Owen McShane

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.

Owen McShane examines last year's Great Soya Sauce Scare

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.

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.

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.

The Geller case has ended -- the "psychic" is to begin a court-ordered payment of up to $120,000 to CSICOP USA.

We need to immunise ourselves against this virus too.

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.

Tertiary institutes around the country are beginning to offer courses, and even entire degrees, in subjects that are pure pseudoscience.

The New Zealand Herald of 5 September carried the headline "Ozone gap to lift skin cancer 7 per cent".

A recent best-seller illustrates the history of the triumph of intellectual theory over ignorant pragmatism or reactionary ideology.