TAM London Review (belated)

Woo hoo ! Here we go !

The Amaz!ng Meeting – London. Day 1.

The proceedings were kicked off by the outrageously funny Richard Wiseman who really knows how to work a crowd of skeptics and make us laugh. He was the MC for the whole two day event and after a couple of gags introduced the new president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, Dr. Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer. First time I’ve seen him in a shirt and tie. Very strange. He made a very gracious introduction and gave us the latest on what was happening in the skeptical movement as a whole and how skepticism seems to be spreading everywhere as demonstrated by the hundreds of us sitting in the auditorium at the first TAM outside the USA.

Professor Richard Wiseman entertains

Phil Plait president of the JREF

Then Professor Brian Cox took to the stage with a great presentation about the Large Hadron Collider and some of the skeptical issues surrounding it and some of the things physicists are hoping it will turn up. Such as the Higgs Boson, dark matter and greater insight into the origins of the universe. The LHC is due to fully power up again any time now(ish) and frankly I can’t wait for the first experimental results.

Professor Brian Cox

Particularly about the hysterical doomsayers who think that the greatest physics experiment ever built by man will in fact be the demise of the species and destroy the planet to boot. This was hilarious. Full marks for getting the point across.

Brian Cox on the LHC to The Radio Times

Next onto the stage was Jon Ronson. I’d not read any of his books and what I knew about Jon had been gleaned from the podcast interviews he’d given. Based upon those I thought that this was an awesome chap who I really should learn more about. He showed us the trailer for the film The Men Who Stare At Goats which has been made from his book of the same name. Ewan McGregor stars as Jon Ronson alongside such luminaries as George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. Wow. What a line-up for your first film. Jon also explained some of the things in the film and showed us a brand new hand-to-hand weapon that had been designed and named after him. The Ronsonator was quite a wicked looking implement and in the right hands can do serious damage. Shame the hands it seems to be in are those of some of the more bonkers people in the book. He was witty and informative and I intend to buy the rest of his books.

Jon Ronson

Just before the break for lunch was the skeptical superhero Simon Singh.
As you’ll no doubt be aware Simon is currently embroiled in a libel action with the British Chiropractic Association. Basically he called them out in his Guardian column as charlatans promoting bogus treatments which is an entirely fair and accurate assessment. So they complained and were in return offered full right of reply. They decided not to present the evidence in support of their claims and instead sued Simon personally for libel. What a gang of cowardly, spineless quacks. The entire skeptical community has rallied around Simon in support and continued to expose the bogus treatments and outrageous quackery promoted by the BCA. Simon gave us the inside track on what has been happening and was clearly very upset about being sued personally. Luckily enough his talent is such that his books have sold well and so he has the resources to fight such a crass libel action.
We are all behind Simon in his defence of science and rationality in the face of such incredible legal stupidity. The libel action has sparked a huge and well organised campaign to expose the reverse burden of proof that infests the UK’s libel laws and to get those absurd laws changed. See the Sense About Science campaign to Keep Libel Laws Out Of Science.

Simon Singh

After a rather nice buffet lunch and some skeptical chinwagging amongst the delegates we returned to the auditorium for some more of Prof. Wiseman’s wise-cracking immediately followed by Ariane Sherine the originator of the Atheist Bus campaign. The diminutive Ariane took us through the genesis of the idea and it’s initial faltering implementation to the really amazing success that the campaign enjoyed once people started finding out about it. There was a graph of the donations against time and it was an exponential growth to over £100,000. There are atheist bus adverts on the sides of public transport in many, many cities around the globe. Way over the expectations of the initial idea for a £5000 limited advertising campaign in London. Fantastic.

Ariane Sherine of the Atheist Bus campaign

After Ariane’s excellent and extremely entertaining show we were treated to the appearance of the Bad Science blogger himself : Ben Goldacre.
Dr. Ben gave a great talk on the problems surrounding science reporting in the meda and how dreadfully silly and incorrect it can be. Especially when you have respected daily publications attempting to present every chemical and compound in existance as something that does not or hysterically, does cause cancer. 

Ben Goldacre the Bad Science blogger

James Randi via live video link

 I’ll post the video of Randi’s answer to my question when I get some more time.

Next up was the JREF Award presentation ceremony which honours the person who is considered by popular vote to have contributed the most to the promotion of skepticism in the UK. That person was Simon Singh.

JREF Award to Simon Singh

A full five minute standing ovation greeted this news. And well deserved it was too.

And that was almost it. Other than Richard Wiseman’s bonkers towel origami joke about a chicken that is. I’m still not sure I understood it. Can’t wait for the DVD when it comes out.

Don't worry, I still don't get it.

There was a break for an hour before the evening’s entertainment hosted by Robin Ince began.
I’ll post that tomorrow.