Does E=mc²? Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, come into their own by explaining the most complex, incomprehensible and downright weird niceties of quantum physics in a simple, accessible manner. That they do this with only the one mild instance of blinding the reader with maths speaks volumes about their skills. The apparently mundane revelation that, as a direct consequence of E=mc², a sprung mousetrap weighs ever so slightly less than a set one, sends as much a tingle down one’s spine as contemplating the size of the universe.

The last chapter on Einstein’s general relativity, and the resulting warping of space and time due to gravity, adds a final dose of weirdness, just in case special relativity wasn’t enough for you.

The British Science Festival's coming to Birmingham! by Tulpesh Patel

2010-08-30T02:22:00.008+01:00

The British Science Festival, organised by the British Science Association travels to cities across the UK showcasing the latest developments in science, technology and engineering, and from Monday 13 to to Sunday 18 September it’s coming to Birmingham, and even more excitingly, Aston University!

Here's a montage (painstakingly put together using my awesome Paint skills!) of the posters for just a small selection of the amazing events taking place over the week.

The festival's Online Programme Page lets you search for specific events or topics, browse day by day and has all the information on prices and booking tickets. The alternative Aston booking page lets you search events that are specifically held on the university campus. Videos giving a taste of some of the talks can be viewed here.

Most of the events are free, the paid events are £3 or £5 (and probably the most popular, so it’s a good idea to book in advance), which isn’t bad for some of the amazing things you’re getting to see and take part in! For the super-keen science geek with a bulging wallet, a weekly pass for £120 (£60 for students or the unemployed) will get you into everything.

I was lucky enough to be picked for the X-change team for the festival, and one of my jobs is to pick the best speakers and help organise discussions at the end of each day. On the first go through the program, I picked only the events that got me really excited ended up with a diary that looked like this:

Realising that unless I find some way to clone myself I won’t be able to be in three places at once, I’ve tried whittling it down, but it’s proving nearly impossible. To that end though, here’s a list of just some of the events that I think would be most worth checking out if you’re pushed for time

They are of a brain/evolution theme, as that’s what I’m most interested in, but there are practical workshops, magic and hip-hop thrown in there too!

Monday 13 September

Nature of Birmingham: Trail around the City Centre

Tuesday 14 September

All creatures great and small: How where you live influences your biology and behaviour

Where can studying science lead?

The future of the brain, the brain of the future

Wednesday 15 September

The psychology science observatory

African archaeology and human evolution: Growth of a brain

Brain wave imaging: new views of the human brain

This event is particularly close to my heart and one that I’m very excited about as it’s hosted by the department and research group I work in and showcases some of the exciting Neuroscience research that Aston is involved in. If you're so inclined, you can read about some the work I do using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy here (excuse the shameless plug!).

X-change

Open mic: there’s science in my fiction (and poetry)

Thursday 16 September

Standing Up For Science

Standing Up For Science are an excellent charitable organisation that promote evidence and scientific reasoning in public discussion and do a great job tackling misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence in the public sphere. The excellent Voice of Young Science does some sterling work helping early career researchers get to grips with dealing with the media and giving them advice on how to stand up for science themselves. You can support the charity by donating here.

Do we need more scientists?

Something about nothing: Magic, comedy and science

Friday 17 September

Making science news

How risky is it, and how ignorant are we?

Human guinea pigs – dispelling the myths of human research

Bad medicine

Powers of ten – a musical journey from quark to cosmos

X-change

Saturday 18 September

Blood, guts and gore: The journey through life

Skeptics roadshow

I’m a huge fan of the Skeptics in the Pub (SITP) movement and am a part of the Birmingham SITP and occasionally write for their great blog. Those who’ve read the few post so far on here will recognise the Princess and Starting the Aston Humanist Society articles, but there’s a bit I wrote on Science in the media after a talk from David Gregory (BBC Midlands science and environment correspondent), who is incidentally part of the Making Science News event with one of my heroes, Ben Goldacre.

The Skeptics Roadshow will feature bunch of short talks and discussions on topics as diverse as homeopathy, ESP, UFOs, and libel law. If they’re anything like the monthly meetings they’re guaranteed to be informative and cracking fun!

