Does Nigel Lawson's defeat mean that religions should lose charitable status?

I was interested to see that Nigel Lawson's anti-science Global Warming Policy Foundation has been rapped on the knuckles by the Charity Commission for not meeting the requirement for an educational charity to be unbiassed (and, by implication, evidence based). I presume the same requirements don't apply to religious charities, as surely they would be in trouble too.

Some while ago I wrote a post about a visit from the Jehovah's Witnesses and how their leaflet inspired me to realise that it is difficult to apply the Bible to everyday 'big questions' like 'What should we do about terrorists?' because the advice is so conflicting that it is possible to come up with pretty well diametrically opposed recommendations.

Shortly after writing this I had a bit of an epiphany*. I've always struggled to understand how climate change deniers can come up with such a strangely selective view that went against the majority scientific consensus - but now it was obvious. They don't use a scientific approach, they use a religious one.

The scientific approach is to use the theory best supported by experts in the field given the current evidence, until new evidence suggests we should do otherwise. There is always some contradictory evidence, and often one or two experts who disagree with the majority, but it is clearly not providing a good scientific view to take an alternative theory as 'fact' when it overwhelming countered by the best supported theory - the scientific consensus, as it is often called in climate change. So, for instance, most cosmologists support the Big Bang theory. Not all of them - and it could eventually prove wrong. But for the moment it is the theory that is best supported by the evidence, and so deserves the status of being the theory we currently work with.

However, those using a religious argument have a different approach. Because a source like the Bible or the Koran has so many different and contradictory concepts and interpretations, it is possible to support pretty well any thesis using religious argument. All you do is pick and choose the quotations from the Bible etc. that support your view and ignore the rest. And that's exactly what climate change deniers do. (As do those who think science is unfairly against alternative medicine, or ghosts or whatever.) They pick and choose the evidence that fits their worldview.

This is totally unscientific - but it is inevitably how arguments based on religious documents work. This isn't science, it's religion. And those who talk this way about climate change (or any other application of science) are entirely missing the point when they use this approach.

So we can see why it is that the GWPF will inevitably struggle to meet that 'unbiassed' requirement for an education charity. But, as I say, should we also be asking the Charity Commissioners to ensure that religious institutions given charitable status (think of the arguments over whether Scientology should be given charitable status) are equally required to be unbiassed or to lose that benefit? It's an intriguing thought.

* Yes, I do know what I've done there.

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

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