Articles in the category "Forum"

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.

Either this water is alive, or it contains carbon. Either way I'm not drinking it.

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.

Michael Edmonds' article in the latest issue (NZ Skeptic 101) was very interesting, especially laying out the groundwork for non-chemists. If I still had science classes, I would have them all read it and may pass it on to some friends to use.

As someone currently enduring a bout of shingles I have a few comments to make on the excellent article on the bad science behind the vaccine scare (NZ Skeptic 100). Further to benefits of vaccination mentioned in the article I think the point should be made that viruses can actually be eradicated from humanity which is ironic since they cannot, unlike bacteria, be killed as they are not living entities. Bacteriological diseases on the other hand are treatable and curable but the infectious agents cannot be eradicated.

The website www.endohealth.co.nz is selling such items as homeopathic immunisation and travel kits. On offer are such remedies as Natrium Muriaticum 200C which, it is claimed, will protect against all types of Malaria and Haemophilus 200 for protection against H I B (this abbreviation is for Haemophilus influenzae type B which causes severe pneumonia and meningitis in infants).

Bernard Beckett (Skeptic 95 , p8) says the ability of Creationism to make the same predictions as evolutionary psychology shows that the latter is not a scientific process. But the same is equally true of evolutionary biology. ("God made cats resemble tigers, and apples resemble pears, because He felt like it.") The fault is with Creationism, not evolution. An omnipotent Creator can be used to explain/predict absolutely anything, not only the universe as it is, but any other universe, possible or im-. You might say that Creationism, like Nostradamus and astrology, is very good for predicting the past. That is their fundamental failing.

Claire and I have taken a year off to teach English in the Czech Republic. These two photos are our friend Lada indicating the site where Agatha Toott was burned to death 400 years ago.

I had to wait for my prescription at the pharmacy and while browsing the shelves noticed a new homeopathic remedy for white-tail spider bites. At $18.40 a small bottle it's money for jam! No, that metaphor will just not work; perhaps money for water would be better? White-tail spider bites have been blamed for a huge range of injuries but the scientific evidence has discounted this attribution. (Those pesky skeptics again...!) Still, I thought it rather amusing to see a 'non remedy' for a 'non disease'.

In delivering a non-custodial sentence in the Janet Moses makutu case, Justice Simon France noted that expert witnesses considered the perpetrators were not acting out any customary cultural or religious practice. The appropriateness of a non-custodial sentence for manslaughter has been rightly questioned. Of additional concern, however, is that a golden opportunity appears to have been missed to condemn the very idea of makutu, that someone can be possessed by an evil entity necessitating a special curse-lifting ceremony or exorcism. Exorcisms, of course, are not confined to Maori culture.

Justin Vodane's letter (NZ Skeptic 91) is a classic defence of the indefensible.

In his previous Hokum Locum column (NZ Skeptic 90) John Welch commented on an article on Chiropractic that appeared in the Marlborough Express on 22 August 2008. This relied upon innuendo, blog sites, opinions and basic mistruths to validate a spurious argument.

Nikos Petousis, in his article Skepticism Greek-style answers many questions which have previously puzzled me, for which I thank him sincerely.

I am a skeptic when it comes to psychics, mediums and anything to do with the 'paranormal'. Over the last couple of years, I have watched perhaps four or five episodes of the popular show Sensing Murder, each time growing more annoyed.

John Welch seems to think that knee-jerk name-calling and immediate dismissal equates to scientific consideration. His constant ridiculing of many conditions with psychological components amounts to narrow-minded materialism. For those of us who have worked with severe cases of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) it seems bizarre to deny that the symptoms reflect a real underlying pathology of brain and emotional functioning. And of course, shell shock has been described since early in human recorded history. Denying its reality as a condition and disputing any need for treatment simply relegates those affected to ongoing suffering, but will not cause the condition to evaporate.

In NZ Skeptic 85 Alison Campbell discusses teaching evolution in the school curriculum with particular reference to the influence of local creationist pressures opposing this as a sole 'theory'. If New Zealand Skeptics are to be true to their cause they must also take a hard look at their own basic assumptions. My concern from an informed amateur perspective is that in teaching evolution it is important to be intellectually honest to students. The fact of the development of life forms over billions of years and their gradual divergence from earlier morphological templates is beyond question to any rational inquirer even if it cannot demonstrated in the traditional hypothesis/experimental test paradigm. Furthermore, Darwin's concept of natural selection is most obviously applicable to those life forms we are most familiar with and on which he based his inductive studies. At this level of macro development for instance, some morphological changes are clearly adaptive for predation or escape, and auditory or visual cues evolve to serve the attraction of mates or camouflage. However there is still substantial debate whether this paradigm can cover all stages in the evolution of life on Earth. It is when we get to the question of the origins of life or the complex operations within a single cell that questions arise. Such intricate developments are crucial to the central concept of Neo-Darwinism.