Baba Brinkman

This deserves a particular plug because I absolutely love this guy’s work and he deserves to be huge. You can listen and download The Rap Guide to Evolution here (it’s free, although you should, of course, make a voluntary donation to prove you’re not a Creationist!). Darwin’s Acid has to be one of the best hip-hop songs ever, nevermind best Darwinsim-related hip-hip songs.

The heresy of nature

Sunday 19 September

Emergence

It’s a geek’s world

In the beginning ... A history of the Universe from pure energy to the human brain

It promises to be a spectacular week celebrating the best of the fascinating research being done in and around Birmingham, and it’s guaranteed to have something for everyone.

Keep an eye out on the British Science Festival and Aston University websites for all the latest news. There will also be regular blogposts during the festival and you can follow all the goings-on on Twitter: @BritishSciFest, @TheXchangeTeam and #BritSciFest as well as me (@Tulpesh) and @astonhumanists!

Non-Believers Give Aid Too! by Tulpesh Patel

2010-08-26T14:37:00.001+01:00

In the letters section of the Metro newspaper this morning, I read an interesting discussion on charitable aid, particularly for the Pakistan flood disaster. What irked me were the accusations that whilst there was a Christian Aid, there wasn't an Atheist Aid, ergo non-religious folk are tight-fisted and uncaring. What utter rubbish.

Non-Believers Giving Aid was set up with the aids of Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) in response to the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster as an umbrella organisations for people to donate much needed money, whilst also countering the idea that charity comes only through loving God. PZ Myers wrote a great blog about it's inception, so I won't cover old ground.

The RDFRS are once more partnering with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, this time to bring much needed help to people whose lives have been torn apart by the floods in Pakistan. You can donate here and I urge you to do so. It is especially important given the aid that is still needed and the responses of some countries to the disaster. There have been suggestions in some quarters that Pakistan isn't getting the aid it needs because of the baggage that the country has in the eyes of Westerners, which, sadly, may not be wholly unfounded.

It's dangerous to affiliate charitable intentions with belief or your general worldview (which is exactly what religious folk often do), and, of course, the best kind of charity goes unspoken, but Non-Believers Giving Aid is important in counteracting the common idea that not believing in god equates to being an uncaring, amoral nihilist.

As well as giving Non-Believers Giving Aid a well deserved plug, now's a good a time as any to mention that some of the Aston Humanists are also doing their bit for Charity in the next couple of months!

In the 2009/2010 academic year the Aston Humanist Society raised over £500 for various charities including Amnesty International (AmnesTea Party) and CRUK (Relay for Life) and we're hoping to double that this year. James is running the Birmingham Half Marathon to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières: http://www.justgiving.com/James-Ellor. I'm running the race with him to raise money for the Birmingham Children's Hospital Charities: http://www.justgiving.com/Tulpesh-Patel0 and also the CRUK 10km Race for Life in September: http://www.run10ksponsorme.org/tulpeshpatel1

This is not about patting ourselves on the back or feeling virtuous: What's really important is that those that can help do their bit to support the great work that lots of charities do. Proving the point that godless people care is just a bonus.

Book review: The Bible According to Mark Twain by Tulpesh Patel

2010-08-25T22:05:00.001+01:00

The Bible According to Mark Twain is collection of his writings on Eden, God’s flooding of the Earth and Heaven, written over a period of nearly 40 years. I must confess, for my sins, that this is the first Mark Twain I have ever read, save for his countless quotations and aphorisms which litter books and websites of an atheistic bent.

The book is composed of two main sections, the first is Twain’s understanding and re-working of the Christian creation myth through fictionalised diary accounts from Adam and Eve, the second concerns Heaven and the afterlife. Each piece begins with a short introduction by the editors, who place it in historical context, referring to either Mark Twain as the writer, or (his real name) Sam Clemens, when referring to events in his personal life.

The background reading provides an interesting account of how the pieces were composed. Some of them evolved over decades and we get an insight into Mark Twain’s battle with both the literature and the numerous re-writes and edits, but also how he wove personal tragedy such as the loss of his young daughter into this his musings on heaven and how he wrestled with the effects his writings would have on the religious establishment.

