Posted 1:24 pm by Ken

Decades

Some mercifully lost diary records my excitement at the first decade rollover I was old enough to be aware of, in 1969. I remember being excited about it, because I'd read enough science fiction set in or referring to the 1970s to think of the 1970s as the beginning of the scientifictional future. I wondered where I'd be in 1979: maybe fighting for king and country against China? (Why king? Possibly because some near-future political novel by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond - The Smile on the Face of the Tiger? Scotch on the Rocks? - had Elizabeth making a graceful handover to Charles. Why China? Well, that was probably in the novel too, but it was also in the geopolitical wisdom of the age, which saw the big war to come as pitting an alliance of the US/UK, Europe and Russia against China and its allies in the Third World.)

Within a couple of years, of course, Nixon went to China and Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.

In 1979, the war with Eurasia had just turned hot in a cold place. My new girlfriend, Carol, rather aptly impressed my family by winning a game of Risk, though that wasn't why they took her to their hearts.

My recollections of late 1989 include watching the BBC news from Romania in the cafteria of a shopping centre with Carol and our children, just before or just after Christmas. I quit smoking on Christmas day, had one cigarette at Hogmanay, and then none for a couple of months. Some time in February or March I took our daughter on a Woodcraft Folk weekend. Woodcraft Folk kids tend to be free range. By the time the adults had some time on their own on the first evening I was cadging roll-ups.

In 1999 we all went into Edinburgh for the big century rollover. I had flu and was a bit feverish, but it still felt joyful. We'd made it out of the twentieth century alive! Firework residue and drops of sprayed beer fell on happy upturned faces. I had an elated hope that the new century might develop unencumbered by the ideologies that had dominated the old. Hah!

Here in the last day of 2009, I have absolutely no idea what the world will be like in 2019, or what we can expect in the ten years ahead. All I know is that 2019 seems a lot farther in the future than 2009 seemed in 1999.

Labels: history, writing

Posted 4:26 pm by Ken

What I did in 2009

I've had a really good year as a Writer in Residence for the Genomics Forum: generous facilities, total creative freedom, friendly and helpful colleagues. Blog posts about my activities, and/or relevant (however tangentially) to the Forum's concerns, are grouped here. Although my half-time employment has come to an end, my residency (and Pippa's) hasn't, for which we're grateful. Until further notice we're free to use the office, and we'll continue to develop (and expand into other media- watch this space!) the Human Genre Project, and to promote and participate in events, such as Base Pairs and Couplets, the third of our Social Sessions - this one, on Jan 13, is on science and poetry, and we're privileged to have a very fine line-up indeed: Ron Butlin, Brian McCabe, Tracey S. Rosenberg, Kelley Swain and Ryan Van Winkle.

Finished one novel, The Restoration Game, due out March 2010. Well ahead of the curve of writing science fiction set in the nearer and nearer future, this novel is set in 2008 AD. Except for the flashbacks. From another viewpoint, though, it's set in AUC 2248, which makes it science fiction. (Classicists will notice that the Year of the City 2248 is not the equivalent of the Year of Our Lord 2008.)

Wrote three short stories: 'Death Knocks', for Geoff Ryman's anthology When It Changed: Science Into Fiction, 'Sidewinders', for Ian Watson and Ian Whates' anthology The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, and 'A Tulip for Lucretius' (dissected here), for Subterranean. One flash fiction, 'Reflective Surfaces" for New Scientist's Sci-Fi Special.

I've just started writing my next novel, provisionally titled Sin Bio. Drawing heavily on the good old English traditions of the cosy catastrophe and the Aga saga, it's set in the near future and has a genomics theme.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local, self-promotion, writing

Posted 5:20 pm by Ken

Season's Greetings

Happy Christmas, Hannukah, Yuletide, or other solstice festival of your choice to you all!

Labels: local

Posted 11:33 am by Ken

Working in the spaceship yards, for real

On Tuesday I gave a talk at Strathclyde University's Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory's seminar series. Professor Colin McInnes (who I'd met at Satellite 2, and whose talk there was recently summarised in an article in The Herald) and Dr Malcolm Macdonald had invited me, and they showed me around the labs and took me out for a few drinks, a meal and a very stimulating conversation afterwards - for all of which, much thanks.

You can see the seminar here - there's an opening sample on the page, and buttons for streaming or downloading if you want to see and hear the whole talk and discussion. Here's the (slightly tongue in cheek) abstract:

"The Imaginary Engine: notes for a research proposal on the 1990s private space space opera boom in science fiction".

Abstract: The relationship between scientific-technological advance and science fiction has often been assumed and celebrated but seldom rigorously examined. A possible theoretical framework for doing this has emerged in the discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS): 'the political economy of promise'. Usually applied in the context of biotechnology, this framework looks at the ways in which the 'promise' of new technologies or scientific breakthroughs is used to mobilise resources – of labour, capital, research grants, political credibility, public acceptance – in the real world. Imaginary representations of promising developments play an integral part in this process, acting as (almost literally) 'fictitious capital' in the boom phase of an economic cycle.

It is suggested that science fiction, by treating future possibilities as actualities, may function as an even more literal fictitious capital. In the second half of the 1990s, rapid technological development in, and the ever-widening application of, information technology and the consequent dot-com boom was accompanied by a surge of technological optimism – albeit combined, often, with social pessimism – in science fiction. One such area of optimism concerned the near prospect of large-scale private space exploration and settlement. Records of this period exist in the archives of numerous newsgroups and semi-public mailing lists such as alt.space, sci.space, and the Extropians email list. A mapping of discussion on these lists with influential works of written SF of that period and with speculative investment in a number of fields is outlined and further research proposed.

Though my delivery, as usual, gives the impression that I am painfully dredging words from the vast shallows of my mind, and the camera and mic are unforgiving of my tics (fiddling with my glasses, clicking my pen, pushing up my sleeves), I had the benefit of an involved and SF-savvy audience whose questions and comments contributed a great deal.


I was well impressed by the scale and scope of the engineering department, by the enthusiasm of the staff and the research students I met, and by the work of the Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory, which is collaborating with local space industry and other partners in numerous fields, including the exciting field of microspacecraft.

They're building spaceships on the Clyde! Who knew? As one of the builders points out, there are a lot of young people in Scotland who really need to know, and he's doing something about it.

Labels: climate, genomics, local, Scottish politics, self-promotion, skiffy, writing

Posted 1:22 pm by Ken

Canadian SF writer beaten, arrested, and charged with assault by US border police

Canadian SF writer Peter Watts is in serious legal trouble, after making the mistake, on his way back to the free world, of asking US border guards why they were searching his car. His friends and colleagues are rallying round, and so can you, via the PayPal button on this page and of course by spreading the word.

Labels: skiffy, WoT

Posted 1:02 pm by Ken

How knowing about our DNA changes our sense of who we are

Genomics Forum deputy director Steve Sturdy has an article on the new twists that genomics has given to ideas of biological, social, ethnic, family and personal identity - reinforcing some, undermining others, and leaving few untouched - in the current issue of The Philospher's Magazine.

Labels: evolution, genomics

Posted 12:01 pm by Ken

New fiction on the Human Genre Project

First, on the Y chromosome, we have a Speciation: the Day REDE OS Forked by Tasmanian sculptor Meika Loofs Samorzewski. Second, on chromosome 4, we're proud to have a brief extract from The Embalmer's Book of Recipes, by well-known science-and-fiction writer-and-speaker Ann Lingard.

