{"id":350,"date":"2013-10-18T22:29:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T22:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/?p=350"},"modified":"2013-10-18T22:37:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T22:37:43","slug":"interview-with-skydivephil-creator-of-superb-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/2013\/10\/18\/interview-with-skydivephil-creator-of-superb-videos\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with skydivephil, creator of superb videos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Many of you will have come across the superb videos of skydivephil on You Tube and embedded across various forums. That is, unless you have had your heads buried in the sand. I first came across them when they critiqued william Lane Craig on the Kalam Cosmological Argument as can be seen here:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/baZUCc5m8sE<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Whilst they have not produced a huge slew of videos, what they have produced are thought-provoking, analytical videos of high-production value. The subjects concentrated on have revolved around cosmology and science: the Kalam Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuning Argument and most recently, looking at the ideas of a Big Bang singularity and a bouncing universe scenario as potentially described by Loop Quantum Cosmology, itself spawning from notions of quantum gravity:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Before the Big Bang 1 - Loop Quantum Cosmology Explained\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IFcQuEw0oY8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">But the pair who make up skydivephil are fairly secretive inasmuch as they are (rightly) content to let the content of their videos do the talking. With Phil deriving from the UK and Monica from the other side of the pond, they make a good team. One of the most famous recent videos, well, pair of videos, concerned William Lane Craig (a common target) and his claims made in the debate he had with Stephen Law which I was at. In this debate, Craig claimed that there were three types of pain awareness and that humans and only a few of the great apes could really feel pain, thereby excusing huge torrents of animal pain and suffering as evinced by the problem of evil. He used a book by Michael Murray.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Skydivephil took the claims to task and then William Lane Craig devoted a podcast to answering it. To which skydivephil blew him out of the water:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/mLSwRcvX72M<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/youtu.be\/sKuEbbDi-tQ<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Lawrence Krauss recently tweeted my\u00a0<a title=\"BOOM! \u2013 Craig is, um, owned on animal suffering. Twice.\" href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2013\/02\/11\/boom-craig-is-um-owned-on-animal-suffering-twice\/\">last post<\/a>\u00a0which documented this and these videos, which was nice, as this came up in his recent debates with Craig in Australia. Which was nice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Anywho, without further ado, let me give you the interview and I implore any readers who have not watched their videos to do so!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>1)\u00a0\u00a0 Your videos defending scientific viewpoints, whilst at the same time debunking improper use of science, are great and are often posted and shared around skeptical and atheistic forums. However, there is a good deal of \u201cwho are these guys?\u201d and mystery which accompany the videos. Can you give us some pertinent details about who you are and what your backgrounds are?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Phil\u2019s answers are in blue.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Monica\u2019s comments are in red.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">I don\u2019t want to give out too much detail, as we prefer to let our work speak for ourselves. My education was originally in quantative finance but I also went back to University to study astronomy in the evening after work, which was a really wonderful experience. I met my well-read, curious and adventurous wife skydiving in California and after doing a few not-very-good videos by myself we decided to make it more of a team effort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>2)\u00a0\u00a0 What are your belief systems or worldviews?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">I guess the sort of scientific skepticism that was promoted by people like Carl Sagan would be the best umbrella term of our current world views. I think the concept that our beliefs should be in proportion to the evidence is a very appropriate one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Phil was raised Jewish in the UK and I was raised Catholic in the US.\u00a0 By our teenage years, we each recognized that some of the stories in the bible are horribly shocking with very different underlying lessons from what is taught, so we veered from our given paths at a young age.\u00a0 A sense of wonder, joy and awe of our universe and life drives my worldview and my desire to learn and understand more about everything. I appreciate that we will not likely ever have all the answers; I feel no need to replace that un-knowing with religious faith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You seem to harbour a great love for William Lane Craig (like many of us). What is it about him which drives your critical videos of his claims?