Mark Honeychurch

Over the last week or so I've been approached online by two scammers and, I guess because of the amount of free time I have now that I'm not attending Eastern Lightning fellowship meetings, I decided ... (369 words)

Since the recent launch of Liz Gunn's new political party, NZ Loyal, I've been loyally watching all of her new party political videos, where she's been laying out her ideas for how she will run the ... (1449 words)

Back in November last year, I wrote a critique of a Safe ICT questionnaire I picked up at the Go Green expo. We recently received a copy of Safe ICT's most recent newsletter where they responded to ... (3329 words)

I've already discussed in my previous articles about the Global Flourishing, or GloFlo/∑±, movement. A few months ago I joined this group, which was claiming to be rationalist and have the answers ... (2505 words)

There was news earlier this week that the Disciplinary Tribunal hearing the case of Sue Grey has found her not guilty of both misconduct and unsatisfactory conduct. There had been several complaints ... (989 words)

Okay, this one has me stumped, so I'm looking for some help. Robin Capper, from the Auckland Skeptics in the Pub group, messaged us recently to ask about a weird thing he'd seen on Google maps ... (524 words)

James Brown I read Fake Believe by Dylan Reeve earlier this year, and intended to review it at the time for the newsletter. But typically for me, life got in the way and I never got around to ... (506 words)

As a reminder of what we covered in my last article on the Global Flourishing movement, also called ∑±, it's a new group setup in Auckland recently by a member of the New Zealand Association of ... (3109 words)

Last Monday night I attended a local talk given by National Party leader Chris Luxon, along with Tim and Alexander, who have written articles for this week's newsletter. This meeting wasn't the main ... (967 words)

When I last wrote about Eastern Lightning, the strange Chinese cult I joined at the beginning of this year, I celebrated the fact that I had managed to get my hands on a couple of copies of one of ... (3482 words)

We have some fun articles coming up in the next few weeks. Firstly, my time in the Church of Almighty God (Eastern Lightning) has come to an end, and not through my choosing. I'll be writing one ... (305 words)

Dan Ryan wrote an article a few weeks ago about our visit to a Freedoms NZ event, where Brian and Hannah Tamaki, Sue Grey and others extolled the virtues of their new umbrella political party. ... (955 words)

Max, one of our regular podcast listeners, messaged us to let us know that Groundswell NZ has recently sponsored a visit by climate denier Dr Tom Sheahen. Groundswell, as many people will be aware of ... (944 words)

Back in early 2021, Paul (I won't give his last name), a member of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists in Auckland - known as the NZARH, or just the Rationalists - was entrusted ... (2167 words)

There's a trend among some of the longer-running US TV shows of, after a few seasons, releasing a musical special. I guess once a show's creators know they're on safe ground, and that their show ... (222 words)

As a skeptic I love a good mystery - the kind of puzzle that Arthur C Clarke would write a book or make a TV show about. A couple of weeks ago I found a set of YouTube videos about a contrived ... (919 words)

I was in JB HiFi the other day and noticed that vinyl records have made a comeback. There were rows and rows of new releases on vinyl LP, selling for between $50 and $60 a piece. It reminded me of an ... (1178 words)

About 10 years ago a friend asked me about binaural beats. I had to admit at the time that I was oblivious, and had never heard of them. He proceeded to describe a fun audio effect, one that only ... (1372 words)

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time hanging around at my best friend's house. His family were committed Christians, and I was a young atheist. This was a time before I converted to ... (2089 words)

Craig is away in the US for the next four weeks, so I'm going to try to hold the fort until he gets back. Thankfully I have articles from some of our reliable contributors this week, and I'm hopeful ... (270 words)

I received a text from radio host Graeme Hill the other day, alerting me to a Newshub Nation piece on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial/Anomalous Phenomena) - the new, more “serious” name for UFOs. In the 10 ... (1691 words)

This weekend I think I may have finally managed to reach the end goal of my time in the Eastern Lightning (Church of Almighty God) group in New Zealand. Having been asking for months now if I could ... (722 words)

This week I've looked at what might be behind a funny story about combat-ready mermaids, and found out that it's not the answer I thought I was going to find. I also did a silly thing, and joined a ... (130 words)

It all started with an email: Dear Mark, I was so pleased to hear on your latest podcast that you are interested in becoming a scrapbooker and/or card maker! It's a great way to preserve your ... (2527 words)

I wrote an article a couple of years ago about a new group based on the Sovereign Citizen (or SovCit) movement. The group was planning to take ownership of Abel Tasman national park, using the ... (1207 words)

Aleh Tsyvinski is a professor of economics at Yale who has been researching Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the last few years, in a bid to understand where the currencies sit within an ... (1286 words)

The NZ Skeptics held an SGM (Special General Meeting) on the weekend to go over our proposed new constitution and vote on its adoption. We're doing this because there's an upcoming change in the law ... (455 words)

A New Zealand focused anti-vaccine “documentary” has recently been released, called Silenced. It focuses on broadcaster Peter Williams, as well as ex-GP Anne O'Reilly and sociologist Jodie Bruning, ... (364 words)

Jonny Grady, a long-time committee member, sent an image he'd taken of a “UFO” to the committee last week: Sadly he accompanied the image with a link offering a mundane explanation for this ... (174 words)

In this week's newsletter I've taken a deep dive into a spam email trying to flog me snake oil, and found a funny coincidence at the end of the rainbow. I've also written about some of the more ... (91 words)

Despite my regular attempts to unsubscribe from some of the more egregious nonsense I receive in my email, spam still gets through - at this point it seems there's a mailing list that I signed up to ... (1576 words)

In my previous articles about Eastern Lightning, the Chinese cult group that I've joined to get an insight into how they operate, I've talked about: the message they're spreading, that God has ... (3391 words)

In this week's newsletter, I've published the text from a couple of oral submissions the NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH) recently presented to MPs. One interesting part ... (227 words)

It's only been a couple of weeks since the closing of the Health Committee accepting submissions on their Therapeutic Products Bill consultation, but the committee have already been running follow-up ... (3100 words)

In my last two articles about Eastern Lightning, I've documented both the central tenets of the religion that they have been trying to teach New Zealanders over the last few months in their Level 1 ... (2651 words)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my experience of joining the Eastern Lightning group, a Chinese Christian sect that is currently trying to expand through spamming New Zealanders on Facebook, and ... (2504 words)

It's a bumper issue today, but I make no apologies for bringing you a ridiculously long email! If you're using a web based client like GMail, you may need to click the “View entire message” link or ... (647 words)

I received a company wide email at work recently from a colleague, where they were recommending an app to help people concentrate during work hours by minimising distractions. What caught my eye, ... (451 words)

by Byron Clark Review by Sara Passmore Having been a follower of Byron Clark since I became aware of his work exploring Aotearoa New Zealand's far-right and alt-right extremism landscape, I have had ... (329 words)

In late January this year, committee member Katrina Borthwick messaged our NZ Skeptics committee chat channel about a spam message she received on Facebook inviting her to join a fellowship meeting: ... (4403 words)

This week's newsletter starts off (relatively) lightly, with an article from Katrina about p-hacking. Katrina's been writing some great articles for us recently, and it was a pleasure to have her on ... (345 words)

The proposed Therapeutic Products Bill is currently at the Select Committee stage in parliament, and the committee is looking for feedback via its submissions process. For the first time maybe since ... (1957 words)

This week's newsletter will feature no articles from me - and this makes me very happy. Why have I not written anything, you may ask, and why am I happy about it. Well, because I'm blessed - and not ... (544 words)

I guess the biggest news this week is that our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, is resigning, and that she will be replaced by Minister Chris Hipkins. However, I'm not sure there's much of skeptical ... (201 words)

An article in Stuff yesterday, reprinted from the Telegraph, showcased the efforts of a scientist to bring statistics to bear on the problem of cryptids. Floe Foxen has supposedly written a couple of ... (852 words)

Never meet your heroes… or take them too seriously when they're speaking outside of their wheelhouse. I was listening to Steve Hassan speaking on a podcast recently, A Little Bit Culty - hosted by ... (1097 words)

I hope you all had a good Christmas, and that if you had a break that it was an enjoyable one. I was lucky enough to be greeted by the following passive aggressive email on Christmas Eve by a ... (472 words)

To restate the question in a way that may make more sense to some, does the new conversational Artificial Intelligence chat bot from OpenAI qualify as an Artificial General Intelligence, able to ... (1949 words)

In this week's newsletter I look at a video I watched recently on Facebook, promising a life hack for getting more bang for your buck when it comes to disposable batteries. Although, from what I can ... (374 words)

I have a friend who I've written about before who, although she's always had pseudoscientific ideas (like giving her children homeopathic remedies), since the pandemic has fallen down the rabbit hole ... (1496 words)

Recently I received an email that purported to be from the anti-virus company Norton that was blatantly a scam, but I decided to follow through as much as I could to see what the scammers were trying ... (1618 words)

Our annual conference starts on Friday, and for those of you who plan to come but haven't bought a ticket yet, you'd better be quick. I spent yesterday afternoon with Bronwyn and Daniel, running ... (241 words)

On Wednesday evening I attended the Wellington leg of Franklin Graham's God Loves You tour at the TSB Arena. If the name sounds familiar, it's probably because Franklin is the son of Billy Graham, ... (1655 words)

Craig wrote last week about his experience at the Auckland Go Green Expo, and I also mentioned that myself and Bronwyn, along with Daniel Ryan, attended the Wellington Go Green Expo a couple of weeks ... (1723 words)

Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and saviour, Caeayaron? Yesterday I visited the Go Green Expo, along with Bronwyn, and Daniel and Lisa Ryan. Every year I go, and every year I despair at ... (387 words)

Skeptic Steven Novella recently published an interesting open letter to cranks. In it he speaks in a very forthright, honest way about people who email him and pronounce that they have figured out ... (675 words)

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Upper Hutt “Mind, Body, Spirit” Fair with Bronwyn, as well as Skeptics in the Pub regulars Alexander and Tim. We were there to gawk at the weird and wonderful ... (694 words)

It seems like the answer should be pretty simple - Anne Frank, of course. But sadly not everyone seems to accept this. After a brief hiatus, I've returned to watching the god-awful series Europa, a ... (1107 words)

November is fast approaching, which means that our annual conference is not far away - just 5 weeks to go! We're currently gathering the bios and talk abstracts of our speakers for this year, so ... (238 words)

No Nut November In just a few days a curious annual internet event will begin: No Nut November (NNN). For those not in the know, nutting is a colloquial term for a man ejaculating - and No Nut ... (1072 words)

