Hugh Young is a long-term human rights campaigner and sceptic. Yes, he prefers to spell it that way.
The Origin of the Polynesians
1 August 2018
Unorthodox claims about the origin of the Māori go way back. Co-founder of the Polynesian Society and erratic polymath Edward Tregear claimed in 1885 they were “Aryan”, based on such unlikely things as the similarity between waiū (milk: from wai, water and ū, the breast) and whey (Old English hwǣg). What follows is even less persuasive.
Twins, souls and abortion
1 August 2009
In an occasional feature we look back at issues from the early days of NZ Skeptic.
Circumstitions
1 February 2008
Intersecting as it does sex, religion, blood, medicine and masculinity, circumcision is a subject that is hard to discuss rationally.
Castles in the air founded on a rock
1 August 2006
New Zealand's Amazing D'Urville Artefact and Equations of Life, by Ross Wiseman, Discovery Press, 2004. Reviewed by Hugh Young.
Tied up in cables
1 August 2005
Bob Metcalfe (Skeptic No 75) might have been reading New Zealand Tone magazine: Bringing Technology to Life, Sept-Oct 2004. The front cover promises "Hi-fi cables: science or hocus pocus", and on page 46 there is an interview with Bob Noble, "sales manager for respected cable manufacturer Chord". On page 47 there is a review of three Chord cables. The only science in the interview is the importance of screening to cables since cheap electronics in homes today are "leaking interference back into the same mains power ring that supplies the hi-fi. This degrades the final sound considerably. If you don't believe me, turn all those other appliances off and see what it does to your hi-fi sound." Nobody puts the case that there is any hocus pocus to cables.
Eileen Bone
1 May 2000
It's a great privilege to have known Eileen, her warmth, her wit and her sharp mind undimmed by her failing health. In the last few years, when she might forget the word for something, she knew what she wanted to say about it.
Numerology or What Pythagoras Wrought
1 May 2000
Numerology, or What Pythagoras Wrought, by Underwood Dudley, Mathematical Association of America, Washington DC, 1997
A Big Mistake
1 November 1995
We have made a big mistake. Hitting Home is careful, thorough, mainstream scientific research. It may be alarming, but it is not, as we said, "alarmist". It is a serious attempt to measure men's attitudes towards, and the extent of, their violence. It is social science, not "hard" science, but it has done its best to attach figures to subjective psychological statements. If it can be criticised, it is for accepting the men's reports of their own violence at face value, when the biggest problem associated with men's violence is men's denial. ("I just gave her a bit of a tap" -- and she spent three weeks in hospital.)
Auras by Polaroid
1 August 1995
At the Festival of Possibilities in Nelson, all the usual New Age paraphernalia were on display. A current vogue is "pulsing" which is already available in at least two varieties, holistic and Tibetan. (I later experienced a pulsing; it's a variety of massage involving having different parts rocked or shaken, quite pleasant.) People at one stand tried to sell me Matol, a mixture of herbal extracts "that works at the molecular level" to increase the uptake of oxygen by my blood. I told them I trusted my body to take up just the right amount of oxygen.
More Songs from the Skeptical Choir
1 February 1995
I once was cool, but now I flame
Songs from the Skeptical Choir
1 February 1995
must give way to "test and see".
Songs Skeptical
1 November 1993
A selection of the song competition entries presented at the Skeptics Conference.
How to Make the Miraculous Blood of St Januarius
1 February 1993
Brew up a miracle for fun and profit, in the comfort of your own kitchen.
Cold Reading for Fun and Profit
1 November 1992
After seeing a demonstration of cold reading at the Skeptics Conference in 1989 I thought this was something I could have fun with, so I boned up on the list of commonplaces provided at the time:
The Homoscope
1 November 1992
At the Skeptics Conference in Christchurch in 1989, Denis Dutton mentioned that women's magazines offered horoscopes but men's magazines did not. There were two significant exceptions: the feminist magazine Broadsheet did not, but the gay (and nominally lesbian) Pink Triangle did -- a particularly bland and space-wasting one:
A Skeptical logo
1 August 1990
The above is a suggested logo for NZCSICOP. It was designed by a Wellington Skeptic, Hugh Young. Hugh has provided the following commentary:
Twins, souls and abortion
1 February 1990
I wonder if scepticism toward pseudoscience has any contribution to make to the abortion debate?
The Case of the Living Fossil
1 November 1988
"Scientific" creationists are fond of easy examples that seem to contradict evolution: so much the better if they seem to make scientists look silly.