What I Did On The Weekend

Long-time readers may recall I’ve written about homeopathy once or twice before.

Just in case you were unaware, the quick version is this:

Homeopathy is a pretend medicine by which cynical practitioners exploit the placebo effect and confirmation bias to bilk gullible people out of their cash.

So last Saturday, to demonstrate that there’s nothing in Homeopathy, some fellow skeptics and I participated in the global 10:23 campaign.

And we all took a massive overdose of the stuff.

The point was to make a public statement about what homeopathy is.

Or rather, what it isn’t.

I’m the guy in the awesomely cool sunnies.

Me and a Bunch of Celebrity Heathens

In addition to all the wonderful and thought-provoking talks at this weekend’s convention, there was the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of celebrities.

Now when I say “celebrities”, I’m obviously not talking about Paris Hilton or Robert Pattinson.

I’m talking about actual people who are actually famous because they actually have something worthwhile and interesting to say.

And so I, wishing to bask in their reflected glory, wandered around and got myself photographed with them.

 

The very charming Catherine Deveny.

The lovely Jane Caro with The Chaser’s Julian Morrow.

The hilarious Lawrence Leung. (This was actually following a discussion on the finer points of Rubik’s Cube solutions).

The other Chaser in the room, Mr. Craig Reucassel.

The man I was most keen to meet, the legendary PZ Myers. 

 A man whom I’m convinced can make me smarter just by being in the same room, philosopher and awesome hair model A.C. Grayling.

 

The truly excellent and also none-too-shabby hair model Steve, aka NonStampCollector. (Check out his videos. They’re ace.)

 

And finally, the one and only Sean the Blogonaut.

There were one or two others I sadly didn’t get a chance to meet, like Dan Barker and that strident UK biologist whose name escapes me.

Still, that’s a pretty good collection of happy snaps.

Oh, and many thanks to Jasmine (aka @purplefae) for doing the snapping!

Global Atheist Convention 2010

The dust is settling after Australia’s biggest ever gathering of atheists and the godless delegates are making their godless way home.

The convention was a great opportunity to meet a bunch of people I’ve only known via Twitter and Facebook. It’s wonderful having conversations not restricted to 140 characters at a time.

Organisers managed to avoid divine wrath (and, as Sue-Ann Post said, dodged a PR bullet by not being scheduled during last week’s apocalyptic storm). Protests were limited to a couple of ragged creationists out the front complaining that Dawkins won’t debate them.

It’s like complaining that Michael Schumacher refuses to race against The Wiggles in their Big Red Car.

Media coverage this morning ranged from the excellent and informative (in The Australian) to the snippy and biased (Barney Zwartz in The Age … why do they get him to write this stuff?), and if you’re keen for a blow-by-blow you can check out the #atheistcon hashtag on Twitter.

Highlights for me were Taslima Nasrin’s incredibly moving story about her exile from India when her government decided the rights of Muslim extremists mattered more than her freedom of speech.

Also great were PZ Myers on the inevitable conflicts between science and religion, and Dan Barker talking about his move from evangelical Christian preacher to prominent atheist activist.

All in all a fabulous time was had by all. And me, I’m taking away a definite mood of optimism for a bright and secular future.

The Rise of Atheism

Tickets for the 2010 Global Atheist Convention aka The Rise of Atheism, are now on sale!

Get your tickets here, and along with them your chance to meet Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Catherine Deveny, Philip Adams, Peter Singer, Robyn Williams and … me!

(I’ll just be hanging around being a fanboy, but still … come up and say hi!)

In an early shot at media coverage, religion columnist Barney Zwartz had a snippy little piece in today's Age, announcing the convention and referring to Dawkins as the “high priest of atheism”.

Barney was clearly less-than-impressed at having to write the story in the first place and was trying to be clever. Unfortunately (for him) he just came across as a grumpy old man in a cardigan unable to see the world beyond his self-imposed religious filter.

Referring to Dawkins as a “high priest” comes from the same school of thought that gave us “atheism is just another religion” and “science can't answer all questions about life therefore this wafer turns into Jesus flesh when the man in the dress spits on it”.

