Why are you a skeptic, Barry Lennox?

Continuing on from Mark's item last week, long-time skeptic and former committee member Barry Lennox gives us his views…

Why did I become a skeptic? Well, the first stirrings occurred at about 6 or 7. We lived in a small town in Central Otago, and a popular local man was electrocuted. Next day at school, our teacher exhorted us to never ever touch a bare power wire. Just then, I happened to see outside the window, some birds sitting on the power lines. So “Please Miss, the birds are sitting on the line, they look OK” After some hemming and hawing, we were told “Err, Ahh, that's because they have special feet” Well my knowledge of electricity was almost zero then, but somehow, I had a small sense of sensing BS. Later that day I asked my father who gave me the correct version. Moral, be sceptical of school teachers!

Then a few years later we had moved to a farm in North Otago, and Sunday School was compulsory for me (Thanks, Mum) One day our teacher solemnly advised us that God is like electricity, you can't see it, you can't feel it, but it's there. My BS detector dinged. I could see electricity, at least lightning; OK, not really the same but near enough for me. I could certainly feel it as many electric fence shocks taught me. We had a lot of these as most of our stock was pigs, and electric fences are the only fence a pig will respect. I also had a bit of knowledge, as I was starting to mess about with crystal sets, and even had a “Hikers One” radio underway. Anybody remember it?

(I found a picture of the Hiker One - Craig)

Several months later I was reading a long article about a series of catastrophic airline crashes, mainly the DH Comet but others too. What struck me was people who missed a flight for various reasons were quick to proclaim “God was looking after me” This was puzzling and a few weeks later I had the cheek to ask the Sunday School teacher.. “Why did God only save 1 person and let the other 150-200 die?” The tense reply was “God works in mysterious ways” in a tone that implied I should never display such skepticism again.

What started the more aggressive skeptic phase was working with a chap (a semi-conspiracy theorist and an NRA member) about 30 years ago, who had this habit of appearing each water-cooler break with another “Wow, didja hear this amazing story” There were many; here's one sample. It was the old tale about the charred remains of a scuba diver found in a tree after a forest fire. Check it out…

Almost every day, this went on and on and on, until a few of us got a little tetchy with him. Not for us the kind empathetic understanding their worldview stuff. Nevertheless it took some weeks to get it knocked off. About then a couple of us cooked up our own fake “didja hear this amazing story” and propagated it to him and around the traps, Sadly it was never popular enough to make it into Snopes!

These days, it's the psychics, homeopaths and all the other alt-med peddlers, antivaxx ravers, the scammers and others that arouse my ire. When I become President for life, there will be a new Act that puts woo peddlers who take money off desperate terminally ill people, into the most hellish prison imaginable!

However a friend of ours was taken in by a very cunning banking scam and lost a lot of money. There were a few ignored warning signs, but at the time she had a lot going on in her life, and the scammers had impeccable English (operating ex Sydney) and a great cover story. One of the more disturbing aspects was the lack of interest by the NZ Police, whereas the Australian Federal Police helped a lot and were instrumental in recovering some of the money.

Be careful and skeptical out there. My creed is.... Nice Story, now show me the evidence! And, “What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”

Thanks Barry. If you'd like to contribute your story, please email newsletter@skeptics.nz

So, that's it for the newsletter this week.

By the way, NZ Skeptics held a successful AGM a couple of weeks ago, with a good turnout of members in addition to the committee. We've got some interesting developments planned for the newsletter in the year ahead which will hopefully expand its reach. Watch this space!