Elizabeth Rata's article Ethnic Fundamentalism in New Zealand is a series of extraordinary assertions, supported not with reason and evidence but emotionalism and error.

One thing that activates my BS-meter is a miracle treatment with too many claims. Consider the following extract from an article, The Nutritional Benefits of Potassium Citrate, by John Gibb, from ezinearticles.com (search for "potassium citrate").

Given that we're called the NZ Skeptics in virtually all instances-our website, journal, the flyers, the publicity posters etc-do we need to go through a formal change to the incorporated society's constitution to implement it?

During a short visit to Texas, my wife Hazel and I caught a session of Larry King Live, on which 'psychics' battled skeptics. It was clear from the outset the production was heavily biased towards the psychics. Three of them were in the studio with King, shoulder to shoulder. The two skeptics were on video feed, separately.

Jim Ring's article, Lamarck's ghost rises again (NZ Skeptic 80) does an excellent job in laying Lamarck's ghost, and its recent revival, but it is bitterly unfair to Darwin and to one of the fundamental concepts of evolution when he attacks group selection and sociobiology. He is also wrong when he claims that social behaviour does not influence genetics.

Two presentations at the Skeptics' Conference had some features in common that arouse disquiet. Both had inflammatory titles-"Ethnic fundamentalism" and "Linguistic fascism"-that were not supported by the content.

Keith Garratt's critique of genealogy (New Zealand Skeptic 77) is a strange mix of arguments. He purports to be addressing genealogy "as normally practised" or "as often practised" but offers no evidence that this is the way that things are actually done. He also identifies a "traditional approach," a term which is used, however, almost interchangeably with the others. He presents no evidence as to the prevalence of these approaches amongst genealogists and most of his examples of misuses of genealogy, such as Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, are not drawn from the genealogical literature. A review of the contents of the volumes of the bi-monthly New Zealand Genealogist for 2004 and 2005, as an example, contradicts most of his claims about what represents usual practice. Ordinary claims require ordinary evidence, at least, but little is provided.

The leading medical journal The Lancet recently published yet another analysis of trials of homeopathy. After examining 110 such trials, the Swiss researchers concluded that there was no convincing evidence that homeopathy was any more effective than placebo. In the accompanying editorial, the editor, Dr Richard Horton, made a comment which has an uncanny, and no doubt intentional parallel with the views of the founder of homeopathy over two hundred years ago:-

What a great Skeptic the winter edition is, thorough forethought all around, with even a hint of hope about the clairvoyant decision. Which is good because although I enjoy reading the magazine it's often quite depressing.

Since I wrote my piece (NZ Skeptic 75) based on Bruce Flamm's article in Skeptical Inquirer concerning a research paper on the efficacy of prayer, Dr Flamm has reported 'significant development'. Lest you jump to the conclusion that the authors, journal and university have acknowledged their serious error and have retracted the paper, be at once disabused. The significance of these developments, to my mind, is their minuscule and peripheral nature; nothing has really changed. One could reasonably grant a significant development to Wirth; he pleaded guilty to a 46-page indictment and is in jail for five years. Concerning the 'lead' author, Lobo, the journal later printed, at the bottom of the back page, an Erratum, that this name had been included 'in error'. Young researchers often complain that senior colleagues insist on their names appearing on papers unjustifiably. In the topsy-turvy world of this journal, people find their names put unknowingly on papers they have had nothing to do with!

It is with sadness that I see that the Skeptic is still accepting articles and letters with political bias. I would like to spend much of this letter countering some of Owen McShane's arguments from his article "Why are we crying into our beer?", but I see we are still arguing in the pages of our magazine about science. It would be really nice if Jim Ring or C Morris could explain to me and I'm sure others who are puzzled by this whole affair, as to what legitimate arguments between legitimate scientists have to do with scepticism.

SCIENCE has not "progressed only by slow cautious steps" as Piers McLaren claims (Forum, Spring 2004), but by great bold ones. Scientists should resist new ideas but it is a myth that they do so irrationally. Contrary to Maclaren's letter, quantum theory rapidly won the day. Planck published in 1900, Einstein in 1905, in 1913 Bohr produced a quantum structure for an atom. By 1922 all three had won Nobel prizes for work on quantum theory.