Still, a plug is a plug.

Get your tickets now!

Australia and New Zealand Atheists Blogroll

Astute readers may have noticed the new blogroll in the right-hand column.

This was put together by Sean the Blogonaut, and offers a convenient one-stop-shop for atheist bloggers in Australia and New Zealand. As such it features some of the best atheism bloggers on the planet … and (in the case of blogs like mine) some amateur windbags with too much time on their hands.

Particular shout-outs go to Podblack, Bastard Sheep, A Drunken Madman, Dave The Happy Singer and OzAtheist, but it’s all good stuff and well worth your time.

One of our main tasks is to promote the next Atheist Global Convention, a.k.a. “The Rise of Atheism”, to be held in Melbourne in 2010.

Guests for the event include Richard Dawkins and P.Z. Myers along with local heroes Catherine Deveny and Phillip Adams.

It should be a blast. Stay tuned for further details.

Mind Body Wallet

The Mind Body Wallet Spirit festival.

An annual (or thereabouts) celebration of woo-woo of every stripe. Everything from personal horoscopes and psychic readings to spiritual healing and magic potions.

On Saturday fellow skeptics Catherine, Elliot, Jack, Dahli and I went along to soak in some of the rarefied atmosphere.

I should point out we weren’t there to take the piss. Or start arguments. Or be assholes. Or convince anyone that they’re wrong. For my part, I’m genuinely interested in the worldview of people who believe this sort of thing, if only because it’s so different from my own.

No, we were there to represent the skeptical community and record a few bits for the Pseudo Scientists podcast. And for me, I wanted to find out what makes these people tick.

We began by talking to a lovely lady from Christocentric Light, a group that combines new-age type beliefs with Christianity. They’re big on dream interpretation, so we got chatting about a recurring dream I have where I’m in an elevator which starts going sideways before leaving the building altogether. Apparently that means I feel I’m stagnating (hence going sideways) and to fix this, I should try to make the elevator go up.

(I wanted to point out that my dreams are probably an effect not a cause of the apparent stagnation, so manipulating my dreams won’t necessarily help in my real life. But Catherine helpfully suggested I push the “Up” button instead of the “Sideways” button. That was such a brilliant suggestion I decided to leave it there.)

We then sat down to record a bit for the podcast, only to be interrupted by a lady from Psionics, a group who could teach us all about astral travelling. All we had to do was sign up for their $1,200 course and we could travel all around the world and throughout the universe. Bargain. Unfortunately my question about how you know you’re really travelling and not just dreaming was evaded and unanswered.

After a break to taste some tea (during which I noted that every single tea I tried apparently had more anti-oxidants than all the others) it was back to the circuit.

Dahli took part in a muscle test which “proved” the power of scalar energy, a magical force imparted to the wearer of a quantum/nanotech/bio-vibrational amulet. And while this was going on, Elliot and I got talking to some Christian Scientists.

Christian Science is all about healing through prayer, so Elliot asked the very reasonable question why (if this stuff had been rigorously studied as they claimed) they weren’t publishing it in medical journals and winning Nobel prizes. They even claimed success in the field of regrowing missing limbs! Sadly they didn’t know which one of their many magazines that particular article was in, but they did assure us it was true.

Memo to Christian Scientists: the question “if God heals, why doesn’t he regrow missing limbs?” is so common it’s a cliché. If you’ve got evidence for that one, stick it right up front of your stand. Just sayin’.

A little more wandering and we decided to call it a day and headed out for the obligatory photo op. Check out the next Pseudo Scientists podcast for a complete wrap-up of events.

This festival is an amazing collection of woo-woo all the one place, and it’s a little overwhelming when you’re going in with a deliberately skeptical eye.

I can appreciate that a lot of these people genuinely believe they’re helping with their magic potions and rituals, and it could even be argued they are helping if someone goes in looking for that kind of thing.

But at the core of it all is a huge industry cynically making lots of money off the credulous and the vulnerable.

