The Origin of Westminster Skeptics

In my spare time I am convenor of a Skeptics in the Pub group.

It is a strange and sometime thankless hobby: for when cats complain, they complain of herding skeptics.

The Skeptics in the Pub ("SitP") movement is about promoting critical and evidence-based thinking as an end itself. There are dozens of SitP groups around the world.

The first group - still the largest and certainly the best - was started in London, and holds monthly meetings at Holborn. I have regularly attended these events for five years or so, and I was part of the organising committee for a while.

Traditionally, SitP events have often been about subjects where perhaps it is not that difficult for any sensible person to see through the applicable bullshit: psychics, creationism, UFOs, ghost hunters, astrology, Moon landing hoaxes, and so on.

But in my odd and subjective way, I began to regard these topics as skeptical cherry-picking: a series of easy targets where the skeptic and non-skeptic positions are fairly well-rehearsed.

Indeed, at one event a prominent skeptic and UFO-believer swapped roles - which was actually very amusing - so familiar were they and many in the audience with all the usual arguments, examples, and counter-examples.

It was at an event on whether big cats roamed around Kent or not, where a likable but earnest speaker struggled painfully to get the point of an evidence-based approach, that I started thinking whether pub skepticism could break more often into the policy and media related areas which interested me most.

(This is not to say that such mainstream areas were completely ignored - for example, Nick Davies of Flat Earth News has spoken at a number of SitP events - but such topics are not the norm for a general SitP group, and nor really should be: ghosts and ghoulies and quackery and Roswell will usually make for a more entertaining night out than discussing the faults of law and journalism.)

I was also becoming heavily involved in the Simon Singh campaign, which was then fairly unknown; and a lot of the organising prowess of that campaign came - and still comes - through SitP regulars up and down the country.

As attention in that campaign moved on to the need to reform the English law of libel (as shown by the misconceived libel claim by the - now discredited - British Chiropractic Association) it became clear that there was as much interest in thinking through legal reform in a critical and evidence-based manner as there was in challenging the intellectually evasive sloppiness of chiropractors.

And this became yet clearer when I organised a meeting in May last year to support Simon Singh in the immediate aftermath of the adverse ruling by the High Court.

"It’s loud, messy and disorganised—and very democratic", said The Economist.

(Oh, I came that close to suing The Economist on that "disorganised" comment.)

In many ways this was - in effect, though not officially - just another Skeptics in the Pub meeting; but it, for me, seemed a little different.

So I decided to try and establish a SitP group which would focus on policy, media, and legal issues: promoting evidence-based policy making, serious source-based journalism, and legal reform, especially in respect of removing restraints to effective debate of public issues.

Westminster seemed its natural home, and it would complement (and never compete with) the main London SitP.

I had no idea if it would work.

Most things tend to fail, especially good ideas.

However, I was very fortunate in those who also seemed enthused by this idea.

Quickly a remarkably capable and hard-working "Cabal" was formed.

Making sure I got things right as a convenor were former London SitP convenor Nick Pullar (who famously bested Shirley Ghostman) and Leicester SitP convenor and Quacklasher Simon Perry.

And, then - wonderfully - we were joined by the incomparable blogger and activist Carmen D'Cruz (who, for example, also organised the awesome London Ten23 demonstration), and by the wise and deeply practical pair of Jourdemayne and Peter Gates.

I was also able to get the great Norman Hansen, the unsung hero and veteran of co-organising numerous London Skeptic events, to take on the technical side.

If it was not for any of these people, it is likely that Westminster Skeptics would have remained as an interesting but unrealised idea.

But we do now have Westminster Skeptics, some five months old, and it has already hosted - amongst others - Professor David Nutt (the week he was sacked by Alan Johnson), Ben Goldacre, Nick Cohen, Guido Fawkes, Slugger O'Toole, Petra Boynton, Evan Harris MP, Sunny Hundal, and Gimpy.

Almost every event has been packed, with diverse attendees by a range of metrics. Pleasingly, many who have attended seem new to SitP. At the last event, about 70% of the 160 or so who came were new faces to us on the Cabal. It also attracts well-known public intellectuals, just to come along.

The launch was featured on BBC Newnight; its second meeting was reported in the British Medical Journal; and the most recent meeting had two film crews, one of which was from BBC Parliament.

Events are being organised for the rest of 2010, and beyond.

Thanks to the Cabal and good luck, I can now take a step back.

As anyone who knows me will attest, I genuinely loathe speaking in front of an audience, and so with the political blogging event over and done with, Carmen and Jourdemayne will take on the chairing of events (thanks, guys: I promise not to heckle); and I also plan to stand down as convenor later this year.

So I will now take my appropriate and rather comfortable place at the back of the bar (quietly, I really promise), sitting with the interesting and witty people SitP events tend to attract.

And Westminster Skeptics, now safely launched, can take its place amongst the global network of Skeptics in the Pub groups, even with its narrower remit.

It can also pride itself as already providing one of the best forums in London for promoting critical evidence-based approaches to policy and media issues, and to legal reform.

For Westminster Skeptics is now promoting the SitP values of skepticism, evidence, and critical thinking in the very mainstream of policy, media, and law.


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