Labels: genomics, writing

Posted 10:42 pm by Ken

Why Kepler's Somnium is (or isn't) hard SF, and other more interesting questions

Last month BBC producer Louise Yeoman invited me to the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh to contribute to a 20-minute BBC radio programme about Kepler's Somnium, which also featured Andrew Brown, the observatory's Professor Avery Meiksin, and science historian James Connor.

You can now hear it on the BBC iPlayer, and it's worth a listen. Prof Meiksin is a joy to listen to. As for me, well ... I sound a lot more coherent and fluent than I sounded to myself at the time. (Good editing, probably.) Whatever argument I may (or may not) have made to justify the fine distinction I drew between Kepler's speculation and hard SF (some ramble about Gernsback, I suspect) is lost to my memory as much as to the recording, if it was ever there in the first place. Also, I got Hal Clement's name slightly wrong - from nervousness rather than ignorance.

Andrew Brown evidently enjoyed his visit, particularly to the library:

So there I was on Tuesday, touching the vellum of a 13th century manuscript of Alhazen, another of Aristotle, and then a first edition of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus and one of Kepler's Nova Astronomia. In the shelves on the wall were Galileo's works.

We were meant to be making a radio programme – an interval talk for Radio 3 – but the producer and I and our guest Ken MacLeod just frolicked round that room of priceless books like salmon woken by a spate. Serious work was impossible for a while. There was nothing to say that was adequate in the face of so much beauty and so much history; for anyone who writes, the feel of a physical object which has been read for 800 years is a quite extraordinary thrill.

'Oh monks, monks, monks,' I heard him murmur, looking at a volume of hundreds of pages of minute invariant uncial script, 'that this labour of yours should be used as a cheap analogy for DNA replication!'

Labels: genomics, history, local, self-promotion, writing

Posted 3:17 pm by Ken

Human Genre Project updates

Three new poems at the Human Genre Project: Dave Lordan's Surviving the recession is a fine rant, but not at first glance obviously about genetics. Dave explains: 'It hasn't got to do with a specific gene, but with the overall idea of socio-environmental adaptation.' It scores. John Morris's Crazy Quilt makes a point about DNA, and Inchoate Origins by Karen Booth speculates on a possible ancestor of us all.

Labels: evolution, genomics

Posted 9:54 am by Ken

Guilt-tripping and hair shirts not way to go, hair-shirted Green guilt-tripper admits

Mark Lynas, who recently welcomed recession and rising oil prices, and compared flying to planting mass-casualty long-delayed time-bombs, has had something of a change of heart:

If the lesson for scientists is that the era when they can practice their trade entirely separately from the rest of society is well and truly over, the lesson for environmentalists is equally harsh. Having spent years (once again, myself included) reminding the public of the horrifying potential consequences of climate change, and demanding major lifestyle change on the part of ordinary people, it seems that our message is not just falling on deaf ears – but may even be counterproductive.

We have to start accentuating the positive, rather than constantly invoking apocalypse. Getting off fossil fuels is a necessity, but that does not mean that people’s lives must be made harder or more austere. Forget all the “war economy” analogies, locally grown jam and appeals to save old clothes. Our message needs to be a forward-looking one of hope, prosperity and technological progress.

We also have to stop trying to make people feel guilty. No, flying isn’t analogous to child abuse. Polar bears won’t drop from the sky. Constantly accusing normal people of immoral behaviour is perhaps a way to get noticed, but not a clever way to win converts. And the normal people in question, upset at being accused of killing babies every time they step onto Ryanair, will be very susceptible to the first conspiracy theorist who whispers in their ear: “Don’t worry, it’s not true.”

Labels: climate, far left, genomics, libertarian, squibs

Posted 1:45 pm by Ken

New poem on The Human Genre Project

'Communication Breakdown', by ecologist Julian Derry, author of Darwin in Scotland and the rather more technical Piospheres.

Labels: evolution, genomics, writing

Posted 8:50 pm by Ken

CRU hackers reveal: Climate science conducted by human beings!

The right-wing blogosphere is having a pearl-clutching fit of the vapours, modulated by a little concern trolling, over this:

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

These 33 words, it seems, are all most of them need to convince themselves they're living in a Michael Crichton novel, and they're an army of Davids, each lockstep blogpost slinging another shiny wet pebble from the brook at the glowering forehead of the Giant Green Climate Machine. And did you know that Al Gore is rich and Michael Moore is fat?

Few have stopped to think that 'adding in the real temp[erature]s' is a curious way to hide a decline in global temperatures, let alone that a decline in global temperatures for the past half-century would be hard to cover up. Even fewer have bothered to examine the context. What all this suggests to me is that the CRU scientists are probably right, and that most of the 'climate sceptics' are anything but sceptics.

And the seamy side of science, which has got poor old George Monbiot to issue a gleefully hailed apology and a disgraceful call for resignations? Science corrupted by politics? Bollocks, I say. That's what science - all science - is like. Peter Watts nails it.

Labels: climate, genomics, libertarian

Posted 1:43 pm by Ken

"It’s like Sputnik went up and we think it’s just a shooting star."

Thomas L. Friedman on how Red China's going Green could leave the US running to catch up. (Via.)

Labels: climate, genomics, squibs

Posted 2:11 pm by Ken

Darwin discussed tonight at McEwan Hall

Late notice, I know, but a panel of distinguished academics are discussing Darwin tonight at the McEwan Hall, Teviot Place, Edinburgh. Online bookings full, but spaces available - ask at the door.

Labels: coming attractions, evolution, genomics, local

Posted 4:40 pm by Ken

The body in the library: crime authors discuss forensic science

I was going to blog about our very successful second Social Session, with Ian Rankin, Lin Anderson and Steve Sturdy, but I see that Edinburgh City Libraries' own blog has beaten me to it, with photos and everything.

Labels: genomics, local, writing

Posted 2:20 pm by Ken

Three new poems

Three new poems up this week at The Human Genre Project: joseph merrick's bones by Angie Werren, Chromosome 2: love remembered by Chris S. Packard, and a witty haiku/senryu by Edinburgh poet Juliet Wilson.

If you haven't looked at it before, and even if you have, check it out. We now have around sixty items, some by established writers, others by new writers, and all with something worth saying and well said. And of course, if you have a poem, short story, flash fiction or personal reflection - or if you know anyone who does - inspired by genetics or genomics, you know what to do: Send it in.

Labels: genomics, local, writing

Posted 10:39 am by Ken

Chris Harman, 1942 - 2009

Chris Harman, who since the 1960s was a leading thinker and activist in the Socialist Workers Party (Britain), died on Friday. Although I didn't know him personally, his writings had a huge effect on my life, as they did on many thousands of others.

Condolences to all those who did know him, particularly his family and friends.

Labels: far left, history, Marxism

Posted 9:47 pm by Ken

Why We Fight

A 'senior serving soldier' tells The Independent about some problems with training the Afghan police:

We went out to Helmand to mentor the Afghan National Police without understanding the level they were at. We thought we would be arresting people, helping them to police efficiently. Instead we were literally training them how to point a gun on the ranges, and telling them why you should not stop cars and demand "taxes".

Most of them were corrupt and took drugs, particularly opium. The lads would go into police stations at night and they would be stoned; sometimes they would fire indiscriminately at nothing.

[...]

It was difficult just getting them to a basic level, to do things like man a post. They would take drugs, go to sleep, leave their post, have sex with each other.

