NZ Skeptics

How to be a Global Warming Skeptic

I am a long time member of the NZ Skeptics. I wish to respectfully raise a point of concern that I have regarding the direction that the NZ Skeptics appear to be going. Over two decades ago I walked away from Greenpeace when I realized that they had become political activists and had abandoned rational scientific debate. In recent editions of the NZ Skeptic magazine I have been seeing similar warning signs.

The conference will be held in Wellington on the weekend of November 24th—26th, at the Sisters of Mercy Convent.

The alternative to the New Zealand flag is “bad feng shui” and could bring bad luck, instability and even a stock market crash, a New Zealand feng shui consultant says.

The Government is hoping to attract more private money into science and improve how public science grants are spent. Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce released the Government's National Statement of Science Investment, its first national science strategy, in Wellington on Monday.

At first I thought this was a windup (my emphasis) – then I realised it was for real! (and happening in Auckland in September):

Living with a ghost hellbent on messing with neatly hung pictures has become a daily chore for the Stony River Hotel proprietors.

For some time, those of us studying the problem of misinformation in US politics – and especially scientific misinformation – have wondered whether Google could come along and solve the problem in one fell swoop. After all, if Web content were rated such that it came up in searches based on its actual accuracy – rather than based on its link-based popularity – then quite a lot of misleading stuff might get buried. And maybe, just maybe, fewer parents would stumble on dangerous anti-vaccine misinformation (to list one highly pertinent example).

The Humanist Society of New Zealand will be publishing a regular column called The Humanist, named after the magazine they used to produce. Below is a statement released by the Society in response to the recent Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.

Warwick Don will be sorely missed by New Zealand's skeptical community. He was the last of the active founding members of the New Zealand Skeptics, and took pride in recent years to be the only one to have attended all our conferences. He served as Chair from the founding to 1992, and continued to show an interest in things scientific and skeptical well after having handed the torch on.

Recently released United States Air Force files have confirmed that a suspected UFO photographed in the skies above Auckland more than 60 years ago was actually just a cloud.

I note the raft of letters in the last magazine on anthropogenic climate change (ACC). While I, on the committee, am perfectly happy with the position statement and scientific consensus. (ie, Mankind is generating large quantities of CO2, - this entraps solar radiation and causes temperature to increase) I don't understand the massive spread and uncertantity of this increase: 1 to 5 degrees. Hundreds of percent? In fact you can easily find other scientists that say 0.7 to 8 degrees, and even a couple more that claim these figures are half what they should be! They all claim they have good data. Who to believe? Can't climate science please do a little better?

In the Autumn 2014 NZ Skeptic, Martin Manning stated:

It is difficult to know where to begin in response to Jim Ring's letter (NZ Skeptic 110), but somewhat reluctantly, here goes.

Keith Muir (NZ Skeptic 109) ends "I rest my case." But he never makes a case; he only quotes opinion. This is unacceptable in Law or Science.

Each year the New Zealand Skeptics bestows the Bent Spoon Award for the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue.

The dramatic rescue of three women kept prisoner for 10 years in a house in Cleveland, Ohio, came too late for the mother of one of them (NZ Herald, 9 May).

A homeopathic preparation of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is gaining popularity in New Zealand (NZ Herald, 2 March), despite costing upwards of $3000 per litre.

Real science operates by collecting data, inventing theories, developing models and making predictions that can be tested. If predictions fail, theories must be modified or discarded.

By CORINNE AMBLER Police Reporter

Renee Maunder (Forum, NZ Skeptic 103) laments that I failed to supply a detailed list of references in my article on ACC and sexual abuse claims (NZ Skeptic 102). In my copy, I saw the Health Practitioners Competency Assurance Act 2003, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, ACC legislation, public utterances by the NZ Association of Counsellors and similar organisations, ACC Press Releases, ACC's Best Practice Guidelines, the pseudo-research by Massey University (paid for by ACC) and the Crimes Act. She mocks my comments about syndromes.

I've just been reading my Summer 2012 edition of New Zealand Skeptic, but I think there is a piece missing from my version.

The NZ Herald (10-14 January) must have been having trouble filling its pages during the silly season, looking at its recent series on alternative therapies.