Mark Twain knits issues of the time from biology, technology and sociology into Adam and Eve’s account of their time in Eden and the ideas still have remarkable resonance today. The Extracts from Eve’s Diary capture some of the real wonder and curiosity that many of us feel when observing the world around us. Adam’s grapple with ‘science’ the description of Eve’s love for nature and Adam are genuinely funny and affecting. A recurring theme in all the pieces is the objection to God’s punishing Adam for eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge with death, even though they would have had no concept of it as the Moral Sense, death and evil had not yet entered the garden. Twain also repeatedly emphasises the sheer vastness of the universe and the inconsequence of man in a miniscule corner of it.

A shorter third section, ‘Letters from Earth’, is a collection of letters written Satan recounting his visit to Earth and his wonder at the illogical nature of man and the God they create(d) to worship. This is Twain’s most devastating appraisal of Christianity, and religion in general, as some of the wonderful allegory and story-telling of the previous works is stripped back to really hammer home some astutely observed and eloquently constructed arguments for the fallacy of man’s belief in God, particularly a personal one that cares for humans.

With these various writings, Mark Twain achieved the incredible feat of weaving together an extraordinary deconstruction of religion, with funny, touching fables that far exceed the morality and humanity of the source material.

Book review: Princess by Jean Sasson, and the inculcation of fear in young Muslim girls - am I making a mountain out of a mole-hill? by Tulpesh Patel

2010-08-25T21:55:00.001+01:00

I started writing a review of Princess, a biography of a Saudi princess written by Jean Sasson, but, as the Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways, something happened at work very shortly after that prompted me to also turn this into a blog post.

First the book. Princess recounts the life of Saudi Princess, Sultana, from childhood in the 60s to her own motherhood in the 90s. It was lent to my wife by a friend, I casually started reading the blurb and found it so engrossing I was a couple of hundred pages in before I realised the time. This book is one of the most brutal things I’ve ever read and I can say with complete sincerity, unputdownable.

Sultana tells of ritual and absolute oppression by the men of the household and wider society. The men hold untold wealth and absolute power, able to deny or cover up their own offence or justify any/all behaviour as that sanctioned or encouraged by their faith or tradition. The women are denied education (save for reciting the Koran); forced to wear an abaaya (not unlike a burkha, but even more covering) from their first menstruation, which incidentally makes them eligible for marriage to whomever the father chooses usually for simple financial gain; routinely mentally, physically and sexually abused and killed.

The treatment of women is so vile that it is actually difficult to grasp the reality of a woman’s life in this period. Most of this book reads like science fiction set in a whole other world; that it does so, makes the story’s impact all the greater. For someone raised in Britain without really a religious upbringing and only having ‘moderately’ religious friends, I did not know anything like it. Seeing women in a full burkha complete with a metal mask on the streets of Dubai is the closest I’ve ever come to such closeting of women. To quote the book: “those who are free cannot fathom the small victories of those who live on a tether”, and this is simply the princesses response to the unprecedented decision of allowing her to see her fiancé before she married him.

The second strand of the story, on the near limitless wealth of the Saudi royalty, is one less emotional and nearly as interesting. The princess astutely observes how the such wealth, and lack of drive that usually entails, is stagnating progress in oil-rich states; princes live on huge monthly stipends, and women are placated with more jewels, homes and finery than they know what to do with.

This book is a remarkable insight into the role of women in Saudi cultures, but what is also striking is how women hold their oppression and faith in tandem. Sultana praises Mohamed and turns to God and the Koran, which gave us Shariah and yet denounces her faith’s sanctioning of the maltreatment of women . The book begins with the caveat that it does not intend to offend Islam, but routinely demonstrates how, in actuality, what morals can be gleaned from the Koran are routinely ignored by men who’s urges and wallets are beyond control, and it is more truthfully used a manual for the oppression of women.

Princess is set in a period 40 to 20 years ago in Saudi Arabia. Since that time the world has become smaller and the ability of the followers of Sharia law to stifle human rights violations have become tougher than ever. There are still, however, despairingly regular, prominent cases of female oppression, the most recent being the impending execution of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani by Iranian authorities for alleged adultery. The fact that these cases exists, and the international legal wrangling surrounding her proper defence, shows how tenaciously the (male) enforcers of the law have clung to old, repressive traditions and resisted fair, secular values. Daughters of Arabia, Sasson’s follow-up to Princess, concentrates on Sultana’s daughters and as an heart-wrenching and depressing as I know it’s going to be, I can’t wait to read it.

