QEDcon: Day 2

So I was going to do a couple more updates yesterday but power sockets weren’t really forthcoming so in the end I just tweeted ’til my phone died! Check out our room-mate Tom’s phonecasts for lots of exciting insights.

Marsh killing time until 10:23am!

We have just participated in the 10:23 demonstration, 2011 – we overdosed on some 31C belladonna pills (below). Sugary! Helping some with their hangovers (I think I’m on a pleasant little sugar high. Others are using the leftovers to sweeten their coffee).

Here’s a video from James, already! Edit: do see this excellent video account from Token Skeptic podcast, which has some good crowd shots, a lot of Marsh’s entertaining time-filling speech (including fantastic hatemail from homeopaths) and the big event itself.

The response to the campaign this year has been global, with people participating in some wonderfully random places (nice big Flickr set here).

An amazing achievement is that Brazil, as a direct result of the campaign, is now examining its policies on providing homeopathic treatments!

Note in particular, the individuals taking part in Antarctica (as you can see in that brilliant video above) and Hawaii!

A crowd favourite was the Spanish stunt of putting a ten23 t-shirt and hat on a statue of Samuel Hahnemann (‘founder’ of homeopathy):

I went to all of the live podcast recordings yesterday:

- InKredulous (with George Hrab, Jon Ronson, Andy Wilson, Marsh and Steve Novella)

- Pod Delusion (James O’Malley, presenting Sean Ellis, Liz Lutgendorff, Dr*T, Craig Lucas and James Thomas)

- Strange Quarks (Marsh interviewed Eugenie Scott about the problems with, and possible solutions to, creationism in education – both in the US and a bit in the UK. Good Q&A afterwards – plus Eugenie is talking this afternoon).

Yesterday also featured a lot of talks on paranormal research and I’ve heard good things about those – I’ll find some links to reviews when they appear.

George Hrab entertained us after the evening dinner with his unique brand of skeptical rock, surprisingly romantic and, at times, tear-jerking (perhaps I was just overly-emotional from fatigue!).

Apparently there was some skeptical “dancing” (quotes not optional) but many of us hid in the bar as it was comfy and relatively quiet.

Wendy Grossman has just finished her ‘Policy-based evidence-making’ talk and Simon Singh is up next to talk about the Big Bang! Looking forward to the rest of the day, providing I can find some more coffee and some food. Late train back.

Edit: Simon Singh’s talk is coming to an end but he did show us a very amusing coincidence first: he’s in room 1023, without it being orchestrated! Brilliant. Also, he’s been talking about the Great Global Warming Swindle programme; I wrote about this here if you want some examples of the kind of rubbish that was in it.

—

So far the main in-joke is the fact that it’s constantly raining here in ‘Manchestuh’ and we’ve got to know the small stretch of road between the hostel and the hotel very well indeed, but nothing else.

-

–

Photos:

From Alex Davenport (I’m in a few of those, of course)

Rob’s Flickr set.

Great photos from @gammypoofle – I spy myself blogging and things in a few of them

Pics by Richard Cooper (including Simon’s coincidental room number!)

–

Links:

Paul Jenkins has another great summary of the main events – useful!

If you want know how to set up Skeptics in the Pub (a frequent search on this blog!) or related skeptical gathering, have a listen to Token Skeptic‘s recording of the SitP workshop with Marsh and Simon Perry. See also: Birmingham Skeptics.

Prof. Bruce Hood laments the brevity of the conference – we are all doing the same.

Steven Novella discusses some weird reactions of homeopaths to 10:23.

Wendy Grossman has some thoughts.

South Yorkshire skeptics on 10:23

Milton muses on homeopaths’ mild hysteria and found this great playlist of all the 10:23 videos on Youtube so far.

Dave Gamble‘s favourite tweets (yay, made the grade both days!)

Google gets it right! Edit: Oh for god’s sake. Yes it’s fake. It’s the oldest joke since Google introduced the autocomplete feature. A fake joke about a fake medicine. Lighten up. Also, Crispian’s post. Plus it’s not that different from the actual result anyway.

QEDcon: Day 1

This weekend I’ve come to Manchester, for the first time ever, to QEDcon!

It’s just kicked off and it’s all very exciting. George Hrab is our host all day and Bruce Hood has now taken the stage.

Our hostel is pretty good – I’m staying with 7 nerdy guys (aren’t they lucky!) and actually, having remembered my ear plugs, slept ok!

It’s surprisingly warm up here; every opportunity, the fact we’re in THE NORTH is mentioned. It’s also raining – we did not expect that at all.

The main hall is impressive (will put some photos up later!) but Ian has pointed out that the chandelier is flickering and now that’s all I can see. Alex has also stolen my twitter, while I ran to the bathroom, and virtually assaulted Rhys. But I am using his netbook, so fair enough I suppose.

There is also a very authentic model Dalek in the corner.

Ooh, Bruce is talking about how the public don’t trust scientists – a subject close to my heart of course. And why people have such strong tendencies to believe weird things – it’s all because of how our brains have evolved.

Hecklers! “Prove it!” – bit of an in-joke there it seems.

Anyway, I’m going to listen a bit more now. More later!

—

Links:

An extensive review of the day from Paul Jenkins