What?

Labels: War on Terror

Posted 12:20 pm by Ken

Battle of Ideas

Last Saturday I took part in a panel on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and the 'designer babies' controversy at Battle of Ideas, an annual festival of discussion organised by the Institute of Ideas (IoI). The panel, 'Frankenstein's Daughters: from science fiction to science fact?', sponsored by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and the Wellcome Trust, was chaired by Science Media Centre director Fiona Fox. Leading fertility specialist and practioner Dr Alan Thornhill opened with a presentation on the realities of PGD. Mark Henderson, science editor at The Times, argued that regulation must be based on what's possible, without 'straying into science fiction'. I agreed, but pointed out that science fiction has debated some current real issues decades in advance. Sandy Starr, of the Progress Educational Trust, added that science fiction, and bold speculation generally, keeps us in mind of the 'big picture', future possibilities, and moral arguments.

The audience response came from several different points of view, and a stimulating dialogue developed. Ann Furedi of BPAS, from the floor, questioned the widespread idea of ethics as being about what we shouldn't do, rather than about what we should - a point that turned my closing response into a little rant about just what a change there would be if more of us started thinking in terms of what we bloody well should be doing.

I stayed for the weekend (as a speaker, my hotel room paid for by the IoI, for which thanks) and attended as many events as I could fit in. They were for the most part just as interesting. I'm well aware that the IoI is controversial, and I don't agree with everything that they do and say, but I'll say this for them: Almost every knot of conversation I encountered, over two days and two long evenings, was a group of people arguing about ideas. You don't come across that very often, even at SF conventions.

Labels: genomics, libertarian, Marxism, skiffy

Posted 7:08 pm by Ken

StarShipSofa Stories Volume 1

I've just received my author copy of this fine work, and very good it looks too. Designed throughout in the style of an old pulp magazine or paperback, from the pseudo-distressed cover to the retro ads for products that no longer exist and probably never worked when they did, it collects a number of stories from the site's podcasts. Available as a free download and in several hardcopy editions, the book got a rave review on BoingBoing.

Labels: self-promotion, skiffy, writing

Posted 6:46 pm by Ken

The sweetest picture of chromosomes you ever did see

Literally - it's made from sweets. (Via.)

Labels: genomics

Posted 4:21 pm by Ken

Social Sessions turn to crime

The second of the Social Sessions, at Edinburgh Central Library on 18 November, about genes and crime in reality and fiction, is now open for registration.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local

Posted 8:27 pm by Ken

Snark of the week

From the Times Higher Ed.:

There are also persistent rumours that a film company is looking into a big production of Atlas Shrugged for a television series, and this could bring in new Objectivist converts, such as those who do not read.

Labels: libertarian, squibs

Posted 2:18 pm by Ken

A nice comment on last week's social Session

I've added two clarifications in square brackets and stuck in HTML links.

Scotland on Sunday Review, 18.10.09, p. 10

'The Browser' - Stuart Kelly

'C P Snow famously derided the "two cultures" mind-set that separates arts and sciences as two distinct and discreet spheres of activity, and though much has been done to dissolve this distinction, the chasm still remains. one of the most innovative attepts to bridge the divide has been the Writer in Residence scheme for the Edinburgh Genomics Forum, currently held by Ken MacLeod [and Pippa Goldschmidt - KMM]. Last Wednesday, they held a fascinating debate on the depiction of scientists in fiction, with speculative fiction writer Andrew J Wilson giving a whistle-stop tour of the various swivel-eyed, shock-haired, demented geniuses from Victor Frankenstein onwards. He was accompanied by three practicing scientists, Emma Frow, Steve Yearley and Chris French, who all spoke eloquently on the stereotypes of boffins (Dungeons and Dragons was mentioned, as well as the persistence of the "Eureka!" idea - most science is, unfortunately, pure slog). Afterwards, I was lucky enough to get a copy of this year's best contribution to the idea of Homecoming - a gorgeous pamphlet called "Alba Ad Astra", produced by the Writers' Bloc Group [and available from the Forum's other partner for the event, Transreal Fiction, who had kindly provided a bookstall - KMM], which details Scotland's forgotten (and fictitious) space programme."

Labels: genomics, local

Posted 7:30 am by Ken

The Mail on Sunday can still surprise

The Daily Mail and its weekend stablemate the Mail on Sunday have, let us say, a generally conservative stance. It's not the sort of paper in which you'd expect to find this:

When people ask me what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary in the Seventies and Eighties, most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state.

They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent.

But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie, a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

[... lots of detail about a happy working-class childhood...]

When communism in Hungary ended in 1989, I was not only surprised, but saddened, as were many others. Yes, there were people marching against the government, but the majority of ordinary people - me and my family included - did not take part in the protests.

Our voice - the voice of those whose lives were improved by communism - is seldom heard when it comes to discussions of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain.

Instead, the accounts we hear in the West are nearly always from the perspectives of wealthy emigrés or anti-communist dissidents with an axe to grind.

Communism in Hungary had its downside. While trips to other socialist countries were unrestricted, travel to the West was problematic and allowed only every second year. Few Hungarians (myself included) enjoyed the compulsory Russian lessons.

There were petty restrictions and needless layers of bureaucracy and freedom to criticise the government was limited. Yet despite this, I believe that, taken as a whole, the positives outweighed the negatives.

Twenty years on, most of these positive achievements have been destroyed.

People no longer have job security. Poverty and crime is on the increase. Working-class people can no longer afford to go to the opera or theatre. As in Britain, TV has dumbed down to a worrying degree - ironically, we never had Big Brother under communism, but we have it today.

Elsewhere, the Mail on Sunday (like the Guardian last week) casts an intriguing light on Mussolini's early career. Next time someone tells you 'Mussolini was a socialist, you know!' you can always say, 'Yes, but at least he was on the Decent Left!'

Labels: Marxism, squibs, WoT

Posted 4:39 pm by Ken

'[T]here are novels set in this universe?'

My recent short story, A Tulip for Lucretius, is the subject of this month's discussion at Torque Control's Short Story Club.

Labels: self-promotion, skiffy, writing

Posted 1:30 pm by Ken

Retorts fizz in sociology discussion

The first of our Social Sessions (below) went well. More people signed up than we could accomodate, though in the event every seat was taken and (as far as I know) no one had to be turned away at the door. The Forum's admin staff and the University's service staff had worked hard to turn the main meeting room in the offices into an informal discussion venue, with low lighting, seats and small tables arranged in curving rows and drinks and nibbles strategically placed.

The crowd was more or less the mix I'd hoped we would attract - some social science people, several 'actual scientists' (a phrase which, as I mentioned later, I keep having to stop myself saying when there are social scientists around), and a very creditable showing from Edinburgh SF fandom and the Edinburgh literary scene.

After about half an hour of informal mingling, during which Mike Calder from Transreal set up a book table in the foyer outside, we all took our seats. I introduced the opening speakers and the subject: the portrayal of scientists in SF and science studies. Andrew Wilson drew on his long experience with Writers' Bloc to give a lively reading of relevant snippets from Frankenstein, The Island of Dr Moreau, Gregory Benford's Timescape and Paul McAuley's The Secret of Life. Steve Yearley outlined what science studies tries to do, why in the 1990s some scientists felt that it was an enemy within academia (hence the Science Wars), and why the issues it tackles - such as defining what exactly distinguishes science from non-science - have some importance in the wider world, including law (who counts as an expert witness?) and education. Emma Frow then brought the interaction of science and science studies into focus in her own work with a group of scientists working in the new field of synthetic biology. The view from the other end of the sociologists' microscope was given by Dr Chris French, who'd not just prepared a five-minute talk as requested but in true scientific spirit run a survey among his colleagues on the question.