Now on to what made me want to write more than just a review of the book. As part of my PhD I routinely perform cognitive assessments on children aged from 4 to 18. On one particular occasion, just a week or so ago, I introduced myself to the patient’s mother, who was a head-scarfed Muslim, and immediately found that she was anxious about the assessments and asked if I was just me administering them. It isn’t unusual for parents or the children to be anxious about being left with strangers to do ‘tests’ in an unfamiliar environment, and we often let parents or guardians sit in the corner in order to help the child relax (as long as they don’t start to sign language answers, which has happened before). In this case, however, the patients were fine but it was anxiety solely on the mother’s part about my being male and left unsupervised with her daughter. Leaving your young daughter in the company of strangers is perhaps a legitimate fear, but this was a research facility in a hospital and was beyond the Stranger Danger stuff you usually teach to kids.

We are normally on a tight schedule on assessment days and run tests in parallel so the mother had to accompany the sibling for the physio tests in another department. She insisted that there be another woman in the room with me during the cognitive assessment and didn’t otherwise feel comfortable with it taking place. Despite the hassle, we acquiesced and managed to get a research assistant to sit in for the duration of each if the 90 minute assessments. It was a frustrating waste of resources to have the nurse just sitting there, but we needed to do our upmost to appease the mother because clinical research participants, particularly from ethnic minorities, are few and far between (an issue for a whole other article).

Having just finished reading Princess only a couple of days beforehand I suppose I was more sensitive of the situation than normal and although I know it has nothing to with me personally, and only a matter of my being male, it is still hard not to take exception to the insinuation. My offence, however, is really a non-issue. What shocked me at the time was that , hard-line Muslim or not, this practice of not leaving a female with a man unaccompanied was still being practiced in the Britain in 2010.

I’m not sure of the root reason for this behaviour. I’ve heard and read different versions from as many sources, but it is categorically unhealthy: it treats men as unrestrained sex-obsessed fiends to be constantly feared, and women as weak, and constantly vulnerable; the girls were barely pubescent and yet they were made acutely aware of their sexuality and that I, men, should not be trusted.

I’m still wrestling with just how big a deal the whole situation was. It falls well outside the remit of my PhD but what I would really like to do is sit down with that woman and ask her why she really feels the need to shield her daughters from male company; what exactly she expects to happen and what might happen in situations where it is not possible to provide a chaperone. What might be even more interesting would be to probe the thoughts of the daughters and how they feel about men, perhaps, being children, they don’t really notice or care as yet.

Mostly I worry about the kind of message she is sending her daughters who are growing up in a liberal and permissive society. These girls are second generation immigrants subjected to an insidious way of making them fear men from childhood. Whilst it’s not quite full on Sharia law, it’s one of these traditions subsumed by it that are easily practiced behind closed doors and I imagine very rarely surfaces as a problem in the wider community, or comes to the attention of people like me who are acutely aware of it.

How and Why I Started the Aston Humanist Society

2010-08-25T16:48:00.000+01:00

I founded the Aston Humanist Society in February 2009, quite simply because there wasn’t a society anything like it that I could join myself. Perhaps the idiom that ‘getting atheists together is like trying to herd cats’ had put off anyone who had tried to start a non-theist society before me. I’m not even sure what took me so long to get round to it, perhaps my PhD finally wasn’t keeping me as busy as my supervisor would have liked.

Of the 48 societies at Aston University, there are nine religious ones, including all the biggies: Islamic Soc, Hindu Soc, Christian Union, Sikh Soc and Jewish Soc. Although there are many more denominations who are not officially listed with the Student Union). It’s a good reflection of the multicultural environment that the university is well known for. What the list of societies doesn’t reflect, however, is that there also are many students that lead a secular life that would enjoy meeting like minded people too.

Having decided to take action, I faced two big problems: deciding what the society was actually about and almost as importantly what to call it. Like the Skeptics in the Pub groups, but unlike religious societies or the increasing number of nationality/culture-based societies at Aston, there was no pre-formed idea of what you had to be/know in order to join. Because there was no precedent, I set the society up to be some nebulous idea of what I thought was missing: an open forum promoting values such as freedom of expression, and scientific and personal inquiry, centred around free discussion of philosophy, politics, science, religion and history.