In connection with David Riddell's article about "Ancient Celtic New Zealand" (Skeptic, Winter 2004) your readers may be interested in my more detailed examination of the twaddle in Martin Doutré's book in two articles published in the Auckland Astronomical Society Journal last year.

I am finding it difficult to respond to Alan P Ryan's diatribe (Skeptic Autumn 2004) as it borders on the incoherent and self-contradictory. I wonder if it will help if I summarise my views on moral values, about which he seems confused.

When I sent my letter to the NZ Skeptic (Spring 2003), I did not expect vehement denials in the next issue. Such debate is, of course, healthy and occasionally useful. My letter, though, was not intended to cover the whole subject; merely to offer some points to ponder. The responses have been rather more thorough, and I feel I must defend my position.

Although I have been receiving free email alerts for a long time, I am a (very) new member. Among the goodies which I received a couple of days ago was the Spring, 2003 newsletter, number 69. Obviously, free speech is the first requisite of such an organ, but I was rather taken aback by contribution in Forum from Lance Kennedy of Tantec, an organisation in the biocide industry, on the subject of global warming. Its content is highly selective, and it contravenes all the principles outlined in the Skeptics Guide to Critical Thinking. He writes of a "sound and healthy reluctance to subscribe to anthropogenic greenhouse... warming". He says that the Scientific American is committed to "greenie (a pejorative term which has no place in a serious discussion) nonsense".

Prior to attending the NZ Skeptics conference in Wellington this year, I read the discussion paper on the role of science in environmental policy and decision making, Illuminated or Blinded by Science, prepared by the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. It seemed to me to be a reasonable document. It included a discussion of some of the issues which have to be considered by policy makers in the environmental area and pointed to some of the difficulties, institutional and procedural, in using science to form environmental policy. Following on from the request in the paper for comments from the public on how science could be better incorporated into environmental policy, the team leader for the discussion paper, Mr Bruce Taylor, gave a presentation to the Skeptics conference in which he introduced the paper and asked for views on it.

I am always astonished that famous mystical persons, such as the Virgin Mary (who was transubstantiated into an Australian fencepost in February) reveal themselves to us mere mortals. I once had an experience like that.

Estimates of world poverty are grossly exaggerated

The following correspondence between nursing lecturer Sue Gasquoine and Skeptics' chairentity Vicki Hyde is reproduced with the permission of the participants -ed.

I attended the recent Christchurch Conference and greatly enjoyed the excellent standard of presentation and discussion. One small item, however, left me wondering about the organisation that I had recently joined: the inclusion of global warming research in the list of core topics alongside biodynamic agriculture, alternative medicine and UFOs.

Professor JS Werry deserves thanks for his contribution in these pages regarding the present use/abuse of methylphenidate (Ritalin) and ADHD.

It is hard to be sure what Mike Houlding is on about in his rather opaque letter but I gather that he is lumping the use of clairvoyants, homoeopathic remedies and ADHD under some collective rubric of quackery.

In the latest NZ Skeptic, beside the chair-entity's report, there is a false history of subscriptions. From written records: the sub was $10 for '86 to '88, then $20 for '89 to '91 and $25 since. The new $40 rate follows the third increase since starting. I would hate to think the Skeptics allow false statements to go uncorrected.

Thank you kindly for the recent award for journalistic excellence I received from your society for my editorial in the NZ Medical Journal on alternative treatments. It was wonderful to be honoured by a society such as yours whose aims and intentions I absolutely support and whom I have always held in the highest regard.

Jim Ring's article on sodium chloride in Skeptic number 60 didn't mention a classic case. Red Seal markets a range of 12 remedies in tablet form called Dr Scheussler's Biochemic Tissue Salts. Among them is a substance called Nat Mur which is described as a "water distributor" and suggested for "excessive moisture and dryness in any part of the system - water colds, dry nose and throat, heartburn, great thirst, watery eyes, skin chaffing, dryness of the bowel, after-effects of alcohol, loss of taste and smell"

I enjoyed Jim Ring's "the Spectre of Kahurangi" (Autumn 2001). In Kahurangi National Park there is a bridge called "Brocken Bridge", quite close to Ghost Creek. Could this be an indication of supernatural forces emanating from this enchanting region?

I hate to spoil a good story, especially a skeptical one, but is there something slightly adrift with William Ireland's piece on the Kaikoura UFOs?

A news item that Australian skeptics are considering video evidence of a "Bigfoot" sighting for a $100,000 prize should alarm all who have offered money for evidence of paranormal activity. I urge all NZ skeptics who have risked part of their fortune; if you have not already done so, insert a clause insisting that photographs, films or video will not be considered as evidence.

