Sceptic teaching

Sir, — I share Colin Bell's concern about what goes on in our universities and what sort of watching brief the university councils keep on their tutors (March 2).

Some tutors have openly used their positions to give credence to personal viewpoints and pet theories. An example is the Committee for Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Also known as "The NZ Sceptics Society", this group is made up of senior university lecturers and academics, who purport to investigate and expose (all for the public good of course), self-proclaimed psychics, clairvoyants, fortune-tellers, astrologers, paranormal phenomena, alternative medicines, and creation science. While there would be no objection to individuals forming themselves into such groups to be "society's watch-dogs" or "ghostbusters", if they so wish, there is a concern as to just what kind of utterances or "guidance" these teachers are giving to students. The Sceptics group referred to above, for example, uses a university box number as its public mailing address, and holds meetings and conferences on campus.

By seemingly condoning these non-curricular activities, universities are giving the impression that such radical left-wing thinking is acceptable, and is being taught in our halls of academe.

M. L. LESTER

Upper Hutt

Skeptics reply

Sir, — In reply to M L Lester (April 2), the Wellington Skeptics are neither condoned nor condemned by Victoria University. The university allows us to use its premises, as does many other groups.

M L Lester's claim that we are given to "radical left-wing thinking" I find astonishing. In fact our membership spans the spectrum of political and religious belief. It also includes a significant number of people from outside the staff of the university.

Those of us who are on the academic staff do not teach our views on clairvoyance, fortune-telling, or astrology to our students. These subjects have been widely investigated and so far they do not have enough evidence in favour of their existence to justify them a place in universities. However, we are willing to continue to investigate them and should we find clear evidence that they do exist, we would then argue that they should have a place in universities.

In the case of creation "science", its central beliefs in an ark and a recently created Earth were disproved by Linnaeus and Cuvier respectively in the 1770s, so these beliefs are mentioned in passing as a matter of historical interest.

Finally, the term "skeptic'' comes from the Greek skeptikos, to be thoughtful. The Skeptics simply wish to encourage people to think carefully about beliefs they might otherwise take for granted. We attempt to apply the same principles to ourselves and the activities of the Skeptics. Such questioning forms the foundation of progress in science and technology as well as other areas of study.

The teaching of such questioning attitudes is an important part of the function of a university and we, like most of our colleagues, encourage our students to think carefully on all subjects, and not form unchangeable conclusions lightly.

GORDON HEWITT

Wellington Skeptics