Dubious claims and “facts”

Mark Honeychurch - 24 June 2024

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Save Marsden Point Refinery efforts, spearheaded by conspiracy theorists who are trying to convince Channel Infrastructure, by hook or by crook, to stop the decommissioning of the refinery and restore it, while also converting it to be able to process our own crude oil. The main driver behind this effort, Karl Barkley, suffered a mishap recently when his van (which is covered in billboards for The Cause) was towed away from a loading zone by Hamilton Towing Services.

I love the idea that “freedom of speech” might trump other laws, even ones as mundane as parking rules. I would be very keen to festoon my car with pro-science, anti-conspiracy messages if it meant that I could park where I liked, when I liked, without fear of legal repercussions. Although, thinking about it, my car would probably still be at risk from vandalism, by those few extreme conspiracy theorists that take a hard dislike to anything that challenges their worldview.

In this week’s newsletter, we hear from past secretary Claire Le Couteur, who has just published a book titled “Dubious cures and frauds”, detailing some of the weird and wonderful “cures” held in the Cotter Medical Mystery Museum. I visited the museum a few years ago when we had a conference down in Christchurch, and saw some fascinating devices and panaceas on display. We’re hoping to get a copy of the book to write a full review soon, but if this already has you interested you can check out the details below to order a copy.

Bronwyn has been sucked into researching energy drinks and electrolytes, after receiving an email that piqued her interest.

I’ve detailed Google’s attempts to send me to re-education school as penance for the NZ Skeptics’ recent fall from grace, due to the video hosting platform not liking one of the conference talk videos on our YouTube channel. It’s not the first time we’ve been pinged by an online service for “spreading misinformation” when in reality we’re doing exactly the opposite, and I suspect it won’t be the last.

Speaking of the conference, ticket sales are now open for our 2024 Conference, to be held in Auckland on the weekend of the 15th to 17th of November. Get them while they’re hot!

Craig has written about his recent early morning Matariki event, both the good and the bad. He’s done a great job, I think, of critiquing the things he heard at the event that were dubious, without stooping to being insulting to other people’s cultural beliefs. I’m sure we’ll have a rousing discussion about this on the podcast this week!

I’ve written up my visit last weekend to a creationist talk with a Chinese twist, but unsurprisingly containing no new slam-dunk arguments against evolution.

And, finally, Bronwyn has once again plumbed the depths of our Skeptical Calendar and detailed the events of skeptical interest that occurred in past years over the next two calendar weeks. As always, if you have any events you think we may have missed, or know of (or can hunt down) events to fill in the dates that are missing from the next couple of weeks - June 25th and July 2nd - please let us know!