This was my conclusion about what makes them tick. It’s definitely more Wallet than Spirit.

Knowing

In a remarkable display of consistency, director Alex Proyas follows up uneven science fiction thriller I, Robot with uneven science fiction thriller Knowing.

Nicolas Cage mopes his way through the movie as grumpy academic John Koestler, whose son finds a sequence of numbers buried in a time capsule which, when analysed, turn out to accurately predict the dates and locations of major disasters.

Happily it’s not just pareidolia, and audience fears that the plot might devolve into the silliness that was Jim Carrey’s The Number 23 are quickly dispelled.

The disasters actually do unfold in predictably spectacular fashion, and the movie thunders along with lots of nice set-pieces and some very impressive effects. In fact, the action is so relentless that one is left with barely a second to ponder the immense implausibility of it all. Which is probably just as well.

Proyas handles it all very nicely, right up until the final sequence when the subtle biblical imagery inexplicably morphs from a tap on the forehead to a sledgehammer in the face. I’m not sure that was strictly necessary.

To top it off, there’s a garbled explanation of Determinism that deserves to join Jurassic Park's treatment of Chaos theory in the Hollywood Hall of Scientific Theory Abuse Fame.

Still, it's all good fun.

On a side note, Melbourne viewers will be amused by the attempts to pass Melbourne off as Boston, particularly when it involves geographical miracles like getting from the CBD to Carlton by heading south on Princes Bridge.

3 out of 5

Rolling the Roads

A nice little piece today from Age scribe Matthew McLean to solve Melbourne’s public transport woes:

They shall construct above-ground, domed corridors, each complete with lanes of non-stop conveyor belts. The corridors will be minimalist but comfortable in design, the roofs fitted with solar panels to power the belts.

Stations will be dismantled. Passengers can mount and dismount at will, with the speed set at a gentle 25 km/h in the CBD, increasing to 40 km/h in the suburbs. Padding will be placed beside the conveyor belts to cushion people's landings. Those laughable blue documents known as "timetables" will be stacked higher than the Eureka Tower, and a massive bonfire will ensue.

It’s a great idea, but hardly original. Heinlein came up with this almost 70 years ago in his short story masterpiece “The Roads Must Roll”.

Now I’m all for giving our cities a retro-future look, and moving walkways are a staple of that particular genre. They’re right up there with jetpacks and robot butlers and silver jumpsuits.

We might want to be careful about this one, though. In Heinlein’s story, this particular idea didn’t turn out so well.

A Change on Climate?

Andrew Bolt has decided who’s to blame for those ridiculously high temperatures we experienced last week, and it’s . . .

. . . those evil Lefty Greenies!

That’s right. All those people banging on about stopping climate change instead of trying to protect people from the rising temperatures are the ones to blame.

For some reason this makes perfect sense in his twisted little mind.

Because what we need is more electricity use, not less! If we want to cool the Earth then let’s crank up those air conditioners!

We seem to be at an interesting point in history here.

We’ve just had a glimpse of what Mr Bolt’s focus will be once the fact of climate change is no longer deniable.

He’ll simply shift from ranting about it not really happening, to ranting about not enough being done.

His latest rant beautifully straddles these two lines of thinking, indicating that we might be somewhere near the tipping point.

It goes something like this:

“If the Earth is warming which it isn’t then it’s utterly ridiculous to tell people not to use their air conditioners because that would cool the Earth dummy and anyway it’s cold that kills people not warmth so global warming would be great even though it’s not really happening.”

He even added a caveat to his usual cherry-picked statistic that the Earth hasn’t warmed since 2002, saying “it may soon warm again”.

Andrew Bolt: neo-Greenie?

Heatwave II: The Reckoning

One might be forgiven for thinking that our state government is an incompetent pack of whinging little girls.

Apparently three days in a row of temperatures over 43° constitutes a “natural disaster”.

Sorry Mr. Batchelor, but no. It doesn’t.

This kind of thing should be expected and our infrastructure should be able to cope with it.