A notorious religious group from South Korea called Shincheonji (also known as Mount Zion) has apparently been actively recruiting in Auckland recently. Shincheonji has a long history in New Zealand, ... (585 words)

With local council elections closing this week, there was concern that Voices for Freedom's efforts to have their members run for office without disclosing their affiliation would result in councils ... (261 words)

This week brings a welcome decision from the Supreme Court, in a case that the NZ Skeptics have been keenly interested in since the original court case in the 1990s. I won't rehash the details of ... (1323 words)

In preparation for our next podcast episode, where we plan to talk about Bronwyn's articles on Dr Bronner, I watched a documentary the other day called Dr Bronner's Magic Soapbox. The documentary ... (1551 words)

As Craig talked about last week, we had a really good time meeting up in Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple, and also enjoyed meeting fellow skeptics at the first Auckland Skeptics in the Pub ... (311 words)

In this day and age, with the internet as a handy tool, it doesn't take long for an offhand comment on Twitter or Facebook to become a rumour, and from there to mutate into a conspiracy. Sadly, much ... (2745 words)

This Friday, Bronwyn and I will be setting off on a road trip to Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple there, as it's recently been renovated and is currently open to visitors for the first time in 64 ... (284 words)

It's been a while since the Auckland skeptics met for an evening of socialising, but at long last there's an event happening this Friday. As Bronwyn and myself are hoping to be in Auckland on Friday ... (124 words)

In the latest of my weird and wonderful ideas for websites that are fun and a little quirky, I've recently put together a page that has one simple purpose - to help you choose which god you should ... (726 words)

For anyone who wants to groan about how bad our local press can be, there's an article from the Telegraph, reprinted by the Herald and titled "Scientists discover humans produce invisible aura of ... (759 words)

I'm English by birth, and in my youth had something of an unusual connection to the British royal family because of where I grew up, the Isles of Scilly. The islands are owned by the Duchy of ... (775 words)

It's been an action-packed week this week, with lots of interesting things happening in conspiracy circles, both here and overseas. And a lot of it seems to be in the right direction, with prominent ... (334 words)

On Tuesday, Freedoms and Rights Coalition members converged on Wellington for another protest about our “freedoms”, and of course I was there to see what was going on. The prelude to the protest was ... (1499 words)

It's me again, Mark, for a third week running - as Craig is unavailable to do the newsletter again. This time it's COVID, and I can't blame him at all for not wanting to write a newsletter while ... (455 words)

By which I mean I recommend watching a new documentary called “Gloriavale”, which focuses on the infamous religious group. I most definitely don't recommend converting to their religion and moving to ... (990 words)

NASA recently held a press teleconference where they announced that they will be investigating UAPs - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. This is a new term being used instead of UFOs, given that UFO ... (1359 words)

There's usually no lack of content for our newsletter, and this week is no exception - which is great, as I'm on the newsletter for a second week in a row while Craig's unavailable. The Alex Jones ... (484 words)

Alex Jones has been sued by parents for his claims on his TV show that the Sandy Hook school massacre was faked by the government as a way to take away people's gun rights. These parents are suing ... (1147 words)

It's nice to occasionally be able to talk about nonsense outside of New Zealand. In this case, the Sydney Morning Herald recently printed - and then retracted - an article about a supposed new form ... (531 words)

But I do nothing every day Several years ago at a Skeptics in the Pub meeting, maybe back in 2014 or 2015, we got onto the topic of the popularity of baby names. At the time, someone predicted that ... (791 words)

Over the last couple of weeks I've been watching a documentary series called Europa: The Last Battle. It covers the history of Jewish communities around the world, and of the rise of Hitler. It's ... (1163 words)

Online news outlet Vice reported recently about a growing problem of witches, psychics and tarot card readers having their online profiles copied as a way to steal their business. I also found an ... (552 words)

I've always been interested in IQ tests and how they work. There's an interesting, and deep, conversation to be had about the issues with IQ tests. Without going into too much detail, although IQ ... (2192 words)

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 ... (478 words)

There's something about bracelets that seems to attract pseudoscience. In the past New Zealand companies have been named and shamed for selling amber teething bracelets and necklaces that are not ... (825 words)

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I went to parliament to pray with a group of Christians recently. Simeon Brown was the only MP at this event, and he asked us to pray for Three Waters. He said ... (820 words)

Just over a week ago Bronwyn and I, along with another couple of skeptics, visited parliament for the quarterly Prayers at Parliament event - the fourth now that I've attended. I swear that these ... (432 words)

(A: when it's Family First) One of the ways that I monitor unskeptical groups is by signing up for their newsletters - at the moment I receive regular emails from Voices for Freedom, Scientology, ... (1110 words)

Last week Craig mentioned a website I've built recently - weak.link. I figured I should probably talk a little about what the site is, why we think it's needed, and how to use it. I'll also geek out ... (1509 words)

I like to keep an eye on some of the more weird and wacky conspiracy theorists in New Zealand, as well as some of the more dangerous ones - I'm not sure why, but it feels like a disproportionate ... (1112 words)

I once met Katherine Smith, the Editor of the New Zealand Journal of Natural Medicine (not a magazine I'd recommend reading - it'll make you angry!). We had an enjoyable chat, and as we were at a ... (429 words)

One of the types of AI that is progressing at speed at the moment, in places like Google's AI labs and at a company called OpenAI, is Natural Language Processing algorithms. These deep learning ... (1847 words)

On Friday night just over a week ago I went to a Save Our Children meeting. Now, most people will read that and think I've been a civic-minded citizen, going along to a charity meeting. Save Our ... (1022 words)

The title of this one's a mouthful, and it's an interesting one to pick apart - it includes some of my favourite technologies, one that I think is going to be an important part of our future and the ... (594 words)

I apologise for my lack of inspiration in the title, but at least we have some interesting articles for you: I take another look at Counterspin, and see what they've been whingeing about this week. ... (290 words)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my visit to Counterspin's travelling roadshow (maybe circus is a better term?), but I figured that everyone might want some background - and an update on how their ... (1029 words)

I received an email last week with a stern warning: “Mark Honeychurch, STOP drinking water” The email continued: _Hello Mark Honeychurch, Don't drink another drop of water until you read this. New ... (1188 words)

Just over a year ago I wrote a newsletter issue titled “Beware of Scientologists Bearing Gifts”, where I talked about an interesting ruse in Auckland. Someone from the Auckland Scientology office had ... (594 words)

Yesterday evening I attended an interesting Counterspin Media event in Wellington. Counterspin, for those not in the know, is an “alternative” media organisation in NZ run by Kelvyn Alp and Hannah ... (569 words)

I watched a great video on YouTube the other day, the latest in a series of videos by Mark Rober where he uses glitter bombs to surprise scammers. His project started off using a device that targets ... (1130 words)

Accelerated Christian Education (known as A-C-E or ACE) is in the news, and for all the wrong reasons. ACE is a homeschooling curriculum from the US (Texas) which is accredited in New Zealand, and ... (1625 words)

For those of you who listen to our fortnightly NZ Skeptics podcast, Yeah… Nah! (which is based on this newsletter), you'll be aware that I tested positive for COVID recently. It's been a week now ... (390 words)

I received an email the other day from Joanne O'Brien, who according to her website is a Professional Organiser, Image Consultant and Health Coach. Now, I'm not going to deny that I am probably in ... (621 words)

Most of us will know Ken Ring both for his claim that he can predict the weather by looking at the moon, and his supposed ability to predict earthquakes. Here's Ken talking about how you can ... (458 words)

of skeptical topics This week's newsletter feels nicely well-rounded, like we've managed to cover several of the core areas that skeptics are interested in. I start with a topical story about a new ... (194 words)

(right through the night) I heard something interesting from my teenage daughter the other day, a story about some of her friends who have suddenly picked up a tic - a type of involuntary physical ... (892 words)

A friend (Gaylene Middleton from the New Zealand Humanists) contacted me on the weekend as she had been messaged by one of her Facebook friends about a Government Grants assistance program she is ... (699 words)

I've written before about how impressed I've been with the good work The Satanic Temple has been doing in the US and other countries, using the irrational fear of Satanism many Christians hold as a ... (1023 words)

Today's newsletter includes a fun evening myself and some other skeptics spent meditating, a rant about my junk email, and the daft convoy that's on its way to Marsden Point. I take a deep dive into ... (89 words)

This evening I attended a meditation session with the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis - an occult group made famous by Aleister Crowley). I'm not sure what I expected, but the session was advertised as a ... (350 words)

I recently had a clear out of my email inbox, as I'd reached about 20,000 unread emails. As a part of this onerous task, I unsubscribed from a large number of mailing lists. Many of them were from ... (656 words)

There's a new convoy driving through the country at the moment, and this time it's heading not for parliament, but to Marsden Point. Yep, a bunch of cars (and, from what I can tell, no actual ... (260 words)

Arise church is near to my heart - when I first arrived in New Zealand back in 2005, my wife joined the church while it was still small, and before it was even called Arise. Since then it has grown ... (1090 words)

We're currently putting together a calendar of historical skeptical events relevant to New Zealand - and we're aiming to have at least one event for every day of the year. It's been a lot of fun so ... (303 words)

This week's newsletter seems to have ended up being mostly about acronyms. I've written about how to determine what is and isn't a cult, using the BITE model, drawing from a recent visit I received ... (105 words)

Last week I had a couple of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Missionaries visit me. They called me a few days in advance to ask if it was okay to come round, and then I totally forgot about our meeting ... (1369 words)

I've recently been seeing mentions of NESARA and GESARA online, in conspiracy groups, and also on a badly painted sign at at least one local protest. So I did a little bit of reading to find out what ... (577 words)

It's nice to be reminded sometimes that the number of skeptics in society is likely to exceed the number of Skeptics in our Society by several orders of magnitude. I was reminded of this recently ... (509 words)

Over the last few months or so, while I've been perusing the crazier corners of the internet, I've seen occasional mentions of a really interesting conspiracy theory - in Facebook feeds of COVID ... (724 words)

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a video from a YouTube channel I keep an eye on for its coverage of cryptocurrency scams that looked interesting - the tale of Pixelmon, an NFT project that had ... (2128 words)

Although Bronwyn's put together this week's newsletter, I couldn't help myself and wrote a small piece about the protesters' obsession with Nuremberg. The image above shows some of the less savoury ... (1412 words)

I hope everyone is having a great Valentine's day, and that none of you are stuck in a muddy field somewhere dealing with sanitation issues ;) Before we get into our stories for this week, I'm happy ... (250 words)

