Confession Is Good for the Soul (if you think you have one)

19 June 2008 · Comments

Want to get something off your chest? Not a catholic? In Edinburgh between the 11th and 15th August 2008? Then why not pop along to St Patrick’s Church and talk to a real live catholic priest, for free.

No tithing required. All confessions subject to the discretionary whims of the catholic church. Confessions may be recorded for quality and training purposes. No speeding. No diving. No heavy petting. No refunds without a valid receipt. Your ’soul’ may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments.

Tags: <catholic, Edinburgh, festivals, UK>

The Standard (Model) Pimpernel

5 June 2008 · Comments

They seek him here, they seek him there…

One of the benefits of working where I do, I have access to some really interesting sources of research. And one of those is physicist Professor Peter Higgs, author of a number of papers on symmetry, gauge fields and massless particles in the 1960s where he first postulated the Higgs field and what became known as the Higgs boson, thought to be the elementary particle responsible for mass and hence gravitational fields, and to complete the Standard Model of particle physics.

However, Higgs is a bit of a recluse and doesn’t crave media attention, but the forthcoming activation of the Large Hadron Collider makes it quite difficult for him to avoid completely, especially when his predicted particle has the (IMO) careless and irresponsible sobriquet of ‘the god particle’ (which Higgs, an atheist, isn’t too keen on either).

So, Higgs recently made a rather low-key (considering the media attention that the facility has otherwise attracted) visit to the LHC facility at CERN, and a number of up-to-date photographs were taken of him posing with the (at the time unfinished) particle accelerator thought to be capable of providing direct evidence of his eponymous predicted particle.

Higgs appears to look much healthier, despite his age, than he did in the most recent photographs previously available. Perhaps leading the shy life is good for you.

The LCH is planned for activation later this month, with the first collisions taking place a couple of months afterwards, although sifting through the mountains of data generated could take a little time. This should still be interesting.

And, of course, I couldn’t close this post off without a few related cartoons…

Apologies to Baroness Orczy for the strained pun in the title of this post. ;-)

Tags: <academia, CERN, Edinburgh, Peter Higgs, physics, science, Scotland>

Invincible Donovan University

3 November 2007 · Comments

Thanks to Black Sun for alerting me to this example of wingnuttery on my doorstep.

From the AP (via MSNBC):

EDINBURGH, Scotland - Donovan, famous for ’60s pop hits such as “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Mellow Yellow,” has announced plans to open the Invincible Donovan University, where students will adhere to the principles of transcendental meditation [TM].

…

Donovan discovered transcendental meditation while visiting India and guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968.

“The Maharishi told me during that 1968 visit that I should build a university in Edinburgh. I went to my room and drew a beautiful dome-shaped place of learning,” he said Friday.

“I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t do this on my own. But then I met David Lynch, who told me about the positive effects of TM in education. Although it’s taken me 35 years, I will do what the Maharishi told me to do.”

…

The duo said they will now contact Scottish authorities to have the institution accredited.

“For a country the size of Scotland it would take only 250 students meditating to protect Scotland from its enemies and to bring peace, to stop violence and drug abuse,” Lynch said. “That is just a byproduct (sic) of the students meditating together.”

Obviously, this isn’t going to happen. As Black Sun points out, there are very likely over 250 people already engaged in TM in Scotland, and they’re utterly useless at making any headway whatsoever into the violence and drug problems already currently in evidence, far less “protecting” a population of about 3 million. These claims are complete hogwash and should be laughed at or, at the very worst, ignored.

So, what to do?

Well, we could let them spend their millions and build their university, let them plough through the red tape—wasting their money—trying to get accreditation, let them spend tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds in advertising trying to attract paying students. And then, when their 250-strong army of TMers completely fails to protect Scotland and rid it of violence (unless they somehow manage to get Buckfast banned in Glasgow) and drug abuse we should remove their accreditation (if they get it), point, laugh, and say “we told you so, you fucking eejits¹”.

Or, simply, we could just point, laugh, and tell the pair of them to “fuck right off” and get a clue. This is my preferred option: it costs the tax-payer less and wastes less people’s time.

Sadly, I know that there are enough credulous people here to ultimately make it worth Donovan and Lynch’s respective (financial) whiles, and I would love to see them fail (I have no problem with Schadenfreude when it comes to delusional ideas and those who seek to take advantage of others through them). I’m afraid though that any “course” accreditation will be from some other new-age fantasy-factory. The only hope I see is that the “university” appellation will be turned down by the appropriate organisation—I know that these things don’t come easily.