If a few hot days is all it takes to completely trash our public transport and power delivery systems, then that’s a serious indictment of our government’s dire track record in public maintenance.

News flash for those “in charge”:

This is not the first time this has happened. And it won’t be the last.

In fact, where the hell do you people get off being surprised by this?

The climate is changing. You might have read about it. It’s been in a couple of papers.

All utilities planning should be allowing for this sort of thing to happen every two or three years. Because a decade or two down the track, it will be.

We’re well past the time we can sit on our hands and start thinking it’s all going to get back to normal soon.

So Mr. Batchelor, Ms. Kosky and Mr. Brumby: get it the hell together.

Heatwave

It’s too darn hot.

And I make no apology for saying that.

Three days in a row of 40+ degree temperatures are enough to make anyone use words like “darn”. (That’s 104+ for our Imperial American friends).

It might not sound like much if you’re from Arizona, but we’re just not set up for this sort of crap.

The city is drooping.

We’ve got rolling blackouts across the state.

The train system is at a standstill.

And there’s no end in sight. The forecast says it’s not going to drop below 30 for another week.

What to do on a day like today?

Well, this afternoon I’ll be spending three hours sitting in a TV studio watching my sister compete in a game show.

I hope she does well.

And I really hope they have air conditioning.

Grace

Grace is the latest production from the Melbourne Theatre Company, telling the story of Grace Freeman, an atheist scientist whose son announces that he wishes to become an Anglican priest.

On the surface this seems a pat set-up for the usual Dawkinsian science vs. religion arguments. And while they do get an airing, the play is about much more than that.

There’s nothing new in any of the arguments portrayed: they’re the usual suspects regularly trotted out on the interwebs, in print and from the pulpit (religion is irrational / atheism is narrow-minded / religion brings death and destruction / science can say nothing about the divine).

But quite deliberately, the writers of Grace have only lightly touched upon the debate, and allowed themselves space to make a much deeper point: that when it comes to our human relationships, the way we interact and the way we communicate, these things eventually stop being important.

At some point, being right doesn’t matter so much as being compassionate.

And getting so tied up in the debate that you miss that point can lead to real tragedy.

While the script seems clunky in parts (although that may have been the actors struggling with some of the technical and very fast dialogue), Noni Hazlehurst steals the show as fiery fem-Dawkins Grace and is well-supported by the small cast, particularly Leah Vandenberg as her pious son’s girlfriend.

Grace is essential viewing for anyone interested in the continuing debate on the influence of religion in our lives, and also highly recommended for anyone who thinks we’re all taking it a bit too seriously.

4 out of 5

Osstrayenopen

Ah, the Australian Open.

A time when people of all cultures gather in one place to be burnt by the sun and entertained by the rhythmic alternate striking of a small rubber ball by two incredibly well-paid young people who, in turn, are surrounded by a grim-faced coterie staring at lines painted on the ground, concerned to the point of obsession about which side of the line the rubber ball may fall.

For some reason understood by none except the eldritch brotherhood of “promoters” and “officials”, these ingredients alchemically combine into one hella Fun Day Out.

 

 

A Zen-like state of serenity descends upon the crowd, brought upon them by the rhythms of the game.

The attention of all is focused on the smallest of details . . . the direction of the serve, the curve of the ball, and the light glinting off the sweaty buttocks of the streaker.

For this moment in time the thousands are joined as one. And thus peace is achieved.

Puffing Billy

As tourist attractions go, Puffing Billy stands alone. It impressively manages to simultaneously be both incredibly iconic and somewhat lame.

The last time I rode Puffing Billy was way back in 1979 (or thereabouts) and it hasn’t changed a bit.

The train still chugs along the same track, it still gets stopped a few times along the way for impromptu maintenance (“is the handbrake off now, Geoff?”) and kids still hang their feet out of the windows.

In fact, I suspect it’s barely changed since the track first opened in 1900.

