Channeling our Inner Skeptic
Mark Honeychurch - 28th April 2026
On the weekend Bronwyn and I, along with my 12 year old daughter, visited an open home to see a house that’s currently on the market - a little subterfuge, acting like a happy family, all in the name of skepticism. However Bronwyn’s asked that I don’t talk about any of the details yet, so all you’re getting for now is this teaser!
Yesterday in Porirua I saw a new Reality Check Radio billboard. It was sad to see that they’re still going, although not very surprising to see that the billboard spot was owned by Jolly Billboards - a company that Bronwyn profiled for us a couple of years ago. As for the claim that only 1 in 3 Kiwis trust the media, I couldn’t find any reference or data to back this up on their website, and there’s nothing on the billboard, so I’m not sure how they came to this conclusion. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, though, given that we have both Reality Check and The Platform regularly spreading misinformation to New Zealanders.
Last week I received an email from “Katy Perry”, asking if we’d be happy to post articles from her on our website. Blithely assuming that this was the famous singer Katy Perry, and ignoring her use of Comic Sans, I responded enthusiastically. Let’s hope that she takes time out of her very busy life to write something for us about how hard it is to be skeptical when you’re a celebrity.
In this week’s newsletter, we start off with an article from Bronwyn about Guinness Records, looking at their humble origins and how they’ve changed over the years to become something a little less rigorous and trustworthy. I’ve written about Iran’s problem with pseudoscience and academic corruption - admittedly not the country’s most pressing problem right now, but Iran may find that it will cause them problems when and if they come to rely on some of their technologies in a time of war.
Katrina’s looked into a novel Alzheimer’s treatment, and considers it in light of the statistical/clinical significance barriers it faces. Dan Ryan and I wrote to Givealittle a couple of years ago, under the umbrella of the Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH), letting them know of our concerns around fundraising for pseudoscientific treatments on their platform. Although nothing came of the exchange, I figured it might be of interest to readers. Finally Patrick has written about some good news and bad news related to climate change and our use of fossil fuels.