I'm sure everyone is aware of the convoy that headed to Wellington on Tuesday. This collection of cars, campervans and the occasional truck has descended on our capital, supposedly as a protest ... (897 words)

The other day I noticed that the medical misinformation site NZDSOS - where a few anti-vaccine doctors promote their “alternative” COVID ideas - had changed its look. This is an issue for me, as a ... (907 words)

It's funny how things come around. Last week I watched a fascinating documentary on the Bogdanoff brothers. For those not in the know, the Bogdanoffs are a fascinating case study - two brothers who ... (1070 words)

This week's newsletter is all about those sweet, sweet sounds. There's a story about Spotify, starring Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Joe Rogan. And one about expensive audiophile-level computer ... (215 words)

I'm not normally one for jumping on bandwagons, but when I saw friends posting on Facebook over the last few days that they were cancelling their Spotify subscriptions, I figured this was one cause I ... (892 words)

I'm sitting here writing this week's newsletter with music playing in the background - I've just listened to tracks by (and I'm name-dropping here) Malcolm Middleton, the Flashbulb, Madvillain, PJ ... (1329 words)

I was scrolling through my emails today, looking to see if I had received any Why Are You A Skeptic responses from any of you. Sadly there was nothing I'd missed; no stories of how you'd found ... (1559 words)

Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova, more commonly known as Baba Vanga, was a Bulgarian psychic. Although she died back in 1996, she was kind enough to leave behind some predictions that may or may not ... (932 words)

I'm not a fan of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, the original and most "successful" of them, has not followed its creator's vision of being a decentralised currency that allows people to make payments to ... (1208 words)

Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for your support over the last year. We had a very successful conference late last year, and our membership has been slowly increasing, which is great! If ... (209 words)

The Lotus-Heart restaurant in Christchurch has chosen to take a stand against vaccine mandates, by refusing to let customers know if they require a vaccine pass, not promoting use of their COVID ... (301 words)

A surprising endorsement of COVID vaccines came out recently - from none other than Donald Trump. Trump has a spotty history when it comes to supporting good science, and he's well known to skeptics ... (277 words)

As a programmer, I love a good story about buggy software. Maybe it makes me feel better about my own mistakes! So when I recently heard about a fun bug in the strategy game Civilisation, from way ... (866 words)

Last week Craig introduced a new section to our newsletter, which he's named Why Are You A Skeptic. We're keen to hear from each of you about why you're a skeptic, and to publish your stories in the ... (479 words)

Black Oxygen Organics is a recent craze in alternative medicine. Many people swear by it, saying that it can treat all sorts of conditions - from heart issues and ADHD to COVID and cancer. But what ... (824 words)

I'm sure most people know the story of the Tiger King, a documentary series which became required viewing last year around the world when many countries went into lockdown. The series followed Joe ... (450 words)

A couple of weeks ago I attended an online sermon from Destiny Church with a few friends. The sermon started off fairly tame, with Brian joking about viewers eating popcorn - so I went and grabbed a ... (426 words)

Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital made the news last week, with an 89 year old man being charged for his part in the abuse of children who were under the hospital's care in the 1970s. Dr Selwyn Leeks, ... (464 words)

The Australian Skeptics have spent the last few years working hard on an amazing project, led by Richard Saunders, to find and analyse as many psychic predictions as they could find. The group ... (735 words)

In this week's newsletter I spend far too much time debunking a baseless vaccine injury claim about Celine Dion, convince my wife to use tin foil to treat what ails her, and talk about a tragic, and ... (78 words)

I was talking to a friend last weekend who works as a tradesman. He asked me, as a skeptic, what I thought of the coronavirus vaccine - did I think it was dangerous? And was COVID real? He's pretty ... (720 words)

I was sent a funny article the other day about the benefits of aluminium foil on a website called Tips and Tricks. The website appears to be a prolific source of clickbait - articles with catchy ... (813 words)

Rex Warwood sadly died late last week. He was a long time reporter, and later editor, for the Franklin County News, and was apparently well liked. However in recent years he appears to have succumbed ... (622 words)

So I want to talk about an interesting arrest that happened yesterday, but not the arrest of Brian and Hannah Tamaki. @youtube A woman called Vanessa Price was visited by the police yesterday ... (369 words)

Last night at about 1am a friend of mine sent me a link to a brand new COVID website called Wanaka Health Bridge. I clicked on the link, and saw that the site talks about the risks resulting from ... (566 words)

This weekend was our joint Australian and New Zealand conference, Skepticon 2021. Thank you so much to those of you who joined us, it was an amazing weekend with fascinating talks and I hope you ... (463 words)

Craig Shearer announced the winners of our annual awards at the beginning of the second day of our conference, and it was accompanied by the following press release: Every year the New Zealand ... (690 words)

Hot off the press, International Law lecturer Amy Benjamin has resigned from Auckland University of Technology this week. I wrote about Amy back in August, at the beginning of our second national ... (370 words)

Astroworld is an annual music festival run by rapper Travis Scott in Texas. There was a tragedy at this year's festival, a few weeks ago, when a crowd surge caused a crush and resulted in the deaths ... (457 words)

For those who use Facebook - you may have seen a video advert recently using Jacinda Ardern as a way to promote a cryptocurrency. Obviously this is fake - Jacinda does not want you to “invest” your ... (914 words)

I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened last week. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit the march on Parliament on Tuesday or experience the ... (661 words)

There's a rumour going around in conspiracy circles that the UN, and/or Italian soldiers, are due to come to New Zealand at the end of November, or that they might already be here. It's not obvious ... (370 words)

QAnon is the recent conspiracy theory in the US that refuses to go away. Someone has been using the name QAnon, short for an Anonymous person with Q Level Security Clearance, since 2017 to post ... (426 words)

About a year ago Daniel Ryan and I wrote to Givealittle, an organisation in NZ that runs an online platform which allows people to fundraise for needy causes. We expressed our concerns about misuse ... (686 words)

The BBC (in its travel section) has an interesting article on the Skirvin hotel in Oklahoma, supposedly the most haunted hotel in the US. The article talks a little about the hotel and the ghosts ... (924 words)

I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened yesterday. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit this particular march on Parliament. There was one ... (478 words)

Nothing - apart from that they're all featured in this week's newsletter. This morning I went to a “Witches Market” in Lower Hutt, Wellington. This is the second year that the event has been run, and ... (508 words)

One of the many effects of climate change is that the oceans are rising. This is going to be an increasing problem for coastal settlements and island nations. But one American political candidate who ... (287 words)

Last week Craig told you all about a parody website I'd built, NZD-SOS, which copied the look and feel of an anti-vaccine site called New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science but changed the ... (391 words)

Last week we talked about how the Doctors Stand Up For Vaccination group had released its list of names of six and a half thousand doctors who have signed a letter in support of COVID vaccination. ... (527 words)

Mike Adams is well known to skeptics. For many years he's run the Natural News website, which started out as a source of medical misinformation paired with a shop selling expensive, useless ... (424 words)

One of the signatories to the NZD SOS declaration, Dr Matt Shelton, is an interesting case - he made the news a few weeks ago when he sent a text message to his patients saying: "Hi ---, your GP Dr ... (537 words)

On Friday evening we had a national online Skeptics in the Pub meeting (Skeptics in Cyberspace), which going forward will be happening every four weeks. If you're interested in joining us, check your ... (342 words)

Rumours have been circulating in the US that President Biden plans to fix the debt ceiling issue by minting a one trillion dollar coin. Although this sounds patently absurd, there's some logic behind ... (269 words)

The government is really pushing the COVID vaccine at the moment, including with this weekend's Super Saturday - where around 130,000 vaccines were administered in a single day. What I've been ... (461 words)

I naively thought that the whole QAnon movement would fall apart after Trump lost his bid for re-election. For those who have somehow not heard about QAnon before, it's a conspiracy that started in ... (609 words)

It seems ridiculous, but a man in the US is suing a psychic he asked for life advice. The psychic, Sophia Adams, told customer Mauro Restrepo that his marriage was at risk because of a “mala suerte” ... (575 words)

Last week I attended an I Ching meeting online, where I learned how to use the I Ching to help me to make life decisions. The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is a book of 64 different sayings which are ... (664 words)

When talking with people about skepticism, I've often used a convenient classification to separate what I see as two main camps of skeptics. In my oversimplified model there are a) those who are ... (576 words)

Retraction Watch has documented a recent debacle where an open access journal from Nature, called Scientific Reports, published an article titled “A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a ... (654 words)

I'm sure Alex Jones is no stranger to most skeptics. The Info Wars host has an illustrious history of pushing nonsense ideas about the US - from the ridiculous (chemicals in the water supply are ... (515 words)

The church was irresponsible with their recent protest, held during a level 3 lockdown in Auckland. The majority of those attending were without masks, and were not following physical distancing ... (370 words)

Dr Samantha Murton, president of the Royal NZ College of GPs, has spoken out about the problems of social media "influencers" who spread wellness misinformation online. Although many influential ... (792 words)

Thanks to everyone who joined our online Skeptics in the Pub meetings over the last two weeks. We've had such a good time chatting with skeptics who we usually only see once or twice a year that ... (294 words)

Following on from our submission to the Justice Select Committee a couple of weeks ago on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill (outlawing conversion therapy), myself and Bronwyn ... (348 words)

I have three school age kids, and so I'm no stranger to Blue's Clues. I've watched many episodes with both Steve (Steve Burns) and Joe (Donovan Patton) hosting the show alongside the animated dog ... (724 words)

During lockdown, the Wellington Skeptics in the Pub group have been meeting online every week. It's been great to be able to continue our social meetings, but I also think it's a good way to keep us ... (411 words)

Obviously as skeptics we're pretty clued up on the idea of not using unproven therapies, especially when there's positive evidence that they don't work. It's been apparent for a while now that the ... (695 words)

Texas has recently introduced a draconian new abortion law, one that feels not only perverse (in that it allows for civil lawsuits where anyone can sue those who are involved in providing abortion ... (725 words)

We're currently looking for nominations for our annual awards. Specifically, we have a Bent Spoon award for whoever has “has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking” over ... (196 words)

It feels like it was inevitable that some of the conspiracy theorists, or “freedom fighters” as they call themselves, would end up protesting our latest level 4 lockdown. I'm not surprised that their ... (222 words)

The not totally surprising result of these protests is that the police have been arresting protestors. However, they've not tried to arrest everyone, or to pick up just those who are the loudest or ... (991 words)