The discussion that followed was still going strong when I finally had to call a halt about two hours after we'd started, and it continued in a local pub (The Canon's Gait) and in the smoke-huddle around its doorway.

Labels: genomics, local

Posted 3:39 pm by Ken

'I am Spart!', say a touching number of Tory bloggers

Leftwing blogger and author Dave Osler is facing a libel case over a blog comment. The implications for political blogging in the UK are considerable. Bloggers from left and right, including (I'm pleased to see) some of the more, ah, vehement stalwarts of the British right-libertarian/Tory blogosphere, are rallying round. 'Speaking on behalf of the political blogosphere, may I say that while you're clearly a terminally deluded lefty imbecile, you're our terminally deluded lefty imbecile,' says one. Further expressions of fraternal solidarity would be welcome.

Labels: far left, libertarian, writing

Posted 4:43 pm by Ken

Personal ad

Young Master Early has a used car for sale. Good condition, careful owner, etc.

Labels: local

Posted 4:08 pm by Ken

'I'm not sure "bimbo" is the best translation'

The Conservapedia crew are busy rewriting retranslating the Bible to cleanse it of liberal bias. (Via.) Their talk page for the Gospel According to Mark is a record of stupidity and blundering that some day they are going to wish had never been there. They've had particular trouble updating the name of the Third Person of the Trinity ('ghost is misconstrued as spectre or phantasm, rather than spirit (interestingly, they're the same word in German, geist, from which I imagine we get the wording', is one scholarly contribution) and after considering 'Holy Force' and 'Divine Force' have settled (for now) on 'Divine Guide'. Which just makes the Third Person sound like some wandering swami.

They also shamelessly add to and mangle scripture. The unforgettable:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

becomes:

The messenger preaches among skeptics, "Prepare for the way of the Lord and make straight His path."

And -

And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.

becomes:

Jesus asked the intellectuals, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: doing good or evil? Saving a life, or killing one? The intellectuals did not answer."

'The scribes' are 'the intellectuals', you see, with all their book larnin.

Update 6/10/09: My brother James MacLeod has been quick off the mark with a cartoon.

Labels: atheism, squibs

Posted 11:15 am by Ken

Speaking of which ...

I'm now on Twitter.

Labels: self-promotion, writing

Posted 6:20 pm by Ken

It's what all the young folks are doing these days

Charles Darwin is on a long sea voyage, and he has a blog. (Via.)

His latest news from the far side of the world is that the Brits have taken the Falklands.

Labels: evolution, genomics

Posted 12:23 pm by Ken

Sunday revelations

Godless prophet PZ Myers has revealed that Lucy is actually married to her ostensible opponent in the cosmic struggle, Mr Deity. This explains a lot. PZ even has photographic evidence of his encounter with these two supernatural beings.

Elsewhere in the eternal conflict between good and evil, Tony Blair's chances of becoming President of the EU have increased. Thanks, Ireland! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Labels: atheism, squibs

Posted 3:48 pm by Ken

Socially mediated

The Genomics Network is now on Twitter. Give it some love. I've just made a couple of tweets to it myself, one of them about an upcoming event in Glasgow, held in association with listings mag The Skinny, with the intriguing title 'Is Monogamy Deviant?' Be there or be square.

Another of my tweets points out that the Human Genre Project has some new pieces on it, so please have a look. I'd be interested in comments not just on the content of the site but also on its layout and general user-friendliness. And, of course, links to the site and contributions are always welcome.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local

Posted 2:06 pm by Ken

The Laboratory of Dr Latour, and Other Stories

The Social Sessions 01: The Laboratory of Doctor Latour, and Other Stories

Date: Wednesday 14 Oct 2009 17:30 - 19:30

Guests: Andrew J. Wilson (Writers' Bloc), Professor Steve Yearley (ESRC Genomics Forum), Dr Emma Frow (ESRC Genomics Forum), Dr Chris French (Lecturer in Microbial Biotechnology, University of Edinburgh)

Host: Ken Macleod, Writer in Residence, Genomics Forum

Organised by: Genomics Forum in partnership with Writers' Bloc and Transreal Fiction

Venue: Boardroom, ESRC Genomics Forum, 3rd Floor, St John's Land, Holyrood Road, University of Edinburgh

The Event: Drinks from 5.30pm in the ESRC Genomics Forum will be followed by a discussion, led by host Ken MacLeod and his guests, exploring how science fiction has portrayed scientific work.

The reckless 'mad scientist' like Frankenstein or Dr Moreau seldom appears in modern science fiction - some of whose writers are scientists themselves.
But do any of these fictional portrayals match what social scientists have found when observing scientists in their natural habitat? And how do scientists feel about sociologists watching them, and about SF writers imagining them?

The Social Sessions are a carnival of discussions about science and literature taking place October 2009 - January 2010.

This event is FREE, but due to venue capacity please RSVP to reserve a place. Email: genomics.forum@ed.ac.uk Tel: 0131 651 4747

Further details here.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local, skiffy, writing

Posted 8:12 am by Ken

' ... to re-forge the alloy that once made SF great.'

Late last year Geoff Ryman invited me to take part in an intriguing experiment: an anthology of science fiction short stories, each story written in consultation with an actual scientist and based on that scientist's current research. My own contribution was inspired Dr Richard Blake's work on the project known as the Virtual Physiological Human. My immediate vague notion of taking the usual SF approach to such humane, beneficial developments (how could this advance be grossly misused, and what are the military applications?) suddenly came into focus and got an opening line and a title when I heard my son (a journalist) say: 'I hate death knocks.'

Looking down the list of other contributors, and recalling the research areas I was too slow to grab (the Large Hadron Collider! Antarctica! the Moon! Nanotech armour!), I'm really looking forward to seeing the anthology, and I don't have long to wait: When It Changed: Science into Fiction is to be published and launched next month.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, skiffy, writing

Posted 7:45 pm by Ken

The Trease Project

Farah Mendlesohn is blogging her research and reading on the influential writer of children's historical fiction, Geoffrey Trease. Who he was:

Geoffrey Trease published his first historical novel for children, Bows Against the Barons in 1934. His last novel was published in 1997, in the year he died. I think it can be plausibly argued that he created the modern version of the historical novel for children, that lasted for most of the twentieth century, and he certainly helped to create a market for the likes of Rosemary Sutcliffe, Hester Burton, Ronald Welch and Henry Treece and many others. But he didn't just do that. Trease was quite left wing. He never joined a party as far as I know, but he set out to write a new form of history for children, which didn't focus on great men and women, but on the you and me of history. His works are full of sly little digs at the traditions of Empire, the assumptions of Progress, and the questions people should ask when they read history.

Labels: history, Marxism, writing

Posted 9:16 am by Ken

Let's talk about genes ...

This young man seems to have the mission of the Genomics forum well sussed. (Via.)

Labels: genomics

Posted 4:24 pm by Ken

Skiffy skeptics

I suppose every job has its taxi driver question, and for SF writers it's: 'Do you believe in all that, then?'

'Believe in all what?'

'You know - little green men.' (Or flying saucers, or whatever.)

The first time this happened my lengthy explanation was trumped by the driver saying, 'I gave that Erich von Daniken a lift once.'

