Since arriving in London, I'd been intending to meet up with fellow sceptics, humanists and affiliated people. It took a while, but I got around to doing some stuff.  I've been involved in three things in the past two weeks: the Protest The Pope march at London Pride 2010, a meet-up of the Central London Humanist Group last week, and a talk by Simon Perry (he of Quacklash fame) at the meeting of Westminster Sceptics on Monday night.  I'll blog about each of these in turn. 

On Saturday 3 July, participating the the London Pride 2010 parade and march from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, I joined the 'Protest the Pope' section in the walking group of the pride march.  We had a large placard stating that we 'Protest the Pope', the particular relevance of which for London Pride 2010 is the Pope's position on equality of sexual orientation, on 'biological differences' between people, on denying the freedom of choice to women, on Ratzinger's own criminal acts as a concealer of pedophilia in the church, etc.¹ It must be noted that we were not out there to protest Catholicism or religion generally, but rather the particular positions that the pope has taken and on the ways in which he has affected government policy and pressured policy in the UK. 

The march went well.  To choruses like "Say yes to condoms, say Nope to the Pope", we handed out fantastic stickers protesting the pope's state visit to the UK and pamphlets about the organisation.  [As a state visit an invitation extended by the British head of state to the head of state of the Vatican it will be paid for by the UK taxpayer and should cost upwards of 30 million pounds.²] We also protested the things mentioned in the paragraph above, in addition to abstinence only sex advice and more.   It was a pleasure to be involved in a well-organized march on behalf of the LGBT community, but also in support of a crusade in which I believe - trying to protest the power of religious leaders in secular societies.   

I hope that in the future I can participate in similar protests as part of the on-going movement toward a secular society in which separation between religions and the state is constitutionally protected and in which individuals are better educated about alternatives to religious morality, of which secular humanism is one I find particularly attractive. Specifically, I would like to see increased activity in South Africa, in the mode of what Michael Meadon, Jacques Rousseau, Tauriq Moosa, Angela Butterworth, and many others have been trying to promote as and how they can (I would link to more of you, but I just can't do it Captain).  I hope that it becomes more widespread and more formalised and I intend to do my bit when I return to South African.  Later in the week I'll comment briefly on my experience of the Central London Humanist Group and the Westminster Sceptics - all of it positive. 



End Notes
1. On this, yes, there are biological differences between men and women, for example,  I happen not to have particularly large breasts.  The point is that, for those things that 'count' there may be greater variation within one gender than between genders such that it is difficult to claim what is meant by 'a single biological difference' that is totally unaffected by culture or social context. It also isn't obvious that 'biological differences' imply anything about gay marriage commitments either, unless we tie it to 'consummation' that, for whatever reason, can only occur between a penis and a vagina.    
2. Notwithstanding the fact that the reason that the Vatican is itself treated as a sovereign state is because of a deal - the Lateran Accords - between the then pope, Pope Pius XI, the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III and the fascist Benito Mussolini. 'What?' I hear you say, "We're held to deals made by a monarch and a fascist?" Indeed we are. It's contract law, see. It made the Vatican a sovereign state, see. And we can't interfere with sovereignty in international law, see? The treaty was adopted into the Italian constitution in 1947, so some may say, "Ahah! Your grievances are irrelevant." But, I don't get how one country (Italy) can decide at one of its weakest points in history on the continued existence of a theocracy that affects the world internationally.  Granted, this happens all the time in the middle east, but I will support my position by saying I object to all theocracies, not just the Vatican. I do need to consider this more, but genuinely consider it to be a problem. 

I'd like to encourage people to take a look at the video embedded below, which is a talk by Cory Doctorow about copyright and democracy. If you don't know, Doctorow is co-editor of boingboing.net and a best-selling author. He makes many fascinating arguments about the problems of copyright creep, the democratic state, and the ways in which our lives could be monitored and affected by third parties that are allowed access to end-users' personal information. These third parties could be governments or, increasingly, they could be corporates. Consider the myriad possibilities for interactions between corporates and governments that if either or both had access to tons of information about us and could simultaneously have control over what is on our computers. We already know that this has happened with Amazon and the Kindle, with Apple and its apps, with Google and Android - the companies take stuff off the end users' device that they don't want there despite protests by the end users. Crazy stuff. Imagine that by a government too. Scary stuff. Consequently, I don't believe that the four horsemen of the infocalypse - terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, or organized crime - or copyright infringements constitute sufficient justification for attempts to monitor my and your internet activity and the applications we happen to have on our devices. Anyway, watch the video. It's illuminating.