I could have could just have easily called it the Aston Secular/Rationalist/Skeptics Society (or the slightly more fun Thinkers-Not-Drinkers), but settled on Humanist simply because I am one, and I feel that humanism neatly captures the secular/rational vibe I was aiming for. Lots of people are essentially humanists, but just don’t know the term or decide not to call themselves by such a name. I guess the trouble with people who insist on thinking for themselves is that they don’t usually like being labelled! I deliberately steered clear of ‘atheist’ as it has (sadly) come to have connotations of exclusivity and I didn’t want anyone to think that the group had an anti-theist agenda and be put off from joining.

It was more than just a riposte to all the religious groups, although I must admit that walking past ‘boarding the Jesus Train, WOOP WOOP!’ and ‘Obligatory Islamic Knowledge’ posters on my way to the office every morning had a little something to do with it. Starting the Aston Humanist Society was my pro-active response to something else that had been bothering me throughout my studies. Without (I hope) sounding too high-minded, I was increasingly bothered by what I saw, and still see, as a pervasive culture of having ‘just enough education to perform’ at university. I know that for some, being at university is about getting a degree and then getting a job; no more, no less, and it is not really my place to judge that ambition. I think AC Grayling eloquently captures exactly how I feel (as he almost invariably does) in this quote from a short essay on Education:

“Liberal education is a vanishing ideal in the contemporary West, most notably in its Anglophone regions. Education is mainly restricted to the young and is no longer liberal education as much as something less ambitious and too exclusively geared to specific aims – otherwise, of course, very important – of employability. This is a loss; for the aim of liberal education is to produce people who go on learning after their formal education has ceased; who think and question, and know how to find answers when they need them. This is especially significant in the case of political and moral dilemmas in society, which will always occur and will always have to be negotiated afresh; so members of a community cannot afford to be unreflective and ill-informed if civil society is to be sustainable ... People who are better informed and more reflective are more likely to be considerate than those who are – and who are allowed to remain – ignorant, narrow-minded, selfish, and uncivil in the profound sense that characterises so much of human experience now”.

To help get the group started I was lucky enough to have had the help of a number of organisations. Happenstance meant that I decided to start the group at the very same time that The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist & Secular Student Societies was being launched. I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural event, speak to lots of other societies, get a ‘starting a student society’ help pack, and even get some helpful advice from Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling. I also joined the Secular Portal which was a great way of getting in touch with other secular students, and sharing practical ideas, and managed to rope in the Birmingham Humanists to help out with our Fresher’s Fair recruitment stall at the start of the 2009/10 academic year. The brilliant cartoonist Thad Guy was also kind enough to let us use his images for posters and flyers.

We’ve held weekly meetings which have attempted to try and answer, or at least think about, some of the questions that god wasn’t going to answer for us: “How do we deal with the involvement of religion in major health issues, namely the Pope and his reigniting of the condoms/Aids situation”, “Should we treat paedophiles and criminals or mentally ill?”, “Trust in doctors or trust in god: how should society deal with clashes between people's beliefs and medical ethics?” and “Do criminals should have the right to vote?”. None of these questions are going to help anyone pass their degrees directly, but I’d like to think that everyone benefited from the critical thinking and discussion that took place. I certainly left each meeting feeling a little more enlightened and with a lot more to think about.

We’ve also worked in collaboration with the Birmingham SITP on a couple of occasions and hosted both Ariane Sherine and Rebecca Watson for special ‘Skeptics in the Classroom’ meetings, held fund raising AmnesTEA parties, the Aston Happy Humanist team raised over £500 for the Cancer Research UK Relay for Life and we’re working with Aston’s Environment and Sustainability office to sponsor a university-wide bookswap scheme to promote the pleasures of environmentalism and reading.

It started out as just a few of my friends meeting in the university bar, but over the last year and a half the AHS I would like to think that the AHS has been a success and achieved at least some of its lofty ambition. The start of the 2010/11 academic year brings fresh hope, ideas and scope for growth. I’m not sure where I’ll end up once my PhD is over, but if there isn’t a society to join, I’ll use this experience to start another one. The ubiquity of social networking makes starting and maintaining societies much easier.

I hope that I have at least laid the foundations of some form of secular society at Aston. I hope the meetings, events, and this blog will allow people get together in some form or other discuss the world around them, for no other reason than because they want to think for themselves and learn what others have to say.

[A version of this post has been published on the Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub page]