Despite attempts to jazz it up, like Wedding packages, the Thomas the Tank Engine trips and the oddly named “Wizard and Witches Express” (presumably Harry Potter’s people weren’t as amenable to licensing as Thomas’ were) it’s still just an old steam train which chugs along a century-old track through the foothills of the Dandenongs.

And ever may it remain so.

The brochures are all about the scenery, but really that’s only a small part of the deal.

It’s more about the sense of history.

A trip on Puffing Billy is a nostalgic journey back to a simpler age.

When train journeys were slow and uncomfortable. When you could throw tons of carbon into the atmosphere with gay abandon.

And when kids could stick their feet out of the train windows.

Good times.

Raining

It's raining in Melbourne.

Raining like it hasn't rained in years.

Raining like it used to in the dim distant rain-soaked past, before the Big Dry and water restrictions and desalination plants.

Once upon a time Melbourne was famous for its rain. Tourism ads for Queensland would play on the point. A rugged-up Melburnian looks out the rain-soaked window of a tram to see... sunshine! And beaches! And bikinis! And so much of it! Just a short(ish) trip away!

That all changed with El Niño, the weather pattern in the south Pacific that sucks all the rainfall to the north and causes endless political bickering.

To recycle? Or desalinate? Costs now vs costs later. Use less! Save more! Take a bucket into the shower. And an egg-timer. Don't flush that! If it's yellow let it mellow.

And now it's raining. Beautiful, cleansing, soaking, sodding rain. It's rained for almost 24 hours straight.

So is this the end of the drought? Can we quietly forget the recent admonition to use only 155 litres each per day? (that's about 40 gallons for our Imperial American friends).

Probably not.

We foolishly don't gather storm water so most of this precious bounty will just be running out to sea.

If it rains over the city catchments we might see the dams rise, but it'll take more than a day or two to make much difference.

This is just another round in the cycle.

You know ... those droughts and flooding rains.

Just like in the poem.

The Apotheosis of the Dance

Hamer Hall, Melbourne

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has capped their 2008 season with a beautiful performance of 19th and 20th century pieces.

They began with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, a fine example of 19th century water music and beautifully rendered.

Next was Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 1, a fine example of why a lot of 1920s-era orchestral music is best forgotten.

While I’m sure it takes great skill to play it, its atonality and lack of structure make it sound more like the jazz noodling than anything by the Masters.

After a brief intermission to recover from that, we were ready for the star of the show: Beethoven’s mighty 7th symphony.

This was why we’d come. The 7th is one of the finest pieces of music ever written, perfectly capturing the great Ludwig Van at the height of his passionate and creative power.

When first performed in 1813 it was so different from anything heard before that it prompted critics to label Beethoven a madman. You can see where they’re coming from: it starts slowly, winding up through two funereal movements to a third that is nothing short of joyful, before grinding out the final stages in Beethoven’s more signature heroic style.

What was he thinking? Ludwig only knows, but what he did know was how to take your soul on a journey.

The title of the concert is a reference to Wagner’s description of Beethoven’s 7th.

It was, Wagner felt, a divine rendering of the human spirit in music. And in the masterful hands of the MSO and conductor Oleg Caetani, it certainly was.

Emiliana Torrini

The Forum, Melbourne

Sometimes known as the other Icelandic waif (but only by people who deserve to be slapped for saying it), Emiliana Torrini has returned to Melbourne with her new album Me and Armini.

Comparisons to Bjork are inevitable but unfair. The fact is they're worlds apart in musical style and while I love Bjork (although I preferred The Sugarcubes to her solo stuff) Emiliana is so much more . . . adorable.

It's almost three years since Emiliana was last here, and she carries the baggage of very high expectations. Her last Melbourne gig (at The Corner, as it happens) was truly amazing. I've never before seen a Corner crowd fall utterly silent during a song, and I don't suppose I ever will again.

This most recent show didn't quite have the magic of that one (something in the air that night? Or the water?) but where it fell short in magic it was more than made up for by comedy.