Of all the people who spoke publicly about this week's arrest, Amy Benjamin, a senior lecturer of international law at AUT, was the most surprising to me. Amy put out a video this week (which has ... (306 words)

This one's a little light hearted, and not overly surprising - Kelvin Cruickshank, one of our most famous local psychics, appears to have failed to have been warned by the spirits about the impending ... (125 words)

Recently I've been playing with some deep learning software - OpenAI's GPT-2 and GPT-3, and EleutherAI's GPT-J-6G. These are NLP algorithms. No, not that discredited garbage Neuro-Linguistic ... (299 words)

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the NZ Skeptics putting together a submission for the Ministry of Justice in response to their new Hate Speech proposals. You can read our submission on our ... (251 words)

Using an older algorithm, GPT-2, with a fairly small data set that it had been pre-trained on, I fine tuned this particular piece of software on the entire back catalogue of QAnon posts. Below are 6 ... (295 words)

This one surprised me a little. I fed GPT-2 about a dozen holy texts, with the intention of generating some text that was their distilled, combined wisdom. Instead, what I received each time I ran ... (770 words)

One idea I've been given is to find a large set of Deepak Chopra quotes, and use that to train an algorithm to create nonsense quotes talking about quantum realities and the collapse of the wave ... (72 words)

Okay, so I'm joking here - I actually know how to pronounce the name (it's said "Nexium"). But it's obviously a pretentious looking name, chosen for a pretentious, and dangerous, cult. One that ... (377 words)

Allison Mack was once famous for her role in the TV show Smallville, a spin-off show about Superman. However, a few years ago she joined a group called NXIVM who promised to help her on the path to ... (586 words)

Sensing Murder psychic Kelvin Cruickshank is currently touring the country. He's been down in the South Island recently, visiting Christchurch and a lot of smaller towns, and selling tickets at $65 a ... (497 words)

Mahin Khatami looks at first blush to be a respectable scientist - she has a long history as a scientist spanning decades, she used to work for the NIH (National Institutes for Health) in the US as a ... (351 words)

There is an increasingly vocal sub-set of farmers around the country who are buying into conspiracy theories. A group called the Agricultural Action Group - AAG - have been touring the country in ... (402 words)

There's some classic skepticism in this week's newsletter - numerology, an American conspiracy theory and a scam that looks, walks and quacks like a Ponzi Scheme. And, as well as my usual ranting, we ... (130 words)

While trawling conspiracy websites and videos, as I tend to do for fun, I stumbled across a recommendation for a local kiwi numerologist. But the recommendation said that, unlike the usual mystical ... (1034 words)

I recently learned about the absolutely fun conspiracy that is “birds aren't real”. According to the theory, the CIA in the 1950s were trying to solve two hard problems. Firstly, they wanted to be ... (431 words)

I enjoy playing computer games, and own both a gaming PC (RTX 3060 Ti, i5-10400) and a VR headset (Quest). So when I heard about an ambitious new game for PCs, VR and phones, it piqued my interest. ... (760 words)

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about lawyer Liz Lambert's effort to claim a small part of New Zealand - the Abel Tasman National Park - as her own property, which she's called New Freeland. Well, it ... (681 words)

Sadly the Druids cancelled on us last week due to the bad weather here in Wellington, so I was unable to attend their winter solstice event. However we (a small group of Skeptics in the Pub regulars) ... (96 words)

There's a lawyer in New Zealand called Liz Lambert who thinks she has hit upon a legal loophole that allows people to claim any piece of land as their own. As background, there are two main forms of ... (748 words)

Obviously India has been through the wringer recently with a huge increase in the number of COVID cases, and deaths, in the country. Thankfully the number of active cases is dropping, but at its peak ... (607 words)

(In)famous German psychic Michael Schneider made the news recently when he claimed to know the exact coordinates of Madeleine McCann's body. Madeleine, aged 3, went missing in 2007 while she was on ... (803 words)

Someone called Daryl Trask has recently placed a petition on change.org asking people to sign their support for an overthrow of our government. The petition says: "The people of NZ are being ... (691 words)

US Senator Louie Gohmert, from Texas, has recently asked the country's Forestry Service if they can look into a thought he's had about how to combat climate change: I guess Louie skipped astronomy ... (541 words)

Now that I've found out about Rebel Wisdom, I'm hooked. I usually have to go hunting for my nonsense, but the Rebel Wisdom website has everything in one place: Rupert Sheldrake (who has silly ideas ... (899 words)

As promised, myself and another couple of skeptics recently visited the Theosophical Society's building in Wellington to hear their National President, John Vorstermans, give a talk titled “The ... (484 words)

I've seen adverts pop up recently on news sites, such as NewsHub and YouTube, that are selling a device which claims to be able to cut your power bill by 90%. Now, wouldn't that be nice - if it were ... (780 words)

I've watched a few videos online from a recent panic where people show themselves sticking a magnet to their arm at the injection site of their COVID vaccine. The same magnet pushed against other ... (811 words)

Over the next couple of months I'm hoping to visit a few interesting religious groups, to get a feel for them - what they believe, how they act, who attends their events. So, all being well, after ... (348 words)

For a long time now I've been promising to take a friend of mine to a Christian Science church service. He's been interested in doing this because he was brought up in the church in America, but ... (641 words)

Apparently a UFO was seen in Hawkes Bay late last week. Several people reported seeing a large rectangular shaped object in the sky at dusk, with green and red lights, moving strangely. A MetService ... (940 words)

I've watched a few videos from a recent panic where people show themselves sticking a magnet to their arm at the injection site of their COVID vaccine. The same magnet pushed against other parts of ... (792 words)

A recent major report into herbs and supplements for weight loss has concluded that they don't work, and that not enough is known about their safety. Erica Bessell, the lead author from the ... (469 words)

Sue Grey, Nelson lawyer and co-leader of The Outdoors Party (an anti-vax, anti-5g, anti-1080 political party), had her day in court last week, taking the government to court over their COVID vaccine ... (735 words)

There's a website in New Zealand promoting "Vortex Water". The front page of the site starts by saying: "Natures Design's revisited today and everyday....Billions of years of proven and valued ... (443 words)

Last week was a busy one. On Monday I visited parliament for a church service called The Power of One, along with another couple of skeptics. The event was organised by a group called Jesus for NZ ... (343 words)

A week ago I opened the LinkedIn app on my phone, and noticed a comment on a post that was made by someone in NZ who was an “EvoRich Consultant”. His profile didn't seem to match what I'd expect from ... (825 words)

The website of an organisation called the Maori Ranger Security Division is currently selling ID cards that they claim can help you avoid being arrested by police, protect you from Child Services, ... (792 words)

A video from “LADbible” has been doing the rounds recently, showing members of a Russian fitness group performing feats of amazing speed. The video shows several clips of them punching something or ... (578 words)

On Monday night I visited parliament, where a group called Jesus for NZ had been invited by National MP Simon Bridges to hold a church service called the Power of One. Jesus for NZ is a loose ... (569 words)

A recent article from Radio NZ did a great job of pointing out just how useless online polls are, and raising concerns about how often New Zealand media outlets, including Newshub, the AM Show and ... (450 words)

I've noticed an interesting, and worrying, shift with some of the more extreme online communities recently. On the one hand it's great to finally, and belatedly, see social media companies like ... (312 words)

A.C.E., or Accelerated Christian Education, is a Christian based curriculum used in New Zealand - both in some Christian schools, and by parents who homeschool their children. The curriculum boasts ... (484 words)

An “alternative” health clinic in Christchurch, which specialises in colonic irrigation and coffee enemas, has announced online that it will not treat anyone who has been vaccinated within the last ... (421 words)

Normally I would be excited to hear that a prominent biologist is in New Zealand, but in this case the biologist in question is Dr Bruce Lipton - a figure who is well known to skeptics. Bruce “works” ... (319 words)

Essential oils are concentrated extracted plant chemicals that have a strong smell of the plant they were extracted from - their "essence". These oils are often heated in a diffuser, or evaporated ... (497 words)

TV psychic Maurice Amdur, in the UK, has a video featured on his public Facebook page - Maurice's Psychic World - where he performs a psychic reading of a car salesman while he's picking up a brand ... (273 words)

The Centner Academy in Miami, Florida has barred its teachers from being able to see students if they've been given the COVID vaccine, and will not be employing new teachers who have already been ... (318 words)

The Exclusive Brethren is a "high control" church run from Sydney by Bruce Hales, the "Elect Vessel". "High control" is a term used to describe groups where the leadership exert a high degree of ... (336 words)

An article was published by Stuff the other day about cosmetic acupuncture - a discredited idea that sticking needles in your face can be an alternative to paying for a face lift. Half way through ... (362 words)

There's been a lot of talk recently in "alternative" circles about vaccine deaths. This has been prompted by the massive global rollout of several different types of COVID vaccines - mRNA (Pfizer, ... (898 words)

A friend sent me an article about a paper published recently in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion called: "Linking Evangelical Subculture and Phallically Insecure Masculinity Using ... (339 words)

After chatting with Graeme Hill on Magic Talk recently about Sue Grey, co-leader of the conspiracy minded Outdoors Party, and her threat to sue the government, I found out that Sue was planning to ... (479 words)

I'm a bit late to the party with this one, but there is footage on YouTube from last year where the pope gives a blessing from an upper floor window. After the blessing the pope turns around and ... (341 words)

Kyle Chapman, ex head of the New Zealand National Front, is one of several people planning to distribute misleading leaflets about the COVID vaccine around New Zealand: Thankfully the claims in ... (377 words)

Honestly, I don't think I could make up something this daft if I tried. Thanks to an astute member of our NZ Skeptics Facebook group, I now know about a New Zealand company - Hippo Health - who are ... (490 words)

A work colleague reached out to me the other day with an interesting question. One of his close family members has fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole, and now spends a lot of time talking about ... (860 words)

On the news of Prince Philip's death, my thoughts go out not just to the British Royal Family, but also to the members of the Prince Philip Movement in Vanuatu. This movement, a very small religious ... (220 words)

After talking about Sue Grey's threat to sue the government last week, I found out that Sue was planning to give a talk on the steps of parliament the next day. So during my lunch break last Thursday ... (395 words)

Disappointingly, despite the excitement, I'm sure many listeners will already have figured out what the rational explanation for this string of lights in the sky over Melbourne was: Elon Musk's ... (125 words)

The Outdoors Party's health spokesperson recently shared a video clip from the TV show Dexter, showing a scene where the serial killer protagonist of the show remembers being rescued as a child from ... (296 words)

