After weeks of endless reinforcement of gender stereotypes in the form of 'his and hers' Christmas presents and a thousand other holiday-related nonsense articles that made me want to eat my eyeballs, on my final night at work before 2013, I finally came across a couple of articles that made me smile. So in the spirit of Christmas, or something, a not-so-angry post today!
The first one was an interview with Jim al-Khalili in the Independent, in which he talks about religion, Christmas and his appointment as the new head of the British Humanist Association. I'm a fan of his anyway, so in that respect I'm probably biased here, but it was great to read an interview with someone who is happy to say that while he is an atheist, he respects other people's rights to believe in god(s). While I absolutely adore Richard Dawkins, his constant Christian-baiting isn't productive, and - dare I say it - it gets a bit annoying at times. Although I can only assume his comments this week that raising a kid as a Catholic is worse than child abuse were made with the express intention of outraging 'Mad Mel' Phillips, which succeeded and of which I can only approve.
But I digress. Although Mr Al-Khalili defends the right of religious people to believe whatever they want, he is quite vocal about the need to keep those beliefs private - he advocates the exclusion of bishops from the House of Lords and argues against the teaching of creationism in science classes, as well as speaking out against the rise of pseudo-science in recent years. I for one look forward to having him as the president of the BHA because I think his 'niceness' can do much for humanism in the UK.
The second article that made me happy this morning was in the Guardian, which reported that Andrew Wakefield, the doctor struck off for causing the MMR vaccine scare, has won the inaugural Golden Duck award. Mr Wakefield beat Tory MP David Tredinnick and Prince Charles to the prize - I'm sure he'll be delighted with his win. Anyway, aside from making me laugh, it's also good to see that things are being done to raise awareness of pseudoscience and unsubstantiated claims. Hopefully, over time those who continue to believe in all kinds of alternative remedies will begin to appreciate the science that has shown time and again that these treatments are, in the best cases, no better than placebo, and in the worst they're outright dangerous.
Anyway, that's it from me for today. Merry Christmas everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment