Thanks to everyone who joined our online Skeptics in the Pub meetings over the last two weeks. We've had such a good time chatting with skeptics who we usually only see once or twice a year that we've decided to make our national online meetings a regular event.
We'll schedule an online Zoom session from 6pm on Friday to run every four weeks, and I will post the event as a recurring meeting to all the Skeptics in the Pub Meetup groups. Please come along if you want to say hi to other skeptics, if you're looking for a place to engage in fun, skeptical conversation (with beer), or if you just need to unload about something you've heard that's annoyed you because it's obvious nonsense.
We have two submitted segments in this week's newsletter. Our first is from a regular at the Wellington Skeptics in the Pub meetings, John Maindonald, and follows on from a mention I made of Newton's Flaming Laser Sword a couple of weeks ago.
The second is a podcast recommendation from member Stephen Hall, who has been writing to us about his thoughts on the transmissibility of the new delta variant of COVID. Steve wonders if maybe delta is no more transmissible than previous strains, and that the new variant might instead be spreading more because of differences such as changes in people's behaviour, rather than due to a beneficial genetic mutation. Steve has heard this idea from a podcast run by Professor Vincent Racaniello, who has been promoting this view in the media recently. Given that most scientists don't appear to agree with Racaniello's thoughts on this topic, I will include a proviso that, as always, you should remain skeptical and use multiple sources to fact check any claims you hear.