A little help from my friends
18th July 2022
I have a good friend who often helps me out by sending me articles that might be of interest to Skeptics - and they sometimes come in handy both for this newsletter, and for my regular weekend radio chats with Graeme Hill on Today FM. He’s is one of quite a few skeptically minded friends I have who have no interest in the organised skeptical movement in New Zealand - he just lives his life being wary of the nonsense that surrounds us.
I’ve convinced several of these friends so far to pop in to our Skeptics in the Pub meetings for a pint or two, and they always get on well with the regulars - but just being skeptical isn’t enough of a cultural draw for them to make it a part of their monthly routine. I have to say, though, that even though these people don’t come to our conferences, or pay us an annual membership fee, it’s still heartening to see them being skeptical in their everyday lives. Often they not only steer clear of nonsense themselves, but they’re happy to warn others around them about it as well.
Anyway, most of the time this friend who helps me out ends up sending links that don’t make the grade - they’re stories that need to be read with a skeptical mindset, but there’s not enough meat in most of them to make them into an interesting article. We usually have a middle-aged grumpy white man chat over SMS about how silly the article’s subject is, and lament over the slow decline of quality journalism.
Just tonight, though, he sent me a couple of really interesting articles that, sadly, are too late for me to write about - but I thought that nonetheless some of you might want to read them. The first is a Stuff article about cults, looking at why people join them, and how some people manage to escape them. The second is a more whimsical article about how to spot a lizard person in your life. Honestly, I’m a little worried that I could tick several of the items on that list!
Rather than write about lizard people or cults this week, I’ve written about yet another daft healing bracelet that turns out to be nothing more than a piece of cheap tat. I’ve also written about Three Waters, and some of the scaremongering that’s currently being pushed to try to derail the initiative. We have a short piece from Daniel about an ASA complaint he made a few years ago about Arnica cream. And we also have another well researched piece from Bronwyn, about “witches” using social media. Remember, if you want to hear more on these topics and more, tune in to our regular Skeptics podcast later this week to hear Bronwyn, Craig and I having a fun, informal (and hopefully informed) skeptical chat.