I've heard it said that SF fans tend to be more sceptical of UFOs and paranormal claims generally than most people, but in my teens I certainly wasn't, so it's cheering to see tale of how a bit of outreach can change someone's mind.

Labels: skiffy

Posted 11:09 am by Ken

Special weird things

Kim Stanley Robinson's claim that recent British SF is 'the best British literature of our time' and that 'three or four of the last 10 Booker prizes should have gone to science fiction novels the juries hadn't read' has received a received a prompt smack-down from John Mullan, Booker Prize judge and professor of English at University College London, who said that he

"was not aware of science fiction," arguing that science fiction has become a "self-enclosed world".

"When I was 18 it was a genre as accepted as other genres," he said, but now "it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other."

(Via.)

Labels: skiffy, writing

Posted 11:23 am by Ken

More plugs

I clean forgot to mention that I have a flash fiction in the current issue of New Scientist and that I'm guest judge for the Edinburgh University Science Magazine's 'Edinburgh of the future' short story competition, which is open to all.

Labels: local, self-promotion, skiffy, writing

Posted 8:30 pm by Ken

Plugs

I have a Book Club article on M. John Harrison's The Centauri Device in the current issue of SFX; a story reprinted in Starship Sofa Stories Vol 1; and a very kind mention by John Jarrold in an interview for Fantasy Books Review.

Labels: self-promotion, skiffy, writing

Posted 2:10 pm by Ken

Well, that explains a lot

'It is not clear how the advancement of science tends towards the mental and moral improvement of the public.'

- The Charity Commission, 28 September 2006, cited in Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, Bantam Press, 2009

... on page 436, the last page of a very good book.

Labels: evolution, genomics

Posted 1:23 pm by Ken

Evolution is so last Ice Age ...

Human evolution in the advanced world has slowed down or stopped, Professor Steve Jones will argue in a public lecture to be held in the McEwan Hall on Tuesday 22 September at 6pm. Prof Jones is a most engaging speaker [as I've said before], and places for this free but ticketed event are likely to go fast, so get yours now.

Labels: coming attractions, evolution, genomics, local

Posted 4:26 pm by Ken

Last Night of the Book Festival

Well-organised as always, I completely failed to get a complimentary ticket to the Richard Dawkins event at the Book Festival. But I had a £20 note birthday present that I was determined to spend on a signed copy of The Greatest Show on Earth, so I went along last night on the off-chance. The returns queue was ten or so long at 5.30, which didn't look promising. The book wasn't in the bookshop, and in the signing tent I was told it wouldn't be on sale until just before Dawkins' event finished. I ducked into the Yurt (the Festival's canvas green room), grabbed a coffee, had a chat with Faith Brown and Christopher Brookmyre - both of whom urged me to try for a return - and joined the queue about 6.10, by which time the queue was nearly twice as long, but made up of different people than I'd seen earlier. Every minute or two a return came in and we moved forward by one. I got a ticket at 6.28 and dashed to the main tent, getting in a couple of minutes before the doors closed.

Chaired by Ruth Wishart, the event went well: Dawkins read from his book, had a conversation on stage with Ruth Wishart, then took questions from the crowd. I asked him whether he thought scientists of the Left were doomed to misunderstand him. He replied along the lines that he had sometimes been misunderstood as thinking that how the world is was how it ought to be, or that we should model society on Darwinian nature, which was quite the opposite of how he thought society should be. He'd always thought 'the anti-Darwinian party' would be a good slogan for a decent political party. This statement got a round of applause.

So I got to hand over my twenty pounds and get the book signed.

Yay!

(I'm about two-thirds of the way through, and it's vintage Dawkins - good solid stuff, with lots of new material.)

Labels: evolution, genomics, local

Posted 3:56 pm by Ken

Ten minutes at 10.00

Ben Smart, the first-place winner of the Genomics Forum's short story competition (which was initiated and organised by Pippa Goldschmidt), will be reading from his short story 'The Test' tomorrow (Wednesday), as part of the Book Festival's 'Ten at Ten' series. Tickets free. The winning stories and several runners-up have been published as an attractively-designed booklet pack, GM Fiction, and will be on sale in the bookshop tent.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local, writing

Posted 6:47 pm by Ken

A scientist, a philosopher and a theologian walked into a bar ...

... and had a discussion. The Highland Park Speigeltent, that being the bar, was pretty well crowded for Thursday night's panel 'Belief in Evolution: what does it mean?' Genomics Forum director Steve Yearley, who introduced the speakers, said he was going to assume we were all in some sense Darwinians here - though anyone who wasn't was free to question that - and that we were going to discuss what acceptance of evolution meant for our views about ourselves and society, the nature of human beings, and so on.

That would have been an interesting discussion.

The actual discussion, while certainly interesting, was about something else entirely. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne said he thought he'd been cast as the brash American, and that was what he was going to be. Evolution and religion are incompatible. 'Belief' in evolution is quite different from a religious belief. The first is based on having seen overwhelming empirical evidence, which it would be irrational not to accept. The other is based on no evidence at all, and if necessary in the teeth of the evidence. The difference is that between science and superstition.

John Dupré (philosopher) and John Brooke (theologian and science historian) disagreed, in detail and at length, while insisting that they were on the same side as Coyne on the reality of evolution (and paying handsome tribute to the cogency and clarity of his book). Dupré argued that the provisionality of science is its strength, and that most of what we now understand about evolution will be obsolete in fifty years. The facts in Coyne's book, and their irresistible implications, will remain as solid as they are now, but not all Coyne's own views on speciation, etc, will likewise stand the test of time. Brooke pointed out that leading Presbyterians and Anglicans (such as Asa Gray and William Temple) were won over to Darwin's ideas within months of the publication of The Origin, and remained Christians (in Temple's case, becoming Archbishop of Canterbury). Even the creationists can't be defeated by denouncing them as irrational: within their system of priorities, they are rational (though mistaken, mainly through inadequate theology rather than inadequate education or intelligence or even (in some deeply sad cases) acquaintance with the evidence).

I have to say that, though I disagreed with some of their points, the philosopher and the theologian had the best of the argument. Jerry Coyne, as I've found from reading his marvellous book and following his combative blog, and indeed from hearing him and Nick Lane talk the following day about the evidence for evolution, is a fine scientist and brilliant populariser of science. In philosophy of science, and in history of ideas, he's as likely as you and me and your average working scientist to get walked over by professionals in these fields. That's no disgrace. Division of labour - it's all in Ricardo.

What I'd still like to see, some day, is the discussion that Steve Yearley adumbrated and that didn't happen. I am thoroughly jaded with the argument with creationism, and indeed the whole science-and-religion thing. Been there, done that, got the bloody shirt. I loathe and despise creationism, and my main interest in it is in avenging the scars it has left on me. But its recent salience deserves explanation. My impression is that creationism and evolution have both changed since I first became acquainted with them in the 1960s and early 1970s. Back then, evolution was popularly understood as containing moral messages. Part of the reason for that was mistaken scientific theories - notably, group selection (as a major explanation) which was heavily relied on by Robert Ardrey, whose semi-racist speculations were widely read back in the day, as were the (variably more sound) works of Desmond Morris, Konrad Lorentz, Ashley Montagu, Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox, all of whom moralised in their different ways. Another part of the reason was fuzzy feel-good vulgarizations, which found their ecological niche and competitive advantage in the progressive temper of the time. Thomas Huxley's classic address, 'Evolution and Ethics', should have long ago nailed all such, but it didn't stop his grandson, Julian Huxley, from promulgating an 'Evolutionary Humanism' and from writing an enthusiastic introduction to Teilhard de Chardin's religiose sprinkling of saccharine pixie-dust on the same pathetic fallacy.

