Skeptical Activity & Activism

How to be a positively skeptically active person, some suggestions

Socialise

Go to Skeptics in the Pub with a friend who is sceptical of your skepticism. Buy them a beer (or beverage of their choice) and have a chat. They might find they quite like a bit of common sense—see more on the next page about this.

Perhaps you may dust off the pen and paper to keep in touch following the Facebook revelations and #deletefacebook?

Get Vaccinated

If you're not already, get up to date with your shots, and don't be quiet about it, let people know, you may be the reminder they needed to get theirs done. Also, get the flu shot too. I'll be getting mine.

Flex your politeness muscles on social media It is very easy to rant on social media when someone is passing on fake news. I know, I've been there. Be polite, be factual, and if you can, be funny and remember novelty is gold.

Read, Watch or Listen

Don't give in to FOMO (fear of missing out). Absorb, but leave room to think critically about what you take in, and research if things don't seem to be quite right.

Keep abreast of sceptical news by following skeptics on Youtube, or listening to a podcast—try the Skeptics guide to the Universe will keep your brain fresh and tangy.

Also, watch listen or read things outside your bubble to see what the not so skeptical other-half consume. I find it particularly challenging watching Fox News, which I can only handle for 5 minute bursts before I feel the need to go and lie down.

A defence fund has been set up to help skeptics who are being sued, in this case Britt Hermes, an ex Naturopath who is being sued by Naturopath Colleen Huber after she called her out for selling natural remedies as cancer cures

https://www.naturopathicdiaries.com/need-help-naturopath-colleen-huber-suing/

Subscribe

Keep your subscription to this fine journal up to date, and if you have any friends' or family birthdays coming up, here or overseas, consider giving them a subscription.

Report

Have you come across a ‘haunted house' in your area, or do you have a local snake-oil sales person bothering you? Please do let us know. editor@skeptics.nz

Create

Need a creative outlet to display your passion for skepticism? We'd love to see your efforts. Here is a poem by long-time subscriber Keith Davidson originally sent to the RNZ panel back in December 2015:

Free and Essay

DEDICATED TO ROBERT FREE, BARD OF OTAGO & TO ROBERT BURNS, BARD OF OCTAGO

O how I'd like to write to thee

As well as does good Robert Free

But here, trying topically to time it,

Are some thoughts about the changing climate

RF may well write; but then he could miss you

On what now of course is Earth's greatest issue

While scientists from the rooftops have shouted

They endured ridicule from those who doubted

My point is this: as the world's support summits,

The number of letters to newspapers plummets

How come then the naysayers, though forsaken,

Never say, they could, possibly, be mistaken?

It's all so like that other joke......

When critics mock our sporting folk

Then comes a great and winning game;

But no admission of their shame!