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">I think first off he is the most visible apologist out there. Not only do some of his debates have almost 1 million hits in youtube but also many Muslim apologists seem to copy him word for word. So he\u2019s very influential. He\u2019s probably the best they (the theists) have, in terms of getting his message across to the public. I also think for the most part atheists have done a terrible job in debating him. They don\u2019t seem to prepare at all and I think he beats them in most debates. Not because he\u2019s right but finding out why he\u2019s wrong takes a lot of time and research, which most people don\u2019t seem to want to invest. Craig seems to be almost a professional debater and is ready on a lot of topics. Many of the people he debates may have great knowledge in their specialist field but as soon as they step out of that they are simply not prepared. You can\u2019t blame them; debating is not their day job.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>3)\u00a0\u00a0 If you were to debate WLC, what would be your tack?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">I think anyone that does any live debate should change the format. Opening statements and rebuttals should be written in advance to each other and the moderator so each person has time to check the claims of the other. This would encourage a thoughtful, researched debate rather than shooting from the hip. For example when WLC said animals don\u2019t have a prefrontal cortex (PFC), Stephen Law had no time to check the accuracy of that statement and so WLC got away with it, at least there and then. Under my scheme that\u2019s less likely to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>4)\u00a0\u00a0 Do you think in terms of cosmology and quantum that there is a good case for sitting on the agnostic fence, given that these disciplines are in their infancy?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Well cosmology and quantum science have been around since the 1920\u2019s and we\u2019ve learnt a lot but there\u2019s clearly more to learn and plenty of room for disagreement. There are numerous open questions that we should set on the fence on for now. Take the issue of the beginning of the universe. Right now we simply don\u2019t know if it had one or not. We know there was some kind of big bang event. It\u2019s amazing that we can look back in time 13.8 billion years and say that. But the exact nature of this event and whether or not it was really the ultimate beginning or just the start of a phase of expansion is still open and we should not say things with a confidence that is not justified. Professionals in the field need to make decisions on what line of approach they find most compelling, as they need to invest the time in analyzing these models. But the rest of us should wait for the data to decide and when we have insufficient data then we should admit it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>5)\u00a0\u00a0 Given that, as a team, you appear to be trans-Atlantic, is there any noticeable difference between approaches to religion and science between the two sides of the pond?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Europe is very open to skepticism and unbelief. In the US religion dominates; it\u2019s starting to change there a bit and a lot of that seems to be down to the young generation resenting the intolerance of religion especially to the LGBT community. The opposition to equal rights for LGBT\u2019s comes from religious groups for the main part and that I think is having a real effect. Skeptics are getting better organized too and the Internet is a way for people to get a message across that might otherwise be inaccessible.\u00a0 We can only hope this is a significant change and not a small blip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">I\u2019m amazed at how little weight religion holds in the UK.\u00a0 There is no separation of Church and State and yet no one really places any store by it or calls on it to guide their actions.\u00a0 I think for many in the UK, it is merely a way of connecting with a community rather than a belief system by which to live.\u00a0 In America (where, of course, there\u00a0<b>is<\/b>\u00a0theoretically a separation of Church and State) it does indeed dominate.\u00a0 In my family for example, religion dictates virtually everything they do and say and every interaction or experience in life.\u00a0 Though educated and smart, I think they simply don\u2019t ask questions that could ruffle their (localized) worldview so when it comes to science, rather than oppose it or disagree with it, they simply sit in the back seat and obscure any potential sense of curiosity with the content haze of faith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>6)\u00a0\u00a0 What is the outcome or feedback from your videos about which you are most proud?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">When WLC made an entire podcast in an attempt to critique our animal suffering video I was a little nervous. Here was probably the most famous apologist in the world attempting to give us a 30 minute take down. I was worried that maybe he would say something we hadn\u2019t thought of. But at the end of the 30 mins listening to the podcast I was overjoyed. I knew it would be very easy indeed to create a strong rebuttal, as his response was so weak. He promised his colleague Michael Murray would write a response to our scientific claims. It\u2019s now 7 months later and still nothing.\u00a0 A lot of bloggers said this was the best take-down of WLC they had ever seen and we were very pleased at that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>7)\u00a0\u00a0 Your videos appear to become more technically sophisticated as time passes. What is your next step; are you going to continue to produce these videos, or do you have any other plans to extend the work you have done?