The Skeptic Canary

This Tuesday, the first one after TAM London, I will be giving my talk on the Scientific Method at the Liverpool University Guild of Students. I’ve been invited by the HASA society, and the talk is the same one I gave to the Leeds Skeptics a few months ago.

I don’t want to give too much away, but my talk will cover the scientific method itself, how people like quacks and creationists abuse it, and what can happen when it isn’t followed. I also cover randomized double blinded controlled trials, and show how seemingly random data can be manipulated to support outrageous claims.

The venue is right next to the Metropolitan Cathedral, and it would be great to see you there!

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The good BHA (the British Humanist Association) are campaigning for a change in next year’s national census. The problem? The question “What is your religion?” leads to a very distorted picture of the state of religion in the UK.

As the BHA explain on their website, asking “What is your religion?” implies that you DO have a religion, and it prompts people to tick a religion, regardless of how strongly they hold their beliefs. For example, someone who goes to church every week may tick the same box as someone who was baptized but never thinks about church. Consequently, people of religion are hugely over-represented, and all thanks to this one biased question.

This over-representation of the religious population has been used to justify various detrimental religious policies, including the expansion of faith based schools and keeping the 26 Bishops in the House of Lords as of right. To help stop this, if in doubt choose ‘no religion’ in 2011!