Christian anti-evolutionism, at that time, wasn't like modern creationism. It wasn't joined at the hip to insanities about a six-thousand-year-old Earth. It was a protest - valid enough in its own terms - against quite specious conclusions about the inevitability of human progress drawn from evolutionary thinking. (In the hands of, say, C. S. Lewis, this protest was quite compatible with public acceptance of - and private reservations about - evolution as a fact.) Even young-earthism started out (to stretch the principle of charity a little too far) at least presenting itself as as an alternate hypothesis, which could in principle be accepted even by atheists. (One can idly imagine a planet populated by all the organisms in the fossil record, devastated by a catastrophe in the recent past, leaving a spurious record of succession in the rocks, and with the actual evolution having occurred on another planet or in the deep pre-Cambrian.) But the evidence just didn't stack up, and the creation/catastrophe argument has moved from claims of hard facts on the table to waffle about 'presuppositions' and 'world-views', in an involuntary admission of evidential bankruptcy. The creationist style of thought, preeningly self-blinkered and paranoid, has become a watering-can for the tree of crazy. Of course the outright denialist strand of thinking was there all along, but why did it become dominant, and widespread, after the 1960s?

One reason, I'd suggest, is that popular understanding of evolution changed radically in the 1970s, with the works of first Jaques Monod and then Richard Dawkins. Chance and Necessity and The Selfish Gene both based their arguments firmly on the molecular, materialist account of life, and both insisted that no moral lessons or eschatological comfort could be drawn from the process - very much the reverse, in fact. The even more widely-read work of Stephen Jay Gould, though pitched in a different register, was likewise stark in its implications:

The radicalism of natural selection lies in its power to dethrone some of the deepest and most traditional comforts of Western thought, particularly the notion that nature's benevolence, order, and good design, with humans at a sensible summit of power and excellence, proves the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent creator who loves us most of all (the old-style theological version), or at least that nature has meaningful directions, and that humans fit into a sensible and predictable pattern regulating the totality (the modern and more secular version).

To these beliefs Darwinian natural selection presents the most contrary position imaginable. Only one causal force produces evolutionary change in Darwin's world: the unconscious struggle among individual organisms to promote their own personal reproductive success—nothing else, and nothing higher (no force, for example, works explicitly for the good of species or the harmony of ecosystems).

[...]

Darwin's system should be viewed as morally liberating, not cosmically depressing. The answers to moral questions cannot be found in nature's factuality in any case, so why not take the "cold bath" of recognizing nature as nonmoral, and not constructed to match our hopes? After all, life existed on earth for 3.5 billion years before we arrived; why should life's causal ways match our prescriptions for human meaning or decency?

That Gould made these points in a polemic against the 'Darwinian fundamentalists' (Dawkins, Dennett and Maynard Smith) makes the essential congruence of their views on exactly this point all the more significant. Monod and Dawkins would have agreed with every word, and wrote similar passages themselves.

It's this 'thrilling godlessness', as Martin Amis called it, that drives the fury of modern evolution denialism. Julian Huxley's 'Religion Without Revelation' of Evolutionary Humanism was no doubt troubling enough to believers, but at least it wasn't a vision of blind, pitiless indifference at the heart of things.

But what, as I said, I'd still like to see more discussion of are the implications of this changed view of evolution for secular ideologies. Does junking the woozy teleological version of evolution affect socialism, liberalism, conservatism? Monod thought so, but who else has done serious thinking about the question?

Labels: atheism, creationism, evolution, genomics, Marxism

Posted 2:46 pm by Ken

Best Amazon review thread evah

Start your own arms race with yummy yellowcake! Be sure to click on 'see all reviews'. (Via.) Even more disturbing than mail-order uranium ore, customers who bought this item also bought: novels by John Scalzi and Charles Stross; Forbidden Lego: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against!; and The Art of Computer Programming, Vol 4 by Donald E. Knuth.

Do have to draw you a picture, people?

Labels: skiffy, squibs, WoT

Posted 12:54 pm by Ken

Written in the genes, read at Charlotte Square

The Genomics Forum has for several years sponsored events at the Edinburgh Book Festival. This year, the forum is sponsoring three (all at 7 pm - 8.15 pm):

Tomorrow night (Thursday), Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution Is True, will be discussing 'Belief in Evolution: what does it mean?' with philosopher and Egenis director Professor John Dupré and theologian Professor John Brooke, chaired by Professor Steve Yearley (who is, incidentally, adamant that this isn't a discussion about whether evolution occurred, but about what it means for us that it did).

On Friday 21 August, the world's most medically-tested healthy man, best-selling author, science journalist and Wired Contributing Editor David Ewing Duncan, kicks around the question 'Do we need to know our personal genetic data?' with medical sociologist Professor Steve Sturdy, neuropathologist and Brain Bank Director Professor James Ironside and clinical geneticist Dr Mary Porteus.

Next week, on Thursday 27 August, I'll be chairing a panel on 'Genetics and Identity in the Year of "Homecoming"' with genealogist and biologist Dr Bruce Durie, acclaimed novelist Suhayl Saadi, and writer, producer and former National Poet of Wales Gwyneth Lewis.

Labels: coming attractions, evolution, genomics, local, self-promotion, writing

Posted 9:15 am by Ken

For one night only! (And some other free events)

Tonight (Tuesday) Andrew J. Wilson is reading his short story 'Under the Bright and Hollow Sky' at Underword, in Fingers Piano Bar, Frederick St, from 7.50pm to 8.40pm. Admission is free. I read the part of the story involving testimony by that dubious character 'Ken MacLeod'.

Down in the Grassmarket, Transreal Fiction (a fine SF and fantasy bookshop, and Fringe Venue 326 – page 132 of this year’s Fringe Programme) has a Summer Exhibition (running until Monday 31st August 2009) by talented photographer Madeleine Shepherd, called Alba ad Astra. Madeleine's superb colour photographs, showing curious aspects and odd angles of Scotland's recent industrial, architectural and military archaeological remains, are arranged around the shop. You can take a laminated guide to what they show - and what they suggest - around the exhibition. With some written input by members of Writers' Bloc, and some rarely-seen issues of the legendary space-movement newsletter Rocketry Scotland going as far back as 1938, this free exhibition sets out a case for the existence of a secret Scottish space programme.

A companion exhibition book is available, with a foreword by me.

Another free, ongoing event in a good local bookshop is the Edinburgh Book Fringe at Word Power, well worth checking out.

Labels: coming attractions, local, self-promotion

Posted 11:01 am by Ken

Cheerful thought

"Despair is a black leather jacket that everyone looks good in. Hope is a frilly pink dress that exposes your knees."

- Rebecca Solnit, (left) quoted in an article in today's Guardian asking whether the left has missed the open goal offered by the current crisis. An earlier (1932) reflection on the same point has become something of a classic (pdf).

Labels: far left, Marxism, squibs

Posted 9:26 am by Ken

The New Geology

While I was putting together the last-but-one post below I did some searches on relevant terms, and found two copies of George McCready Price's masterpiece The New Geology advertised on AbeBooks. One, still there, was offered for £220.90. The other was £15 from an Oxfam shop in England. I ordered the book and it arrived the following day - well done, Oxfam! It's a beautiful volume: solidly bound, profusely illustrated, clearly and persuasively written. It was long ago demolished with a few taps of the hammer by J. Laurence Kulp.