I was interested to read a recent article in the NZ Skeptic on Healing Touch, as I am a consultant anaesthetist at Wellington Hospital.

I just wanted to make a comment on the clipping from the Christchurch Star concerning "nuclear extinction" which appeared on p.9 of the NZ Skeptic periodical. In the clipping, a refutation of this possibility was based on some writings of one Bruce Cathie who is claimed therein to be a mathematician among other things.

Bob Metcalfe (Forum NZ Skeptic 54) seems to be calling for a change in editorial policy on footnotes and references. This has been consistent throughout the history of this society and any change would completely alter the character of this journal. What do members want? I thank him for his apology. Anything that increases feedback on articles in NZ Skeptic and the numbers of letters in Forum is to be welcomed.

Skepsis's last article on Menopause Madness [Skeptic 53] reminded me of my recent prescribing of progesterone cream for a well informed patient at her request. The good GP I am (I have faith, sometimes in evidence-based medicine!), I looked up the evidence on such creams and also perused the articles given to me by my patient. There was one Randomised Control trial, review article by a gynaecologist plus a lot of very biomedical in vitro research which was of little use to me. Not much in the Cochrane database and a little on MEDLINE. One clinical trial of reasonable quality showed some results in terms of symptom improvement. Safety issues hadn't really been researched but then again wild yam cream must be natural and therefore OK huh?

As a born-again skeptic, I find it hard to write about an experience which challenges my entire values system; dead men don't talk, dreams and premonitions tell you nothing except, perhaps, something about your body chemistry, the whole body of scientific knowledge in all the different fields of hard science hangs together, so if crap like creationism and flat-Earth geography are true, then everything else we've discovered in the last 500 years must be wrong... Still, I must be brutally honest.

I didn't wish to begin a debate about the issues surrounding religion in the 16th and 17th-century, nor would I ever wish to stop anyone from taking in interest in history. All I wanted to do was to point out that history is an academic discipline the same as any other, and it is dangerous to make pronouncements of such a dogmatic nature in the subject in which one has not been trained.

I found it interesting to read Bernard Howard's article on complaining to the authorities. I myself complained about an incident that happened some years ago, when someone who was promoting a book he was trying to sell to a school library maintained that the author was "working with the health department on a cure for AIDS". The book was called Magnetic Healing and Other Realities. I complained to the Department of Trade and Industry, where I was in fact treated with the utmost courtesy and consideration.

I AM looking for ideas. For the last four years, I have had a challenge to psychics for them to find a promissory note with a value of $50,000. For the first six months, it was located within five kilometres of my tourist activity - Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World in Wanaka. I had two serious psychic challenges, each of whom seriously failed!

I was interested to read the letters by Jim Ring and Felicity Goodyear-Smith to my article with the above title [NZ Skeptic 47].

An article by Gordon Hewitt in NZ Skeptic 47 states, "In June 1995...an article appeared in this publication saying counselling was no use. This judgement was based on a single study conducted in 1939." This is not true, but as the author of the article I am obviously biased. May I urge all skeptics to read it for themselves?

I am sure Jim Ring is correct when he says we are on the winning side of the creationist battle [Forum, Summer 1997], but there is no room for complacency. As he says, the castrated form of biology taught in American schools has resulted in a minority of Americans believing organic evolution has occurred.

Ten or twenty years ago, prominent overseas creationists once toured in a blaze of publicity. They spoke in public schools and received plenty of air time on National Radio and prime time TV. Some of us were out there fighting, and we felt we won most of the major battles.

WE WERE_ skeptical. We demanded you respond to our clarion call for pithy pieces -- but only a few of you pithed on us. For this we are grateful and we have sent suitable telepathic gifts to all of you, for which you should be grateful. _But seriously, a couple of readers have queried our policy on the format of submissions which they've interpreted as meaning we don't accept handwritten copy. Wrong. Our eyesight is sometimes challenged by the individualistic handwriting styles we sometimes see, so we prefer typed or disc-supplied copy because we can then guarantee accuracy. But above all, we encourage you enthusiastically to send interesting forum pieces in whatever format you have available. The only criteria we use in selecting pieces for the forum is their value and interest to readers. The writer of the best piece published in the next issue will receive the definitive volume on proven homeopathic remedies.

LET us be clear. We think skeptics are the most witty, pithy and intelligent of people. The type who can get their profound insights across in 300 lively, well-chosen words. We insist you prove us right by flooding us with splendid examples of the genre. The author of the best contribution in each issue will receive a suitable telepathic gift. The worst example will earn an unsuitable telepathic gift. Here are the rules

THE concepts of God and evolution are inextricable. In the beginning God created the Universe. The series of events that followed produced man. This imperfect product needed a higher authority (scapegoat, infallible architect, benevolent headmaster, king of quiz) so before long the concept of God evolved. This God created the Universe. The series of events that followed produced man. This imperfect product needed a higher authority etc, etc.