The Secular Education Network, a group of parents and others who are passionate about ensuring the Education Act's promise of secular education in schools is realised, have just released a document ... (1651 words)

I recently heard about someone who signed up on the MeetUp website for a conversational English course in Auckland, and when they arrived they found out that the course was being run by ... (364 words)

A new group called FACT (Fight Against Conspiracy Theories) has published an open letter to Plan B about their connection with Voices for Freedom. The letter calls on Plan B to distance themselves ... (397 words)

Stuff published an article recently about the dangers of LED light bulbs, arguing that the blue light from LED bulbs disturbs our circadian rhythm and disrupts our sleep, with wide ranging knock-on ... (563 words)

A UK company, Football Index, has financially collapsed over the last as its users have realised that the entire thing is nothing more than a pack of cards. Football Index created a set of virtual ... (1084 words)

A new astronomy paper suggests that the strange object named Oumuamua that passed through our solar system a couple of years ago was probably a thin disc of planetary matter, and not a piece of alien ... (380 words)

On Thursday evening last week I visited Parliament to pray for the future of our country. Now I'm not a Christian, so I'm pretty sure my prayers aren't going to make a difference, but it's ... (383 words)

On Saturday I attended one of several Freedom Rallies around the country. In Wellington, the rally was set for midday at the train station. It was a fairly low key affair, with flyers being handed ... (444 words)

The AstraZeneca vaccine has made the news recently, as several European countries have halted its rollout temporarily due to reports of blood clots. These issues are real, but it's important to look ... (197 words)

We've just had the second anniversary of the horrific Christchurch massacre, and as skeptics it's sad to have seen over the last two years those in our country who have posted content denying that ... (683 words)

A group who monitor extreme Right Wing groups, Hope Not Hate, have published an article detailing a weird attempt to hijack the QAnon conspiracy. The new conspiracy theory, called Sabmyk, has been ... (224 words)

Today I finally made it to the Builders Of The Adytum, a strange group whose beliefs combine Kabbalah and Tarot into an unusual, but enjoyable, philosophy. The meeting was fun, with incense, ... (485 words)

Following on from last week's stories about the Tamakis saying they won't be getting vaccinated, and Ken Ring saying he predicted our recent earthquake, there have been a couple of interesting ... (376 words)

Graeme Hill, longtime broadcaster and a good friend of science, skepticism and common sense thinking, now has an evening slot on MagicTalk radio. As part of his show, Graeme usually interviews ... (387 words)

Rebecca Booth, from Fairlie in the South Island, recently found a seven leaf clover. The Stuff article about this find mentioned that this is not the first clover-related find Rebecca has had. ... (265 words)

Today is the second anniversary of the horrific Christchurch massacre, and as skeptics it's sad to have seen over the last two years those in our country who have posted content denying that the ... (750 words)

We've just come out of another short spell spent at level 3 lockdown for Auckland, and level 2 for the rest of us. Well done to all of you who managed to follow the rules and help keep us all safe, ... (348 words)

I'm guessing that Jami-Lee Ross, head of the failed conspiracy themed political party Advance NZ, has run out of money. Why else would he be planning to flog useless anti-5G pills to us? Charlie ... (338 words)

After last week's nocturnal earthquake, Ken Ring has been on Facebook proving how right he is. He's pointed out that he predicted the earthquake in his 2021 almanac: From the "Earthquake diary", on ... (1029 words)

I've recently read calls for high profile figures in New Zealand to endorse the new COVID vaccines, as a way to reassure the portion of the public who currently feel unsure about the vaccines' ... (304 words)

For those of you who like the work we do enough that you want to support us financially, it's that time of the year when membership subscriptions are due. Membership is only $40, or $20 if you're ... (221 words)

MP Grant Robertson was on Peter Williams' Magic Talk radio show this week when he was asked about the “Great Reset”. His immediate reaction was to quit the interview early, and he's subsequently let ... (417 words)

The controversial conservative US radio host Rush Limbaugh died this week. Although this isn't something that the NZ Skeptics feel is okay to celebrate, we do acknowledge that Limbaugh was ... (110 words)

Or, at the very least he's apparently quit politics. This one was a bit of a surprise to me, as the conspiracy minded Billy had only just announced that he was re-naming his Public Party to the ... (182 words)

Lockdown timing predictions from a Hamilton based psychic, Sarah King, have been unearthed and posted to our Facebook group this week: Sarah said when she made these totally wrong predictions, back ... (198 words)

A member emailed us this week to share an unaddressed letter she received in her mailbox. Thankfully the anonymous author of the document has put in the hard work of joining all the unconnected dots ... (175 words)

Last week I attended, online, the funeral of Ngaire McCarthy, who died just over a week ago from cancer. Ngaire was an outspoken Māori atheist, humanist and rationalist who spoke to the NZ Skeptics ... (351 words)

I wish I was making this news story up - partially because it's getting a little bit tiresome writing about US politics. However, the recently elected Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor ... (357 words)

Or at least that's what NewsHub would have us believe, with an article published on Tuesday about the benefits of Reiki, an energy healing technique that involves the practitioner manipulating your ... (732 words)

Happy New Year! I can't help but wonder what 2021 is going to bring us, given that we've already started the year with the US Capitol being invaded by right wing extremists and QAnon conspiracy ... (116 words)

Billy TK held an anti-lockdown rally in Auckland on Saturday. The rally was accompanied by a variety of interesting flags, signs and chants: The flags were a mix of Trump 2020, the United Tribes of ... (546 words)

I'm sure many skeptics have enjoyed JP Sears' parody videos of the wellness industry, such as How to Become Gluten Intolerant and How to be Ultra Spiritual. It was a surprise to me, just before ... (159 words)

An image that has been making its way round the internet recently purports to be a circuit diagram for a 5G chip which is inside COVID vaccines. However, those who are technically musical minded have ... (251 words)

On the popular tech news YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, Linus has evaluated a couple of small faraday cages that are sold in the US as a way to protect home users from the harmful radiation coming ... (105 words)

I told you all three weeks ago that I was going to visit the Ancient Mystical Order of Rosicrucians, and I can report that I survived the meeting intact. My friend Tim and I had a great chat with ... (252 words)

In the news this morning, it's been reported that our very own New Zealand monolith has appeared at Adventure Park in Christchurch. I'd love to think that this monolith could stay until I get a ... (136 words)

In one of our Facebook groups this week there was a recent discussion started by Donald Pettitt about his visit to a “crystal healer” to help with issues he's been having with his balance: _“I've ... (534 words)

Retraction Watch have written a nice summary of the year in retractions for The Scientist magazine. Unsurprisingly many of the scientific articles that have been retracted this year are on the topic ... (737 words)

As Skeptics we're not very fond of scammers, and we often try to protect the public from those who would rip them off with dodgy devices and ineffective products. The video below documents a feat of ... (115 words)

Tonight I'm off to a meeting of AMORC - the Ancient Mystical Order of Rosae Crucis. It occurred to me the other day that there's an old idea which might be appropriate here. I'm sure many of you have ... (226 words)

Thank you Mark Fletcher for letting us know that you had a copy of the video of James Randi's 1993 Christchurch talk. He'd even transcoded the video from VHS to DVD several years ago, which made it a ... (117 words)

I'm sure most people saw the intriguing news that a tall prism shaped metal structure, now known as the Utah Monolith, had been found by conservationists in the desert in the US, sticking out from ... (468 words)

There's an interesting article published by Dr Deane Galbraithe this week about Billy Te Kakiha's evangelical influence, and how this may explain his adoption of so many conspiracy theories in his ... (640 words)

The amazing members of the GSoW (Guerrilla Skeptics on Wikipedia) group have struck again. In recent years the group have done some amazing work creating new Wikipedia articles and rewriting existing ... (175 words)

For those who followed Craig's link last week to a colour therapy site, you may have thought that some of the claims on the site were pretty egregious - including such gems as “incurable means ... (251 words)

Another newsletter, another election. This time the US appears to have, narrowly, come to its senses and chosen to vote out their current science-denying leader - and my guess is that most skeptics ... (188 words)

I'm sure most skeptics will have heard of QAnon by now - the anonymously named Q who posts online about shadowy organisations, and talks about how president Trump is fighting dark forces in the US. ... (393 words)

The above title is my paraphrasing of a recent paper published in an Elsevier-owned scientific journal, Science of The Total Environment. The paper's actual title is: Can Traditional Chinese Medicine ... (471 words)

Last week Craig promised that we would give you a link to a video Haunted NZ were producing about their recent investigation at a house in Pukekohe. We have now been sent a copy of the video that you ... (83 words)

The Luminate festival, held each year outside of Nelson, has always been a little out of touch with science. But, as David Farrier shows, things appear to be getting worse. The festival has been ... (351 words)

If the US election hasn't caused you enough stress, you could read a recent “take down” of James Randi titled The man who destroyed skepticism, published soon after his death on the popular Boing ... (445 words)

A reminder that our AGM will be held online at the beginning of next month, on the 6th of December, at 7pm. To connect to our meeting, if you are a member of the Society, please use the following ... (58 words)

I've been keeping a close eye on some of the more fringe political parties in New Zealand's election, and it's been great to see that not many kiwis have been swayed by their radical ideas. In case ... (1451 words)

Here are some common medical myths that are easy to dispel: We Only use 10% of our brain This is a fairly innocuous start to the list. As with any truth claim, it's good to come at this one through ... (1686 words)

The Crimes Amendment Bill passed its second reading in parliament this week, and it now looks likely that our blasphemy law will be repealed in the near future. This is great news, and is being ... (160 words)

SleepDrops is a New Zealand based company offering herbal/homeopathic products that are supposed to help you to sleep, although there's absolutely no evidence that they work. Last month SleepDrops ... (318 words)

Cocksy, a celebrity builder on New Zealand TV, has cancer and is currently on an experimental new treatment. In an article on the NZ Herald, Cocksy spoke about how until recently he's been self ... (123 words)

On Wednesday a group of us skeptics visited the Ark Man, Rod Walsh, who has been over in New Zealand from Australia on tour. Rod's schtick is that god told him in the ‘90s to build a scale model of ... (550 words)

A few weeks ago the Wellington Skeptics made their annual pilgrimage to the Go Green Expo. Billed as a Green Living and Sustainable Lifestyle Show, in reality the majority of stands push nonsense ... (352 words)

The Ministry of Education are finally getting close to publishing guidelines for schools about allowing Religious Instruction classes. From what I've heard, the government first talked of releasing ... (562 words)

Asia Bibi, who has been on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy for nearly 10 years, has been acquitted this week. Unsurprisingly, this is far from the end of her troubles. Since her acquittal, ... (183 words)