Labels: creationism

Posted 6:58 am by Ken

De-socialized medicine

Blogging pathologist Ilorien flags up a coup for fellow comments regular George Berger. Dutch-speaking reader(s), go here and scroll down.

Posted 2:40 pm by Ken

Jurassic Ark

Last Friday three hundred or so sceptics visited the Creation Museum, and lots of them have blogged about it. P.Z. Myers has written a slashing takedown, and provided a handy roundup of other reactions, including those of the estimable young blogger Blag Hag. Like most people, these sceptics identify creationism with the outlook promoted by the museum, and for all practical purposes they're right. But it was not always so.

One of the surprises in Ronald L. Numbers' The Creationists, which I've just read, is how recent and contingent even within creationism this whole Young Earth/Flood Geology farrago is. Well into the 1950s, many if not most mainstream (so to speak) fundamentalists accepted an old Earth, with progressive creation or even theistic evolution, which they accommodated to Genesis by postulating an indefinite length of time between the first and second verses (the 'gap theory') or within each creation day (the 'day-age theory'). Changing that took the life-long labour of George McCready Price, the source of whose commitment to a recent week-long creation was not so much the inspired words of Genesis as the inspired visions of the prophet Ellen G. White. Price's work in turn inspired the authors of The Genesis Flood.

Ken Ham's outfit, which sponsors the Museum, manages to outdo even these modern founders of flood geology, by sticking to the 4004 BC date for creation, instead of giving themselves a few thousand extra years of wiggle room for post-Flood prehistory. But, just as Eden had a snake, the Museum has a squiggle. As P.Z. points out, all the geological epochs are tagged ~2348 BC. Some day, an upstart challenger may yet damn Ham for that squiggle. What d'you mean, circa 2348 BC? It was exactly 2348 B.C.! About teatime!

Labels: atheism, creationism, evolution, genomics

Posted 1:28 pm by Ken

What else I've been doing

The Human Genre Project is coming along well. It's just featured in the Madrid online daily Publico.es. Contributions have come in from: SF writers Bruce Sterling, Ted Kosmatka and Ian Watson, young American poets Kelley Swain, Tracey Rosenberg, and Aiko Harman, Brazilian polymath Fabio Fernandez, front-line health workers Heather Fineman and Marilyn Kosmatka, and many more.

A couple of weeks ago I went along to The Golden Hour, the monthly poetry evening at The Forest Cafe, where I heard an electrifying performance from Kei Miller and passed out Human Genre Project bookmarks so strategically that Allan Gillis said it was like getting an invitation to join a cult. I have no shame. On the way over I'd handed one bookmark to a young woman with glasses and a book-bag, and walked off quickly to let her get on with lighting her cigarette. I can spot those intellectuals a mile away.

She turned out to be Peggy Hughes, of the Scottish Poetry Library and West Port Book Festival - I met her again at (well, outside) the Wash Bar on the Mound, venue of the July City of Literature Trust salon, along with her boyfriend Colin Fraser (who is currently hosting a Twitter conversation between the Edinburgh monuments of Burns, Darwin, Hume and others). This particular salon was focused on SF and fantasy, with Scottish fantasy writer Ricardo Pinto as mystery guest, and a very creditable turn-out by the Edinburgh SF mob. I handed out bookmarks to everyone I knew and many I didn't. Stuart Kelly, Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday, spoke briefly about how SF and fantasy were integral to Scottish and particularly Edinburgh literature.

This month sees the Scottish fantastic variously represented at ongoing fringe events:

Alba ad Astra, an exhibition and book of Scotland's forgotten space programme.
The West Port Book Festival.
The Edinburgh Book Fringe.
Underword - 'Three weeks of subterranean spoken word'.

I'll be the one handing out the black, white and red bookmarks.

Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local, self-promotion, writing

Posted 7:48 pm by Ken

Working in the spaceship yards

This evocative cover from the first edition of my novel The Sky Road illustrates hip, groovy SF site io9's list of favourite last lines from SF novels (and yes, that book's last line is one of my favourites, too). Somewhere in the deep background of the notion of a spaceship being built in the centuries-old scars of the oil-rig construction yard at Kishorn was knowing about a sliver of overlap between Scottish SF fandom and the space movement. That intersection still exists. A couple of weekends ago I was at a small but ambitious con in Glasgow, Satellite 2, marking the fortieth anniversary of the first Armstrong on the Moon. Space enthusiasts Duncan Lunan, Robert Law and Andy Nimmo were on various panels, along with more conventional experts and authors on the Apollo missions. If you wanted to know just how the Apollo Guidance Computer worked, and why its top contractor was the sparkplug division of General Motors, you could hear Frank O'Brien, who knows more about the AGC than just about anyone else. If you wanted to know how Apollo flew to the Moon, you could hear W. David Woods, who wrote the book on it.

For me, a highlight of a very engaging and informative weekend was a talk by Prof Colin McInnes, DSc FRAes FInstP FRSE FREng, titled 'Random Thoughts of a Techno-Utopist Running Dog'. The usual conception of sustainability, Prof McInnes argued, was a dangerous idea. Technological stagnation only means slower resource depletion. We need continuous technological progress to make new resources available. The idea that we should use less energy is outrageously inhumane and regressive. Most of humanity gets its energy from burning wood and dung. We need a vast increase in energy production. That means nuclear power, including new kinds of nuclear plant such as the Thorium Energy Amplifier. Nuclear waste is just inadequately burned nuclear fuel. We need to find ways of burning it all. Most reycling schemes are feel-good rather than do-good, condemning us to pre-industrial, manual rooting about in rubbish. We need plasma torches and mass spectrometers to really recover all the useful stuff in our waste. 'Humanity is the singularity. We are self-replicating smart matter.' To campaign against cheap flights to Prague while jetting across the world for eco-holidays in the Galapagos is naked class warfare. With synthetic genomics we can have carbon-neutral aviation even cheaper than today's travel.

He took his argument all the way to building a Dyson Sphere and beyond. Brilliant stuff. I wish he could deliver the same talk in every high school in the country. Come to think of it, how much would it cost to make a DVD of the talk and send it out, free, to every science teacher in Scotland? Most of them wouldn't show it, of course, but it might save a few minds from the Green slime.

Labels: genomics, local, self-promotion, skiffy

Posted 6:54 pm by Ken

Scary stuff

A nearly-quarter-million-word anthology of vampire stories, By Blood We Live, edited by John Joseph Adams, is now available. It includes my short story, 'Undead Again' (originally published in Nature) and undoubtedly many far deeper and darker pleasures than that. I'll be delighted to get my contributor's copy, but if I read it I'll probably be looking between my fingers.

I have a similar half-eye relationship with my copy of Gathering the Bones, an acclaimed anthology of horror fiction in which I make a guest appearance in Andrew J. Wilson's short story, 'Under the Bright and Hollow Sky'. I'll be reading my part in the story in Andrew's live performance of this subtly disturbing account of a disappearance on Tuesday 18th August, 7.50pm–8.40pm, as part of the Free Fringe festival series Underword.