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Thank you.\u00a0 We will probably just stick with the videos at the moment but we are open to other media.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>8)\u00a0\u00a0 You have covered evolution and censorship, the Kalam, fine-tuning, and cosmology. Is there a particular topic that you are working on now or would really like to work on in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">I think the plan at the moment is to do more in the \u201cBefore the Big Bang\u201d series. I\u2019d like to make more films exploring different ideas about the early universe. There are so many exciting and inventive ideas out there. Maybe one of these models is right, maybe the truth is still waiting to be revealed to us in a new idea. But the problem is these ideas are buried in technical literature that very few people can understand. There are some documentaries that cover some of these ideas but they don\u2019t ask challenging questions.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we want to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>9)\u00a0\u00a0 As I often ask, what are your top three nonfiction and fiction books?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Nonfiction<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><i>The Big Bang<\/i>\u00a0by Simon Singh. Anything by Singh is awesome, he\u2019s such a good writer and what I really like about this book is that reads like a detective story. It only goes into the classical big bang picture rather than the whole issue of quantum gravity and inflation but its still a wonderful read.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><i>Evolution<\/i>\u00a0by Karl Zimmer. Again what makes a really good science book in my opinion is that it has a narrative drive and this book has that in spades.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><i>A Man on the Moon<\/i>\u00a0by Andrew Chaikin \u2013 this is the story of the Apollo programme and what a grand adventure it was, and Chaikin tells the tale in a way that makes it extremely hard to put down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Fiction<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><i>Lord of the Rings<\/i>\u00a0by Tolkien, surely no comment needed here!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><i>The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch<\/i>\u00a0by Philip K Dick<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\">Dick was a real visionary and his books are very thought provoking and of course fun. Moreover his characters are people that you can really empathize with, not unbelievable heroes but every day people with normal failings. All his books challenge our notions of reality. How do we tell what is real and what is illusion?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><i>The Master of Space and Time<\/i>\u00a0by Rudy Rucker. Rucker is a sci-fi author who deserves to be better known. He\u2019s a mathematician who has also written some great non-fiction work on issues like higher dimensional geometry and the theory of infinite sets. But this book is a comic tale of two scientists who work out a way to change the value of the Planck scale. It\u2019s really the story of the peasant who gets three wishes in disguise. Not a book to be taken seriously but just a lot of fun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">With the caveat that I may wish to amend my selection within the hour (so many to choose from!), these are my current choices:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Nonfiction<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>Quantum<\/i>\u00a0by Manjit Kumar<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>Big Bang<\/i>\u00a0by Simon Singh<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>Agent Zigzag<\/i>\u00a0by Ben Macintyre<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\">Fiction<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>The Lord of the Rings<\/i>\u00a0<i>Trilogy<\/i>\u00a0by J.R.R. Tolkien<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>Shantaram<\/i>\u00a0by Gregory David Roberts<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>The Mists of Avalon<\/i>\u00a0by Marion Zimmer Bradley<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000\"><i>Harry Potter<\/i>\u00a0Series by J.K. Rowling (I know, I\u2019m sorry that\u2019s FOUR! I could not help myself.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Thanks so much to the tow of them for taking the time to answer my questions. Keep up the great work!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">&#8211; See more at: https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2013\/09\/10\/interview-with-skydivephil-creator-of-superb-videos\/#sthash.KgzkcdIe.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many of you will have come across the superb videos of skydivephil on You Tube and embedded across various forums. That is, unless you have had your heads buried in the sand. I first came across them when they critiqued william Lane Craig on the Kalam Cosmological Argument as can be seen here:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[70,71,72,73,74,75,76],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-print","tag-carl-sagan","tag-counter-apologetics","tag-michael-murray","tag-skydivephil","tag-stephen-law","tag-william-lane-craig","tag-you-tube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/sinergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}