Owen McShane was chairman of the policy panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition and director of the Centre for Resource Management Studies.
Why are we crying into our beer?
1 February 2005
The battle between the Enlightenment and Romantic traditions is far from over, though it has taken on new forms. This article is abridged from a presentation to the NZ Skeptics Conference, 2004.
Budget Science
1 May 2002
Owen McShane examines last year's Great Soya Sauce Scare
Science's Pyrrhic Victory?
1 February 1997
Dr Mann's essay in this issue will annoy some readers, but it belongs here because it deals with one of the key debates of our time.
Skeptical Health
1 November 1996
At the Skeptics' conference we were treated to one official's view of the status of scientific medicine relative to alternative treatment systems and beliefs. This presentation reinforced many of our fears that modern medicine is truly the victim of its own success. Now that so many of us live to old age, and find that pharmaceuticals and surgery can do little to prevent inevitable decline, we are encouraged to turn to away from "Western orthodoxy" towards "alternative" systems of other, more "spiritual and "holistic cultures".
On Experts and Walls
1 August 1996
Surely the Kaimanawa Wall story was one of the great beat-ups of all time. Here was a natural rock outcrop, which experts immediately told us was of a kind common in the area, raised to status of "great mystery" and worthy of the other "X Files puzzles" of Easter Island, South America and so on.
The Joys of Cold Reading - You Win Some and Lose Some
1 May 1996
When Brian Edwards interviewed Uri Geller some years ago, Dr David Marks of Otago University used the printed transcript to demonstrate that Brian had been the victim of highly skilled "cold reading", rather than the witness to remarkable extra-sensory powers as he appeared to believe at the time.
Skeptical Early Warning System.
1 February 1996
One of the arguments presented in favour of this year's Bent Spoon award was that the NZ Skeptics increasingly provide an early warning system against strange notions from abroad. For example, Skeptical activities helped New Zealand develop some early immunity to the worst excesses of the "repressed memory" virus. While many members supported the Hitting Home award on similar grounds, some members may have wondered whether Hitting Home was no more than a local aberration and that we were seeing international demons where none existed.
The Boundaries of Skepticism
1 November 1995
The Skeptics began in simpler times. Some of us recall when the burning issues of Skeptical enquiry were whether Uri Geller bent spoons, whether Russians were using telepaths to communicate with submarines and whether Lyall Watson had stumbled on a Philosopher's Stone called Supernature. He certainly seemed to be turning something into gold.
The Clairvoyant - The police don't want to know
1 November 1995
Back in March, when the police seemed to be making no progress in hunting down South Auckland's serial rapist, a community newspaper ran a story effectively chiding the police in general and Detective Inspector John Manning in particular for taking no notice of the advice being given him by one of Auckland's leading clairvoyants, Ms Margaret Birkin, who has her own programme on Radio Pacific.
Homeopathy - Witchcraft for the Times
1 August 1995
For a host of reasons which the NZ Skeptic will examine further in a later issue, the so-called "natural health" industry is enjoying a remarkable resurgence. One cannot refute the argument that we should take responsibility for our own health and that we should not expect modern medicine to provide on demand pills to cure all our ills, particularly those which are self-induced or the result of old age. Moderation in all things (including moderation) will generally help any of us to lead a vital and active life.
Justice Lives
1 August 1995
The Geller case has ended -- the "psychic" is to begin a court-ordered payment of up to $120,000 to CSICOP USA.
Postmodernism
1 August 1995
Postmodern thinkers claim to have broken the fetters of logic that have characterised rational discourse since the enlightenment. They claim to have ushered in a new age of freedom of communication, that rationality is no longer the only, or even the major, "communicative virtue" and that social, psychological, political and historical considerations must all take precedence over logic and reason.
Skeptical Books
1 August 1995
When author Arthur Koestler and his wife died, they left money to found a university Chair in Parapsychology. Edinburgh University accepted this gift after some hesitation, and Robert L. Morris has occupied the Chair since 1985. In a university hundreds of kilometres to the south, and some hundreds of years younger, Dr Richard Wiseman has also turned a scholarly eye on the subject. This book is a result of their collaboration.
PC Chemistry in the Classroom.
1 May 1995
One of the fictions of the "naive-greens" and other "irrationalists" is that "chemicals" are bad while natural products (non-chemicals?) are good. When asked if water is a chemical, and hence evil, and whether cyanide, nicotine or the botulism toxin, are natural and hence benign they change the subject. You might think that our classrooms are immune to such nonsense; in the November issue of Chemistry in New Zealand, Ian Millar of Carina Chemical Laboratories Ltd tells us we are wrong.
Scientific Creationism
1 May 1995
We need to immunise ourselves against this virus too.
A Skeptical Miscellany
1 February 1995
When the short list for the Booker prize was announced there was much chortling about the fact that Jill Paton Walsh had been unable to find a publisher in Britain for Knowledge of Angels. She had to publish it herself.
The Challenge to Reason
1 February 1995
Tertiary institutes around the country are beginning to offer courses, and even entire degrees, in subjects that are pure pseudoscience.
We Used to Call it Bedlam
1 February 1995
Karekare beach is surrounded by high cliffs which shield my house from television transmissions so that I gain most of my media information from radio and print.
Scary Headlines, Dodgy Science
1 November 1994
The New Zealand Herald of 5 September carried the headline "Ozone gap to lift skin cancer 7 per cent".
Your New Editor
1 November 1994
At the last conference I was elected editor of the New Zealand Skeptic. Some of you will have read my pieces in Metro magazine or in NBR over the years, or heard my "Soapboxes" on World Service Radio. If you have wondered about my recent absence from the media, it is because I have been preparing to launch my own magazine.
Hawking and other forms of hunting
1 August 1990
A recent best-seller illustrates the history of the triumph of intellectual theory over ignorant pragmatism or reactionary ideology.