Come on, Scotland, stand up to these (and the other) evidence-ignoring wingnuts!

Scots for “idiots” [↩]

Tags: <Edinburgh, education, Glasgow, Scotland, transcendental meditation, UK, woo>

Creationism on my doorstep

4 December 2006 · Comments

I was wandering around my place of work earlier today, and I came across a glossy leaflet, obviously left deliberately, intended for some poor sucker student to pick up. I saved them the bother, and took it myself. Don’t worry, I’ll recycle.

The leaflet, entitled Intelligent Design, lists a number of meetings for talks and DVD screenings about “creation”. I thought it was frowned upon within the ID movement to talk about creationism. As far as I’ve seen in the US, they seemingly want to remove any explicit mention of god, but these folk don’t seem to have the same worries.

Many of the meetings have already happened, but for those of you who would like to attend (and perhaps ask for evidence of their “theories”) the remaining meetings, details are as follows:

~~Monday 13th November @ 9pm: “The Privileged Planet” An amazing DVD (big screen) showing the hallmarks of a designed Universe (astronomy)~~

~~Monday 20th November @ 9pm: “Unlocking The Mystery of Life” A ground-breaking DVD (big screen) showing that life has been designed (biology)~~

~~Monday 27th November @ 9pm: “Evolution and Creation” A presentation by Dr. Marc Surtees (biology)~~

Monday 4th December @ 9pm: “From Evolution to Creation” A riveting testimony of a man’s search for truth

Monday 11th December @ 9pm: “The Stones Cry Out!” A presentation on historical evidence for the Bible by an ancient historian

The meetings are held at Buccleuch Free Church, Buccleuch St. (next to The Human Bein, opposite Edinburgh University - David Hume Tower).

I’m afraid that I can’t go, as I have a previous engagement, although if you do attend, I would be happy to publish any report about the meeting.

I’ll follow up on a critique of the Edinburgh Creation Group’s web site soon.

Tags: <creationism, Edinburgh, intelligent design, meetup, UK>

Follow up to the Brights’ meetup

3 December 2006 · Comments

After attending the Brights’ meetup that I mentioned the other day, I thought that I’d write a small bit about the impressions that I got from it.

I first heard of the Brights movement a number of years ago. When I heard the term, I must admit that I was sceptical about the use of it; it seemed very elitist and exclusionary. I suppose that I did what they advise against: using the term “bright” as an adjective, rather than as a noun. I guess that isn’t an uncommon attitude — in English the word bright is used almost exclusively as an adjective.

However, I went along with an open mind, not quite sure what sort of thing to expect, or what the people that I might meet (if anyone else went!) were like.

I was the first one there, so I got myself a drink and sat down in the place that was apparently the usual meeting place for the group. After a few minutes, the first other person turned up. It turned out this he was the person who organised the meetup. He’s a very friendly chap, and we got on immediately, chatting quite happily for a few minutes about the Brights and meetups in general, before the next person turned up.

This person turned out to be an older gentleman, softly spoken and very polite. He and the organiser were already known to each other. The organiser introduced me to him, and we had a relatively brief chat before the fourth and last person to attend appeared.

This fellow seemed (from his accent) to be some from somewhere else in Europe, but I couldn’t place it (apologies if you’re not!). Again, he was very polite and softly spoken, and we were again introduced. This latter member to the group was also new to the Edinburgh meetup, but had previously attended the (local to him) meetup in Glasgow which, it turns out it, is attended by far more regulars.

Topics of discussion included Dawkins’ new book The God Delusion, James Randi, the local humanist group, Derren Brown, issues with the local council, Schadenfreude over Ted Haggard and Kent ‘Dr Dino’ Hovind, The God Who Wasn’t There film, atheist and humanist podcasts, faith schools, reading habits, The Lord of the Rings and more.

The topics of conversation flowed easily, although I must admit that it seemed to be dominated by myself and the organiser, with the other two adding their own comments, opinions and stories where they felt comfortable.

While the turnout was less than I imagined it might be, the discussion between the people that did attend was lively and not at all as I imagined, so I will definitely be going along again for the next one. Perhaps I’ll be able to take someone else along with me.

Tags: <brights, discussion, Edinburgh, follow-up, meetup, opinion, personal, UK>