There were hundreds of Christians at Parliament on Tuesday calling for the reinstatement of the name of Jesus in parliament's prayer. There were people wearing Make America Great Again hats, bikers ... (722 words)

A friend sent me a video the other day about a fuel saving device for your car. The video was quite well done, and like so many videos on FB had no voice over - instead having a soundtrack, along ... (555 words)

SleepDrops is a New Zealand company which sells small vials of liquid drops which are supposed to help you get to sleep and stay asleep. Their ingredients are a mixture of small doses of herbs and ... (485 words)

Ireland has had a bit of a rocky history with its blasphemy law, with a complaint made against a local comedian for calling the Catholic communion wafer "haunted bread", and Stephen Fry being ... (250 words)

HRV has had to pay out $400k for bad claims it made about its water filters. The interesting thing about this case, in my opinion, is that the fine was given because it was shown that HRV didn't have ... (137 words)

Herbal remedies are very popular these days, with many pharmacies in New Zealand happy to promote products that don't work as treatments for medical conditions, or even just as a preventative measure ... (371 words)

The other day I received an ominous email telling me that I have malware installed on my PC as a result of visiting porn sites, and that I need to cough up £850 so that my sordid life isn't made ... (1096 words)

Last week a friend let me know that someone in my area was giving away kangen water for free - presumably in an effort to get people to sign up to buy a water filter. Kangen is a water filter that's ... (324 words)

Pakistanis are threatening to strike nationwide if leniency is shown to Asia Bibi [Ah-seea Beebee], a woman who has been sentenced to death for a blasphemy charge. The charge was related to the fact ... (269 words)

The Aussies have just had their skeptics conference, and have given out a Bent Spoon award to Sarah Stevenson, for her Sarah's Day brand of nonsense. Sarah has claimed that she managed to cure a case ... (175 words)

Yesterday afternoon I met with a group of ex Jehovah's Witnesses. We talked a lot about what it's like being in the faith, and how it is to leave. You can either leave of your own accord ... (468 words)

At the end of last year I went along to an occult ceremony, the OTO's Gnostic Mass. I tried to return in June for the Winter Solstice, but the venue was changed on me at the last minute - apparently ... (555 words)

In a frankly scary move, the WHO are legitimising unproven medical therapies by including them in the new edition of its "International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health ... (127 words)

Protests have been happening around the country this week on the topic of the government's use of 1080 poison. In my time I've heard a few arguments against use of the poison, and there doesn't seem ... (258 words)

This morning I went along to two church services with a visiting academic, Hamed, who is over in New Zealand from Iran. He had never seen a Christian service before, and had been told to ask me about ... (420 words)

Alex Jones, who runs the website InfoWars, seems to be coming apart at the seams. For background, InfoWars is a website and "news" TV channel where Alex Jones pushes conspiracy news stories, and ... (308 words)

I had a phone call this week from "Spark". I spoke to a couple of Indian gentlemen who explained that my private IP address had been made public, and that this meant that my internet connection was ... (408 words)

Yesterday I went to an "Allergy Free and Healthy Living Show" in Porirua. Sadly there were very few stands at the expo that were about allergies - there was Allergy NZ and Coeliac New Zealand. Most ... (617 words)

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a report last week, detailing credible accusations of child abuse against over 300 priests in the state, with over 1,000 victims. Shapiro doesn't ... (201 words)

An upcoming edition of the Watchtower from the Jehovah's Witnesses is recommending that church members should consider staying with an abusive partner, even if they feel their life is in danger. Of ... (161 words)

On Friday afternoon I headed out to Khandallah School in Wellington as part of the Secular Education Network. SEN believes that schools should be secular, and that there is no place in our school ... (1080 words)

Source I've spent this weekend at the Jehovah's Witnesses convention, titled "Be Courageous", in Porirua. There were estimated to be 2,000 attendees. I ended up going this year because a couple of ... (1764 words)

This weekend was the Humanist Conference in Auckland, with some great international and local speakers. The day started off with Henare and Eru (the Heretical Hori) talking about how it is to be ... (750 words)

BBC Newsweek A fun new conspiracy theory has popped up in America, called QAnon. The name comes from the signature of the person who started the conspiracy, Q, posting on the 4chan internet board ... (430 words)

A new study of over 1,000 cancer patients in the US has shown that a choice to use alternative therapies alongside conventional therapy leads to a higher chance of dying from cancer. This is a very ... (327 words)

BBC Video Talking of superstition, a man in Ethiopia has been arrested for convincing a family to let him resurrect a dead family member. Getayawukal Ayele says that he is a prophet. He told the ... (239 words)

We talked about a court case a while ago involving Johnson & Johnson, and a claim that asbestos in their talcum powder has been giving people cancer. A new decision in the US has seen a court ... (338 words)

Stuff wrote an article today about the issues the Humanist Society have been having with international conference delegates and speakers visiting New Zealand next month. The local Wellington ... (391 words)

A seller of magic charms in Nigeria has been killed this week while demonstrating a bullet repelling charm. The sale of charms and potions is commonplace in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, and the ... (297 words)

Mark Hanna has written a great blog post detailing the issues the Chiropractic Board has had getting their members to abide by their codes and New Zealand law. While I'm not surprised to hear about ... (315 words)

There have been promising results from a recent trial of an HIV vaccine. An effective vaccine would be a useful part of our fight against AIDS related deaths. The new vaccine needs further trials, ... (533 words)

HRV have plead guilty to 11 counts of misleading customers about their water filters. They were charged with making untrue claims about the levels of chemicals in New Zealand tap water, as well as ... (244 words)

You may ask what blasphemy has to do with skepticism - often I've talked with people about the intersection of skepticism and religious belief. I feel that religion should never be above skeptical ... (861 words)

The NZ Herald has published a story about a woman whose terminal cancer was cured after she took cannabis oil. Of course, there's more to this story - isn't there always. In this case, the woman used ... (112 words)

In Canada, a man has been selling bottles of medicinal hot dog water for $38. The organic beef hot dogs were boiled before being added to unfiltered water and poured into a vial shaped like a test ... (278 words)

It seems that every new advance in technology is accompanied by people who are willing to warn the world of made up dangers. Anti-vaccine advocates have been around since the beginning of vaccine use ... (581 words)

Dr Oz is up to his usual nonsense, promoting an author who claims that astrology can predict your health. Rebecca Gordon believes that the Vitruvian Man may hold the key to how the signs of the ... (372 words)

The NHS recently decided to stop funding homeopathy. Until recently, taxpayers' money was used in the UK to fund homeopathic hospitals (in London, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and Tunbridge Wells) and ... (206 words)

Breakfast on 1 recently hosted a physiotherapist advertising the Shakti Mat - a yoga mat covered in plastic circles, with each circle consisting of 20 or more sharp spikes. The mat is supposed to ... (228 words)

It's always good to see people who aren't known to me in the skeptical community making complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. Dr Holmes complained to the ASA recently about a Sanitarium ... (220 words)

New Zealand's first flat earth conference has just been hosted, last Saturday in Auckland. Around 30 "flat mates" crowded into the Backyard Bar's function room to listen to conversations about how ... (360 words)

As we talked about at the end of last year, there's been a real push to sell Kangen Water devices in NZ recently. An article in the Herald recently has detailed Ainsley Brunton's efforts to sell the ... (333 words)

In the past, searches have been conducted for Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, using technologies ranging from men with binoculars to underwater video cameras and sonar. A new search being led by a ... (435 words)

President Trump will be promoting Dr Mehmet Oz to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, which is a little worrying. Trump's no stranger to making what look like very bad ... (162 words)

A Napier based psychic has been convicted of indecent assault. Craig Wright, called the Spirit Whisperer, has been offering his services in NZ for several years, and has even worked on a pilot for a ... (226 words)

An advert masquerading as an article, almost totally devoid of any useful data that would allow people to work out whether the results are even significant. However, it seems that some media outlets ... (39 words)

Healing crystals have become very popular recently, with people buying many different crystals to either wear or place in their homes and help with physical and mental health issues, monetary ... (301 words)

Dawkins has been talking to audiences in NZ, and a local pastor took to Stuff to complain about him in an article. Now, I'm not saying that Dawkins is without flaws - it's common knowledge that he ... (637 words)

Stuff had an article this week about personalised vitamins. Companies who require you to talk to a dietician before being recommended vitamins have been around in NZ for a while, but two companies ... (416 words)

There's been some interesting local research on people with health conditions doing their own research. The Southern Cross Health Society has looked into whether people look up their symptoms on ... (257 words)

An organised group of homeopaths offering bogus treatments for autism has been written about in the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The article talks about how more than 120 homeopaths in the UK are ... (346 words)

I was contacted by a journalist for the Sunday Star times a few days ago with some questions about Ken Ring. He's predicting an earthquake for June or July the 13th to 15th. Here are my responses to ... (902 words)

I've found another fun conspiracy theory - V2K. Weirdly, it stands for "Voice to Skull" and is a technology where voices can be beamed directly to your head. This is another conspiracy theory that ... (301 words)

There's a new fad to put mushroom in your coffee. Claims are being made that these powdered mushrooms can help your health and wellbeing. "purportedly an anti-inflammatory, and is supposed to ... (214 words)

A recent poll in the US showed an alarming amount of disbelief about whether our world is round. The survey of 8,000 Americans showed that whereas the vast majority of over 55s are happy accepting ... (213 words)

The NZ Herald seems to think so, republishing a Daily Mail article this week about a lie detector test that Buzz Aldrin apparently took recently to prove that he believes he saw an alien craft on his ... (457 words)

A while ago I was contacted by an older gentleman, Cedric, who told me over the phone that he'd heard me on the show and wanted to know if I was interested in a theory he has about the origins of the ... (500 words)

A new locally made diet pill has gone on sale in NZ, and will soon be available in the US as well. Its makers are promoting the product at the moment After a $20 million government grant, the company ... (350 words)

Tanya Filia​, who has beaten the odds and outlived doctors' estimates of her life expectancy, is now pushing for the government to subsidise natural treatments. Unfortunately this kind of story is ... (166 words)

A fraudster has conned a clairvoyant, Maureen Smith, in the UK by pretending to be her on Facebook and charging people money for online readings. The scammer sent messages to all of Maureen's friends ... (103 words)

Brittany Kara, from the US, is apparently a Christian author, NLP practitioner, hypnotherapist and nutrition coach. She's also an anti-vaxxer, and records herself speaking for a YouTube channel where ... (112 words)

