Chair-entity's Report 1996

Vicki Hyde - 1 November 1996

This year has seen one of the most significant discoveries ever made — the announcement that there are solid indications of life having once existed on another planet. The implications for us all, whether scientific, philosophic or religious, are tremendous.

I was intrigued, and a little saddened, to note that most media people contacting the Skeptics over this issue expressed surprise that we were delighted and hopeful that the reports were correct; that we weren’t dogmatically dismissive of the possibility of other lifeforms. Those who know us know that we aren’t dour, down-in-the-mouth cynics — we’re still working on changing that general image.

Following on from the discussion at last year’s AGM, we ensured that the Awards decision-making process was made more transparent by distributing the nominations for the Bent Spoon Award and the Bravo Award to all the committee members and calling for their comments and recommendations. I was pleased to see nominations come in from the membership and would encourage you all to keep an eye out for the occasional excellent item as well as the inane — we take nominations all year.

I also urge you to take the opportunity to send material in for the NZ Skeptic, particularly locally sourced material or topics close to your heart.

There were good attendances at the April lectures of Australian geologist, skeptic and creationist-savager Ian Plimer, who really ripped into one of the more insidious areas of anti-science. I would like to think that the issue of creation science is not as great a problem in New Zealand as in Australia or the US, but I have my doubts…

We’ve undertaken one of the more ambitious tours in recent years by coordinating the New Zealand visit of eminent British scientist Richard Dawkins. His presence in the country is courtesy of our Australian counterparts and their burgeoning bank account, and we have had very generous support from the British Council as well as from the various universities which are hosting Richard’s lectures next month. I urge you to get to one of his talks if at all possible for an entertaining and thought-provoking evening.

There are, as usual, people to be thanked for their hard work and enthusiasm over the past year, including (but not necessarily exclusively):

• our hard-working Secretary/Treasurer Bernard Howard and his ever-patient assistants and tea-makers George Errington and Molly
• the frenetic Denis Dutton, whose 36-hour a day lifestyle has been partially ameliorated by the help of Jay Mann in the local lecture circuit
• our conference organisers Annette Taylor and David Riddell
• the NZ Skeptic editor Owen McShane and the NZ Skeptic cartoonist Nick Kim for keeping us all aghast, informed and amused at the foibles of humanity
• our far-flung committee members and meeting organisers and assistants
• my own staff for ably fielding media calls every Friday 13th without losing their good humour

And finally, thank you to you all for your support for critical thinking.

Vicki Hyde, Chair-entity, NZCSICOP Inc.