CSICOP has been trying to have available, both to its staff and to anyone else who wishes to use it, the finest library of skeptical materials on the paranormal in the world. We have been gathering material for this collection as a part of the Center for Inquiry's library, under the direction of Dr. Gordon Stein. He has been combing the used bookstores of the country for appropriate material.

When reading the latest issue of the NZ Skeptic, I was somewhat dismayed to find that both our worthy Chair-Entity, and our Hokum Locum failed to appreciate the difference between a chemist and a pharmacist/druggist. Although this is a common failure on the part of the general public I would have expected better from fellow Skeptics.

Walter C Clark, Chuck Bird and Nicky McLean criticise Hitting Home for not investigating women's violence towards men, that is, for not being another piece of research altogether. When biologists can produce papers about the hairs on the legs of one species of fruit-flies, this does not seem excessively specialised. One reason that that was not done is simply money. To have achieved the same accuracy would have required interviewing 2,000 women, doubling the cost.

Ian McWilliam's comments on the Dunedin Chelation Study [Forum, September] indicates the many difficulties in understanding medical research papers. In consideration of his critique of the study:

My feeling after having read the report is that when it was ready for the printer, the authors had in fact reached the point where they were about ready to consult with people experienced in such research, as a necessary preliminary to the main investigation. I would have suggested a smaller pilot sample. This should have disclosed the pitfalls that lay in wait for them. By taking such steps they could have avoided the traps that they later fell into.

TV3 on 20/20 at 8.30pm on Monday 19/06/95 screened an American story titled "A State of Mind". Extravagant claims were made about the medical significance of hypnosis and its therapeutic uses. One doctor claimed that up to 50% of her patients could be cured by hypnosis. I have just completed a course in rehabilitation studies at Massey University. The course text book had an interesting summary on hypnosis.

As a subscriber to your magazine, I am concerned by the general trends evident in the statements made by a number of your contributors. For example, in the last issue Mr Wyant complained about "whinging leftists", while Dr Welch claimed that "our own welfare state is a classic illustration of this problem" (i.e., assumed dependency).

"US Universities, cringing under a wave of Political Correctness and an extreme form of "multi-culturalism" are abandoning programmes which present the history of Western Civilisation as anything other than the history of the rape and plunder of minorities and other victims by a conspiracy of middle-class white males." ("The Challenge to Reason", Skeptic 34.)

I am writing in the hope that your readers may be able to help me in a little research I am doing, in my position of Publicity Officer for the Wairarapa Archive.

Congratulations on featuring the superb contribution from Peter Münz in Skeptic 31. It seems to concur with a passage from Antony Flew I have just been reading. He says that to know something is "to believe what is in fact true, and to be rationally justified in that belief". Like most people shivering in the postmodernist shadow, my first reaction was to draw back, thinking that all seemed a bit too definite. Surely it's not still allowed to be definite about something?

The account of the meeting between the Moa hunters and the Christchurch Skeptics was interesting, but contained some very odd statements. How many skeptics had done any hunting, I wonder? The account reads as though there were no experienced hunters present who could challenge some of the statements made. That is rather like examining key-benders without a magician present. However, the account, like many UFO sightings, contains several inconsistencies which are not obvious to the inexperienced.

The Indian Skeptics sometimes seem to be up against some very big opponents. Our Chair recently received the following letter:

Several of my friends are orchardists, and two of them lost their crop last year due to a hailstorm.

The article on creationism by Barend Vlaardingerbroek (Skeptic 24) contains much with which I would agree, but there are also several points that could be contested.

Your main article in the March issue (Skeptic, #23), "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Vincent Gray, is perhaps the worst I have ever read. It consists almost entirely of bald assertions, all un- referenced and mostly false, vilifying unspecified "environmentalists". I shall take room to correct only the worst of these assertions; my main complaint about the piece is more formal, namely that it is unrelated to the NZCSICOP's aims, and on that ground alone should never have been printed in the magazine.

Also, as a NZCSICOP newcomer, I'd like to respond to Carl Wyant, who asked why skeptic groups rarely attack the Big Groups. Firstly, skeptics challenging religious beliefs or their legal implications do so elsehere as atheistic or political groups. Secondly, religious belief is untestable, so a skeptic cannot point to refuting evidence. The argument reduces to philosophy. Thirdly, pseudoscience is a lot more irritating than something not even pretending to be scientific.