Labels: coming attractions, local, self-promotion, skiffy, writing

Posted 2:50 pm by Ken

Fraternal assistance

My accomplished brother James is again a finalist in the national cartoon contest ‘Science Idol’, run by the Union of Concerned Scientists, for a place in their 2010 calendar. Take a look and see if you agree with me that James's cartoon (#2) is the best. And even if you don't agree with my totally unbiased opinion, vote!

(If you don't vote you can't complain about the results, you know. You'll have to endure month after month of a calendar above your desk or lab bench or kitchen table with cartoons with labels explaining what each element in them is supposed to represent. Maybe James could do a meta-cartoon with a character labelled 'subtle cartoonist' telling a character labelled 'unsubtle cartoonist' why cartoons with labels are so 18th Century.)

Labels: self-promotion

Posted 1:32 pm by Ken

Spreading our Genres

The Human Genre Project has been the the subject of a nice write-up by Jef Akst (who actually went to the trouble of phoning me) in The Scientist, and of an enthusiastic entry in Beyond the Bench, the editors' forum of Current Protocols.

Labels: genomics, writing

Posted 3:20 pm by Ken

Now they tell us

In last week's (12.07.09) THE ARTS, the review section of that fine Scottish newspaper the Sunday Herald, there's a review by Chris Dolan of Karen Armstrong's The Case for God - What Religion Really Means. It's an enthusiastic review. Not having read Armstrong's book, I can't comment on what Dolan has to say about it. But he devotes almost half the review to slagging off Richard Dawkins, whose works I have read, so I'll comment on that.

Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion is, for those caught in the crossfire, intellectually unsatisfying. How can one of the greatest scientific minds of our era be so simplistic? Because - according to The Case For God - Dawkins is a biologist. Had he been a physicist he would not have stumbled so imprudently into his illiberal prejudices. Physicists have long resigned themselves to the unknowableness of the world while "some biologists", Armstrong observes, "whose discipline has not yet experienced a major reversal, have remained confident of their capacity to discover absolute truth".

I've typed that out in full, just so that people can point at it and laugh. Onward:

The God Delusion is deficient on two counts. First, it attacks a very particular form of religion, claiming it to be representative of of any experience of spirituality or transcendence. In fact there are very few Creationists [...]

That would be the same book [i.e. The God Delusion] whose very first chapter is titled 'A Deeply Religious Non-Believer'? The book that says (about creationist drivel being taught in state-supported schools): 'The implication that the scriptures provide a literal account of geological history would make any reputable theologian wince. My friend Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, and I wrote a joint letter to Tony Blair, and we got it signed by eight bishops and nine senior scientists.'? Yup, same book. I could go on, but I won't. Dolan does:

The second deficiency [...] is a blind faith in the Supreme Truth of Science. If only! [Blah world wars Holocaust Aids blah can't even cure the common cold blah poverty blah now they're saying tomatoes cause Alzheimers blah blah.] And science is no more immune to opinion, fashion and political bias than any other endeavour of humankind. (Evidence of that, I would suggest, is Dawkins's 1976 The Selfish Gene, ushering in the Thatcherite era. The clue is in the title.)

If there's one infallible sign of not having a clue about, and not having read, The Selfish Gene, it's this smug, stupid remark. The clue is, indeed, in the title, but it has whizzed past Dolan's head.

Armstrong - according to Dolan, anyway - blames literalist fundamentalism on the Enlightenment, when religious people mistakenly tried to 'mimic science's objectivity':

For millennia before, no-one had taken any religious text as being literally true - or "gospel", in the modern sense of the word.

Bless.

Labels: atheism, evolution

Posted 10:24 am by Ken

Newspaper of record notices SF author actually good

Mainstream media comment on SF is usually ignorant and derogatory, so it's refreshing to read a major article in the New York Times Magazine about veteran SF author and noted stylist Jack Vance which is respectful, informed and informative. (Via, also worth reading.)

Labels: skiffy, writing

Posted 8:11 pm by Ken

The Prophet's Suitcase

Tim Wohlforth's memoir The Prophet's Children, which I found in the Oxfam bookshop on Byres Road, Glasgow a couple of weekends ago, is a dismaying and enlightening read for anyone who has ever taken Trotskyism seriously. And I have - it's creepily apt that the photograph facing page 157 almost has me in it.

Kids these days - heck, anyone under thirty - in Britain, France and a handful of other countries, probably think it's a small but normal part of the gaiety of nations to have Trotskyists running for President, sponsoring big talk-fests of leftwing politicians and trade unionists and public intellectuals, performing stand-up comedy, sitting on the executives of major unions, getting elected to the European Parliament, bringing about the fall of an Italian government, and so on and so forth, all the while upholding the charming old Trotskyist customs of selling newspapers, splitting and fusing and underestimating the peasantry.

It wasn't always like this. In the 1950s and 1960s even the largest Trotskyist organizations (apart from the one in Sri Lanka, which quite uniquely was the mass working-class party in the country, and one in Britain, the Socialist Labour League (SLL), which had about a thousand) had memberships in the hundreds, and the rest had tens at most. So the past few decades could be counted a success - 'the resurgence of the political formations associated with [Trotsky's] name', as a New Left Books back cover once pompously put it.

The man most responsible for that success, small as it was, being a lot smaller than it could have been was Gerry Healy, the very man who had built the SLL. Remarking on Healy's death in December 1989, the anarchist Nicolas Walter said to me that Healy was the most evil person ever to come out of the Marxist movement. What about Ceausescu (then in the news), I asked? I don't recall Walter's reply, by I do remember the impatient look and gesture that accompanied it. Britain's best-known anarchist wasn't given to cutting actual Communist tyrants any slack, but my guess is that he thought Ceausescu's character was better than Healy's. If so, he may have had a point. Say what you like about Ceausescu, he railed at his accusers, stood by his Elena, and died like a man.

Wohlforth, it's fair to say, doesn't use his memoir to shine a flattering light on himself. He adds little to the exposure of Healy, of whom enough and more than enough has been said. As early as 1959, one of Healy's biggest catches - Peter Fryer, the Daily Worker journalist who'd covered the Hungarian uprising of 1956, found his reports spiked or distorted, and broken with the Communist Party as a result - gave a disturbing account of Healy's violence, lying and paranoia. Unfortunately it took another quarter of a century before the whole farrago imploded.

No, what's actually disillusioning is seeing the relatively decent characters in this long-running farce - Max Shachtman, Hal Draper, Joseph Hansen, George Novack, even James P. Cannon (once described as 'a Healy who never found his Gadaffi') not to mention Wohlforth and his comrades and rivals, from James Robertson to Lyndon Larouche portrayed as little more than assiduous writers of internal documents that tried and failed to interpret a world being changed by others.

A perennial problem of Trotskyism has been trying to understand the post-WW2 social revolutions within the framework of Trotskyist theory. If you actually look at what actually happened, whether it's Czechoslovakia or Cuba or South Yemen, it's not at all hard to understand what was going on. Understanding it and making your understanding compatible with Trotskyist theory is an exercise in futility, like squaring the circle or getting a dent out of a ping-pong ball. I once made the effort, ploughing through: a whole load of the American SWP's and the Fourth International's internal documents reprinted decades later as 'Education for Socialists' bulletins; one of Wohlforth's tyro attempts; and a later document, 'The Theory of Structural Assimilation', which he authored on realising the first one didn't work. How depressing to see how Wohlforth himself had set about the task:

'That winter I took a suitcase full of old documents to a Miami Beach kosher hotel.' (p113)

It would be churlish to begrudge Wohlforth his second career.

Labels: far left, history, Marxism