Playing host to this month's Carnival, I've had the fun of trawling the web for a few interesting posts by Africans on relevant topics (scepticism, science, etc), and having read submissions I've received for the carnival.  If you'd like to host a Carnival then get hold of Mike at michael{dot}meadon{at}gmail{dot}com and volunteer for a position as host, vacancies as early as next month!  Take a look at the guidelines here.  Anyway, here are the relevant posts for this month's Carnival of the Africans.  

Mike from Ionian Enchantment submitted two posts. First, In praise of deference, in which he articulates a position where he argues for deference to those with more scientific expertise than oneself.  I need to reiterate that his conclusions differs from appealing to authority - I believe {X} simply because {Big Name Y} believes {X}.  Read the article for his discussion. Mike proposed a second article, The Cost of Truth is Eternal Vigilance, in which he explains why one needs to be vigilant about one's own biases and the biases of others when trying to make propositions about states of the world, parodying his example '2009 was the rainiest year ever!'

Angela, the Skeptic Detective,  has three fantastics posts.  First, 'Atlas V makes you feel like you're tripping', in which she examines sonic booms and speed - a physics fun time.  In the second post, 'How to win friends...' she examines the 'work' of Mike Adams, a 'health ranger' and his beliefs in naturopathy and the natural way.  Good skeptic defence Angela.  Her third post, 'Paranormal Investigators', looks at paranormal beliefs, specific South African urban legends, and their (in)validity as investigated by the South African Society for Paranormal Research. 

At Communicating Science, The African Way, Muza Gondwese asks whether 'To snip or not to snip'.  She presents the evidence about male circumcision in several African countries and says that there is some evidence that it helps to prevent HIV transmissions (helps to prevent minimally she highlights).  She discusses policy implications for Malawi and the situation in Swaziland.  A timely post for those considering the role of prevention in HIV - look at the science, do a cost-benefit analysis. (I understand this is a contentious topic, but it's still worth reading her piece). 

Ross at the Science of Sport wrote an intriguing post on 'The mental edge or physiology' in sport, in which he tries to understand the role of psychology and 'mental toughness' in sport against physiological superiority.  One of the problems, evidently, is that of measurability: how do we measure mental toughness? Is it the same across sports? Is there a consistent and falsifiable theory of mental toughness? He tries to navigate some of these problems in a post accessible to the layperson (so, no, there aren't any discussions of falsifiability and demarcation). 

The Skeptic Blacksheep has has two fascinating reports, the first 'My experience with Simply Slim' recounts the author electing to 'test' this herbal diet tablet and its banning in South Africa, she then recounts some of the fallout of her post on her experiences in the second post, where she was told by a marketing professional that people complaining of side effects are suffering from Munchausen's Syndrome and evidently not the effects of a double dose of sibutramine - the drug the Medicines Control Council foud in the 'herbal tablet'.  Oh conspiracies!

Mark Widdicombe has three good posts.  The first, 'Good News', in which he describes the Lancet retraction of Andrew Wakefield's paper linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disorders (a skeptic victory).  The second, 'Witch Professor' in which he entertainingly describes an interaction with the eponymous
doctor, has to be read for entertainment value.  Finally, in 'Smoke signals', he reports on his experiences quitting smoking, doing his best to evaluate various methods for quitting smoking.

And finally we get to me. I reviewed two pieces of research.  The first, 'Making money vs. Windfalls - Are you hardnosed' in which I reviewed a 2002 article investigating the methods of experimental economics - giving windfall cash to people and watching them behave. The second post, 'Neural Evidence for inequality aversion when giving away other peoples' money' applies the critique from the 2002 paper to a new paper from Nature investigating inequality aversion using FMRI.  I also have a more entertaining piece, looking at whether ANCYL (a South African political organisation) knows what evidence is: 'Untrue, Fabricated, False Lies'.