Emiliana is the master of the ribald joke, and it's all the funnier coming from someone who looks and sounds the the girl next door's next door neighbour. Last time it was the story of her guitarist falling into a whale's vagina, and this time a comprehensive description of accidentally doing a show in a partially see-through dress.

To my delight it also became clear that she's a sci fi geek, when she had the audience do the 5-note piece from Close Encounters just for her own amusement.

In between all of this was a very nice selection of songs from all her albums, beautifully rendered by one of the most amazing voices in music today.

So the laughs were plentiful, the band was tight, the music was lovely and Emiliana was and ever will be . . . just adorable.

4 out of 5

Llareggub

RMIT Kaleide Theatre, Swanston Street.

Dylan Thomas' play Llareggub (often referred to by its US title Under Milk Wood) is a patchwork of voices floating on the ether, as we imagine ourselves drifting through the minds of the inhabitants of the eponymous village.

While this makes it perfect fodder for radio (its intended medium) it's very difficult to translate effectively to the stage. But the recent RMIT production faces this challenge with some success.

In a very engaging production the setting is one of organised chaos, with all actors on the stage at all times. This seems to be an attempt, mostly successful, to recreate the wafting movement of sound implied in the radio play, by constantly having the eyes of the audience moving in circles to follow who is speaking.

While this was fine, some of the technical limitations were distracting, such as characters passing around the few hand-held microphones. Also distracting was the wide variety of accents on display (some of them somewhat impenetrable) and, as can be expected in a student production with this number of speaking parts, the range of the performers' abilities.

Overall though it was very enjoyable, with particular standouts being Samantha Bond as the harridan Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard and Sam Sejavka as the Reverend, who, amidst many other competent but mannered performances, managed to take the play into the surreal places it's supposed to go.

3.5 out of 5

Toni Childs

The Corner, Richmond

Not being a huge fan of hippie diva Toni Childs, I wasn't hugely keen to see her play live.

My wife was keen, but apparently only because it would in some sense be (quote) "hilarious".

While that's all very well, I'm an old-fashioned guy and I have this old-fashioned pre-post-modernist view that I should spend my time doing things I actually enjoy, rather than things I might ironically enjoy.

Still, long story short: I had no intention of going, someone cancelled at the last minute, and I went.

And to be fair, I quite enjoyed it. The band was great and the show was energetic. Toni's vocals aren't quite what they were back in the day, but she still managed to belt out a decent version of Don't Walk Away.

Stop Your Fussing was just as annoying as it was 20 years ago, but at least it was the opening number and so got out of the way early.

Following that, the show was good if not startlingly good, and the usual dip-in-the-middle that comes as they launch into tracks from the new album was actually a highlight, because I hadn't heard them enough to be sick of them yet.

2.5 out of 5

Which is good. I was expecting to give it 1.

Closing Hospitals in the Name of God

In a staggeringly arrogant move, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has threatened to close Catholic-run hospitals if proposed changes to abortion laws in Victoria are passed.

His position is that Catholic employees would be required to perform abortions and they couldn't possibly do that in good conscience and maintain their religious freedom and blah blah blah.

Please.

I'll leave aside the rightness-or-otherwise of the proposed changes, and I won't dwell on the fact that not all employees of Catholic hospitals are necessarily Catholic, and just say that this beautifully illustrates the danger of allowing essential services to be hijacked by religious interests.

Churches have long made a habit of attaching themselves to charitable enterprises. This is partly out of a genuine desire to do good works, and partly out of a genuine desire to promote their brand . . . much like a Hollywood celebrity being photographed holding a starving African child.

But like the child being unceremoniously dropped when the next $20m pay packet comes up, the charity will always come second to maintaining the Church's perceived moral authority.

So good works are done and people are helped. It's all well and good until they start believing their own publicity.

Case in point: Mr. Hart seems to think that if he makes good on his threat, medical services will suffer because surely nobody other than Catholics would have the social conscience needed to run a hospital.

Doesn't he realise there'll be a huge line of providers ready and willing to immediately step into the breach? There's lots of money in medicine.

But of course he knows that.

After all, that's the other reason the Church got into it in the first place.