The Regent Theatre in Dunedin is in the news again, as it's been flooded. This is unfortunate, as it appears that someone accidentally left a tap on that has caused damage to carpets and the ceiling. ... (242 words)

Kelvin Cruickshank, one of our famous local psychics who has appeared on Sensing Murder, has "helped" a family to locate the body of "Curly" - an elderly gentleman called Raymond Stirling who went ... (260 words)

A quack Chinese doctor from Australia has opened up a clinic in Auckland, to better serve his kiwi patients. Shuquan Liu will likely be selling his weight loss herbal diet in NZ, which consists of ... (235 words)

7 Sharp have interviewed Marta Fisch on Waiheke Island, who has built an ugly looking metal box - three side walls - in her garden, to keep out "radiation". Radiation in this sense is the kind of ... (266 words)

The field of Artificial Intelligence is blooming at the moment, with companies like Google and Alexa delivering small, inexpensive devices to your living room for $75 that can listen to you talk and ... (739 words)

A Reiki meeting has been deemed newsworthy by the Taranaki Daily News. For those who are not sure what reiki is, it's a form of alternative "healing" where it's very unlikely any healing actually ... (204 words)

In an article on the NZ Herald, reprinted from the Washington Post, Christopher Mellon argues that there is solid evidence for UFOs, and that the US are not doing enough to investigate. Christopher ... (182 words)

The conspiracy theorists are out in force already after the recent school shooting tragedy. One of the survivors, 17 year old David Hogg, has gone on national TV in the US to publicly state that he's ... (214 words)

An Indonesian teenager has apparently "baffled" doctors by laying eggs. He's laid about 20 eggs over the last 2 years, and x-ray images show an egg inside him before he lays it. The x-ray image makes ... (246 words)

In a setback for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), a school kid has been told that his rights at his school don't cover being able to wear a colander on his head for a school picture. ... (134 words)

The UK Mirror recently carried a weird story claiming that there are numbers so big that they would create a black hole in your brain if you could memorise them. The title of the article is: "The ... (277 words)

Liza Schneider has written an article for the BoP Times, printed online in the Herald, which promotes nonsense therapies for animals. I've complained about Liza in the past, to the ASA, the NZVA and ... (90 words)

The ASA have had issues recently with the amount of complaints us skeptics have been submitting to them for dodgy medical claims. It appears that as a result of a particular complaint about an ... (223 words)

An Australian woman, Shona Leigh, has publicly spoken about how she supposedly cured herself of cervical cancer with cannabis oil. This story seems to be popular in NZ because of the new Labour ... (221 words)

Elon Musk's company SpaceX successfully launched their first Falcon Heavy rocket this week, after a recent successful launch in New Zealand by RocketLab. It's been a good time for private space ... (402 words)

Georgian College in Toronto has cancelled a course in homeopathy, due to negative feedback. The proposed new course was going to cost about $5,000 a term, and included a module on homeopathic ... (93 words)

Companies in the US are selling "raw" water, which means the water has been untreated. At $50 for 9 litres, it seems pretty expensive for something that's likely to leave you sick. The idea seems to ... (197 words)

This story comes from listener Stu. A couple of bears were injured recently in California's wildfires. They were delivered to UC Davis, a respected university in California. Unfortunately they were ... (237 words)

This story starts back in 2002. The winner of the NZ Skeptics' Bent Spoon award that year was Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons. She won the award for supporting the idea of using Possum Peppering to rid ... (383 words)

As if people not vaccinating their kids isn't enough nonsense to deal with, there's an increasing trend for pet owners to not vaccinate their pets as well. This appears to be due to silly concerns ... (118 words)

Frank Hoogerbeets from the Netherlands has predicted a major earthquake of 8 or 9 in the first week of March. His predictions says that "electromagnetic amplifications caused by planetary alignments" ... (154 words)

Scientology has been trying to get the public to buy into its anti-psychiatry ideas in NZ recently. The religion's branch called the Citizens' Commission for Human Rights has been visiting shopping ... (236 words)

I'm in Nelson on holiday at the moment, and at a market today I saw a lot of nonsense - many bad medical claims being made about honey, jewellery, etc. One thing I saw was a "grounding stick". ... (224 words)

Britt Hermes used to be a naturopath. She graduated and treated patients in the US, before realising that naturopathy was all bluster and no substance, and she wasn't helping anyone with their ... (408 words)

One of the issues with fundraising sites like IndieGogo and Kickstarter is that there's a lack of adequate oversight to ensure that the products being offered are actually plausible. Sometimes things ... (267 words)

18 classes of health product are being de-funded by the NHS in the UK, including 7 that are blacklisted: Homeopathy Herbal treatments Omega-3 fatty acid compounds (fish oil) Co-proxamol Rubefacients ... (61 words)

A friend recently contacted the OTO to ask about us attending one of their services, and last night we went to their Gnostic Mass in Wellington. The OTO - Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of Oriental ... (844 words)

Adding legitimacy to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the first citizenship has just taken place with a new citizen wearing a colander on his head. Bjorn Oback, from Germany, wore a ... (83 words)

In September, a 70 year old man apparently burst into flames in London. It's a sad event, and a horrible way to die. The press have started calling it a case of Spontaneous Human Combustion - the ... (198 words)

A new pharmacy called Wellworks, focussing on natural health products, is due to open in Wellington in January. The store is hoping to offer kombucha to drink at a "wellness" bar, along with many ... (128 words)

Daniel Ryan from the Society for Science Based Healthcare wrote a study looking at acupuncture advertising in NZ. He ran a targeted search for New Zealand websites making claims about being able to ... (265 words)

Sir Peter Gluckman, the PM's Science Advisor, says that NZ has a science denial problem, but that it's no worse than the rest of the world. Peter thinks that social media bubbles are contributing to ... (74 words)

NZ Skeptics Conference The NZ Skeptics conference was a great success, with a quiz on the Friday night and a weekend of fascinating talks. We gave all the attendees a bag of alternative medicine ... (339 words)

In a recent article Cracked dot com has pointed out flaws in several popular conspiracy theories. The first one I've been telling people for years - that if the moon landing was faked, the Russians ... (282 words)

After a ghost was spotted in a picture of a mirror being sold in a TradeMe auction, Wendy McCawe from Wellington Photographic Supplies quickly spotted that the "ghost" in question was actually a ... (142 words)

There's lots of nonsense at this year's Go Green expo, and I'll be there today sampling the weird and wonderful. The Expo seems to contain more and more alternative health products each year, and ... (395 words)

Republican Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore has been accused of sexually assaulting a 14 girl when he was 14. He has a worrying track record - as well as other accusations of sexual harassment of ... (119 words)

Dr Libby is a nutritional biochemist, not a medical doctor, who regularly posts alternative medicine articles in Stuff. She sells books, goes on speaking tours, has promoted a Multi Level Marketing ... (184 words)

This year's NZ Skeptics conference is in Wellington in 3 weeks. We have speakers such as Cara Santa Maria from the USA, and an ex naturopath, Britt Marie Hermes. We're hoping to officially announce ... (60 words)

Auckland council are "revisiting" their decision to use popular weedkiller glyphosate, more commonly known as RoundUp. Auckland councillor Wayne Walker seems to be pushing a move to stop using the ... (116 words)

Two women in a yacht were rescued this week, adrift a long way off the coast of Japan. Their story is that they left Honolulu for Tahiti, and immediately hit a storm which damaged their boat. After ... (430 words)

My kids went out trick or treating the other day for halloween, and came back with more than just chocolate and lollies. Religious pamphlets were being handed out at some of the local houses, and my ... (390 words)

Doterra is a successful multinational company which sells innovative medical treatments - or at least that's what they'd have you believe. In reality, it appears to be a Multi Level Marketing scheme, ... (681 words)

The prevailing scientific opinion on lie detector tests is that they don't work well enough to be relied on in courts as evidence - in fact, they're probably not even a good way of discerning the ... (100 words)

A company is making claims about their soap made out of breast milk. Ignoring the ick factor that many people will have with the idea of making soap from breast milk, there's no evidence that, as ... (159 words)

NZ now has its second ingested product for sun protection being sold. The first hit the market a few years ago, and is from a company called Osmosis Skincare. Their product contains "harmonised" ... (290 words)

A couple of years ago I went along to a talk in Wellington about a new device called the QTB (Quantum TrailBlazer), now rebranded as a QSB - Quantum Scalar Box. Back then the device was made from a ... (222 words)

These days, with modern technology, it only takes a matter of days after most tragic events before conspiracy theorists have converged on an "alternative narrative". For the Sandy Hook massacre, ... (595 words)

David Meade, who I spoke about last month as predicting the end of the world around the 20th of September, has given us all a reprieve. Obviously the world didn't end, but he now says that October ... (102 words)

I recently found out that a movement which is popular in America has reached our shores. The Freeman movement, otherwise known as Sovereign Citizens, consists of people who believe that it is ... (436 words)

The Pharmacy Council recently ran a consultation about a new proposed Code of Ethics, after they tried to weaken their code a couple of years ago to remove the requirement that pharmacists could only ... (374 words)

The Herald published an article about someone's prediction that the world will end in a few weeks. David Meade, described as a Christian numerologist, claims that on or just after September the 20th ... (238 words)

Last week an article was published on Stuff talking about how a young New Zealand woman who has had cancer (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) since she was 14 is going to spend $20,000 on an alternative ... (416 words)

Newshub published an article about an 80 year old picture showing a native american man holding something rectangular with flat edges. Although it conceivably looks like an iPhone 5, as the article ... (43 words)

Another crazy conspiracy theory I'd never heard of - that Saddam Hussein owned a Stargate, and that the US had to invade to take it from him. For those not in the know, Stargate is a film/TV ... (381 words)

Stuff has a great article about a Naturopath who has been involved in treating the cancer of two patients who have died recently. The patients have both spoken out about how they think they made a ... (575 words)

It looks like the book has finally been closed on one of the most famous Satanic Panic cases in the US - that of the Kellers. Satanic Panic is the name given to a rash of convictions given to people ... (628 words)

Lori Harris from the UK has sold all her belongings to pay for treatment for her mother, Lisa, who has stage 4 ovarian cancer. The Go Fund Me page for the fundraising effort for this treatment, which ... (328 words)

Debbie Merrick bought a doll for £5 and then placed the doll on eBay, after making international news by talking about the doll being haunted. Apparently the doll scratched Debbie's husband, although ... (407 words)

Vinny Eastwood has suggested that the new head of the Labour Party is in league with the Freemasons: have you done any investigation into her background to confirm that she has no connection with ... (231 words)

There was a nice story about the 30th anniversary of the Lotto this week from Stuff. The article talked about how the fact some numbers come up more often than others is likely chance (Lotto take ... (136 words)

There's a lack of rural doctors in NZ, and one doctor has spoken on Radio NZ this week about the trials and tribulations he's suffered trying to renew his visa to stay in the country. Dr Feller is a ... (201 words)

Last week I learned about a new conspiracy theory from Weather Wars International, a Facebook group dedicated to spreading nonsense about government control of the weather. A video posted to the ... (554 words)

Emails have been released about the show Sensing Murder from OIA requests, and have brought to light (unsurprisingly) that the show has not materially helped the Police, and in some circumstances is ... (350 words)

I'm hoping that the anti-GMO crowd don't sink the new GMO banana before it has a chance to be properly tested. The banana has had genes inserted that allow it to create alpha and beta carotenes, ... (98 words)

Women's gifting circles have made the news again this week as they are now officially considered a pyramid scheme by the Commerce Commission. A Nelson GP, Fran Halford, has spoken out about her own ... (299 words)

The Spinoff did a great job of looking into Hamilton Councillor Siggi Henry's views on a variety of topics. It turns out that she's anti fluoride, anti-fat (she recently said that obesity was a risk ... (76 words)

The group responsible for bringing Vaxxed, an anti-vaccine movie, to Australia and New Zealand is still causing issues in our country. There are more screenings of Vaxxed coming up, including one in ... (333 words)

A mother in the US was found by doctors to be causing her child to fall ill because she was taking pills made from her own placenta. A company in the US makes the pills from dried placenta, and you ... (148 words)

Alex Jones, anchor man of the news outlet InfoWars in the US, hosted Robert David Steele on his show this week, and talked about Robert's theory that NASA are holding slave children on Mars. This has ... (156 words)

Since I attended the opening of the new Scientology building in January, I have been called occasionally by a church member called Will who has been inviting me to Auckland Scientology events. ... (767 words)

A breatharian couple, Camila Castello and Akahi Ricardo, have publicly claimed that they live on "cosmic nourishment" from the "energy that exists in the universe and in themselves". They claim that ... (192 words)

An article in the Herald this week talked about several innovations that were showcased at the Hamilton Fieldays event. Unfortunately, one of the products, DermaShield, appears to be very much ... (218 words)

The Jehovah's Witnesses came around for an hour or more yesterday, having previously chatted with me last week. I had been to a talk last Monday given by an ex JW, and so I was prepared with some ... (558 words)

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has been handing out cross shaped vials of a "holy oil" which it says have been blessed in Jerusalem and can "activate people's faith" in order to treat ... (396 words)

Nigel Antony Gray is a Scientologist who believes he can predict earthquakes and that the weather is controlled by the government - and recently that fidget spinners send out harmful "frequencies". ... (582 words)

Radio NZ published an article this week that seemed to accept, without evidence, claims that traditional Maori medicine can help with medical conditions including cancer. The article focuses on a ... (351 words)

Since a letter of mine was published in the New Zealand Medical Journal recently, I've started receiving occasional emails inviting me to send in a paper to a new journal for publication. It's ... (356 words)

Robert Bigelow is convinced that aliens are not only real, but they have visited earth and are living on our planet. He believes that his grandparents were visited by an alien craft, and says that he ... (334 words)

Although there is a history in skepticism of people being "skeptical" of climate change, modern skepticism understands that there is a broad consensus amongst scientists that climate change is both ... (414 words)

Dave Hansford from Nelson has written a book - called "Protecting Paradise: 1080 and the Fight to Save New Zealand's Wildlife" - about New Zealand's use of the poison 1080. The name appears to be a ... (249 words)

A new alternative therapy has become popular recently - grinding up oak galls and putting the paste in your vagina. Oak galls are woody balls created when a wasp larva grows inside an oak tree's leaf ... (221 words)

After incidents with Stephen Fry and Jakarta's mayor, blasphemy made the news and there has finally been a push in government to repeal our archaic blasphemy law. Bill English expressed his surprise ... (157 words)

Someone in the US recently flew on a plane with a spirit level to prove that the earth is flat. Instead he demonstrated a misunderstanding of physics. Planes have an artificial horizon (or attitude ... (418 words)

A claim has been made by Noel Hilliam that European settlers beat Maori to settling NZ, and that reconstruction of skulls from a woman and man have shown that they originated in Wales and the ... (197 words)

On April 11th I submitted a complaint to Medsafe about Te Kiri Gold, a bleach made by farmer Vernon Coxhead which he is selling as a cancer cure. To whom it may concern, PureCure Limited ... (1547 words)

Nigel Antony Gray, who shot to infamy last November when he "predicted" an earthquake, gave a talk in Petone last night. Nigel recently expressed his displeasure with me by saying that I have been ... (282 words)

Last Sunday I went to church - not once, but twice. Arise is a large evangelical church that started in Wellington about 15 years ago, and has grown and spread to several other cities. The church ... (968 words)

Kelvin Cruickshank has made the news because he's promoting a new book - "Surrounded by Spirit". In the book he claims he talked with the spirit of Jonah Lomu at a show last year, apparently unaware ... (295 words)

We talked about Te Kiri Gold last year, when Sir Colin Meads was in the news endorsing it as a treatment for cancer. Although it wasn't on sale back then, and Vernon had been promising to run proper ... (480 words)

Otago University have defended their decision to allow a screening of Vaxxed, citing free speech and a need to controversial topics to be discussed. "The screening here is able to go ahead simply to ... (132 words)

Professor Jerry Coyne is in New Zealand at the moment, ticking our country off his bucket list. I talked with him in the pub a few nights ago, and he alerted me to a developing story in the US where ... (459 words)

I received an email earlier this week about a new Citizen Science Project called Planet 9. Citizen Science is an effort to get the public to help out with time intensive science tasks, and there's ... (349 words)

Vaxxed played at the LynnMall Reading cinema in Auckland today at 3pm. It's disappointing to see a major corporation allow a misleading, dangerous movie like Vaxxed to play at their venue - and ... (179 words)

The NZ Census asks a question of respondents about Religious Affiliation. Historically, the only response available for non-believers has been "No Religion". NZ Stats have now added several ... (120 words)

Mark Hanna of the Society for Science Based Healthcare and I had an exchange over IM a few months ago, where we realised that there are so many bad claims being made for alternative therapies that if ... (1163 words)

Shaquille O'Neal gave his support to the flat earth conspiracy movement on a podcast recently. However, although many websites were quick to jump on this, it turns out that Shaq was just joking: One ... (217 words)

Belle Gibson of Australia, who lied about a cancer diagnosis to sell alternative medicine, has been found guilty of "defrauding clients and profiting from false cancer claims". Back in 2009 Belle ... (217 words)

An interview with Philly de Lacy (chief executive) and Carolyn Harper (executive producer) of Screentime, who make Sensing Murder, was conducted by Steve Kilgannon of the Sunday Star Times this week. ... (1105 words)

Six of us skeptics went along to Father John Rea's healing event on Tuesday in Tawa, Wellington. John is a well known healer in New Zealand, and he's appeared on my skeptical radar in the past for ... (852 words)

Homeopathic products are made by diluting a substance that causes similar symptoms to the condition they're meant to treat. In the case of Hyland's Teething Tablets, that substance is belladonna, ... (172 words)

A man from Nelson won $100,000 recently when his numbers came up in the lottery, and he'd purchased 12 tickets with the same numbers. Although this is touted as a lottery tactic, in the long run, on ... (215 words)

Anti-vaccination advocates in New Zealand have raised enough money to bring a screening of Vaxxed, a movie created by disgraced ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield and promoted by Robert de Niro, to New ... (115 words)

Apparently the recent stranding of hundreds of whales at Farewell Spit was due to an energy beam from Mount Taranaki. This theory has been posited because of a radar map of rain, which shows an ... (367 words)

Vicki Latele, who was jailed for mortgage fraud, has had a tough time. She has cancer, and has had her stomach removed. It appears that the standard treatments, such as chemotherapy, have not helped ... (310 words)

This is an argument I've never heard before against an idea I occasionally hear - that belief in science is just like religion, because it requires faith. In fact, I last heard this argument only a ... (118 words)

I was messaged this week by someone who works near the new Scientology centre in Auckland. They told me that there are lots of Scientologists out on the streets at the moment, including outside the ... (371 words)

Robert Hunt spoke on behalf of Creation Ministries International this morning at Upper Hutt Baptist Church. The service started off with some singing, and then Robert was introduced. Robert started ... (888 words)

Scientology are pushing to open new "Ideal Orgs" around the world, and Auckland's old Whitecliffe Art school building has been converted to a new Org. It was purchased in 2007 with a $10 million loan ... (427 words)

I was contacted by a journalist about a local cancer "cure", Te Kiri Gold, and sent a response (with a little help from ex-chair of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde): Thanks for contacting the NZ ... (646 words)

Fijian government representatives, including leader Frank Bainimarama, were at a lavish launch event a couple of weeks ago to announce the launch of a new app which is set to revolutionise our mobile ... (181 words)

The Society for Science Based Healthcare were asked about Applied Kinesiology this week and I helped to write this response to questions: Is there any scientific-based evidence to suggest applied ... (810 words)

MMM, An investment scheme that has been in trouble around the world appears to have collapsed in Nigeria. The MMM scheme has seen its founder, Sergey Mavrodi, jailed in Russia in the past, but is ... (216 words)

Nigel Antony Gray, who "predicted" last month's earthquake on Facebook, has recently shown just how daft, and dangerous, he is. Nigel has been travelling the country recently giving talks on ... (195 words)

Here are my notes from this year's NZ Skeptics conference: Awards Skeptic of the Year Siouxsie Wiles Bent Spoon NZ Herald Speakers Loretta Marron Cancer quacks. Talked about some of the worst Richard ... (359 words)

After last Sunday's show, when I talked about Bioptron at the Go Green Expo, a Bioptron rep called up RadioLive and asked for me to contact them. I called, and was then contacted the next day by a ... (196 words)

We have some great speakers for this year's Skeptics Conference, including Susan Gerbic who runs the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project. Her team put a lot of work into adding a skeptical ... (141 words)

There have been a few stories in the news recently about earthquakes that have left me feeling skeptical: Palmerston North woman claims her assistant dog can anticipate earthquakes ... (562 words)

I went to the Go Green Expo yesterday, along with other skeptics. The expo is meant to showcase green products and services, but many of the stalls promote alternative health. The sheer number of bad ... (356 words)