NZ Skeptics Articles

Articles tagged with "course"

A steaming pile of Horse Homeopathy

16 September 2024

I stated on the podcast a few weeks ago that I think I could cover a different horse pseudoscience in each issue, and keep going for an entire year. That was before I looked into it…

Scientological Visit

19 August 2024

On a recent visit to Honolulu I found myself with 45 minutes to kill in front of an inviting sign “_Free Movie starting every hour. Visitors are welcome. Church of Scientology._” Yes, please.

Sex.Life.Nonsense

2 April 2024

A few months ago Bronwyn wrote an article about Sex.Life, a New Zealand podcast by Morgan Penn, a “somatic sexologist”, and Hayley Sproull, a comedian. The first season of the podcast is of interest to skepticism, as it details Morgan's 10 day visit to Highden Temple (outside of Palmerston North), owned and run by Bruce Lyon. Bruce claims to channel the spirit of a long-dead spiritual master, and also runs Sex Magic classes - part of the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA).

Scientology and New Zealand: John Dalhoff and Zenith Applied Philosophy (Z.A.P), Part 2

19 June 2023

In last week's newsletter, I set as best of a scene as I could with regards to who John Dalhoff/Ultimate was up to the early years of ZAP. In short, Dalhoff was the only son in a very wealthy immigrant family. He went to Massey University in Palmerston North, and did a lot of work with their student publication Chaff. In his 20s Dalhoff joined Scientology, and allegedly was involved in coordinating the gathering of information against enemies of Scientology until 1972, when he himself was kicked out for “ethics violations”.

The Easiest Person to Fool

20 June 2022

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 wellness and spiritual festival, WellFest, she had no idea I was a skeptic. She showed me her folder of photos and cuttings about the “synchronicity” she'd experienced in her life - a series of spirals, stretching from a spiral painting she made as a young child, through to photos she'd taken in the '80s with faint spirals in the background, and a recent picture of a weird glowing spiral in the sky she'd cut out from a newspaper. I told her that I recognised the sky spiral, that it was a picture from Norway of a Russian rocket booster. Of course she was having none of it - the spiral in the sky was a sign for her, part of a message the universe was sending her through a series of events too unlikely to be coincidence. And of course she wasn't interested in reading into this phenomenon any further - she'd decided what it was, and what it meant to her, and that was enough.

Beware of Scientologists Bearing Gifts

5 April 2021

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 Scientologists. This type of bait and switch sneakiness is about what we'd expect from Scientology, so I decided to search google and find the course in question.

Vaccines on the horizon

23 November 2020

This past week has seen the news of development of successful vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The vaccines have a claimed efficacy of nearly 95%. This is good news, and a triumph for science and medical technology that they've been able to be developed so quickly. There are other companies that have vaccines in the pipeline so it's likely that there will be several more vaccines available in the coming months and years.

Smoke & weird crackers

1 February 2020

As I looked out at the Australian smoke filling our normally blue New Zealand skies, it made me angry. Angry to think that where there is smoke, there is fake news holding us back from taking action on the climate crisis. There are still many who don't think we need to change from our current course, and others who think our contribution wouldn't make a difference anyway. Still too often I hear arguments which are nothing more than false balance, the scientific consensus put aside because of some meme picked up on social media. I believe we can't afford to ignore the science and we must act. It's the right thing to do. We need to set an example, even if our contribution is small by individual or national standards.

News Front

1 August 2019

Skeptic summary: Students took a test to measure their belief in pseudo-scientific ideas before and after a course in critical thinking and a control course. The good news is, the course in critical thinking dramatically reduced participant's belief in pseudoscience! The not so good news is, this course is not currently rolled out at every school in the world, and belief in pseudoscientific ideas seem to be on the rise.

Shakti Mat

10 June 2018

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 work like a bed of nails, activating acupressure points. I've seen the mat sold at shows such as the Go Green Expo, and have stood on one - the points are really sharp, and without socks it was especially painful.

Therapeutic Mushroom Coffee

15 April 2018

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.

Chinese Man telling women's futures by touching their breasts!

21 October 2016

A Chinese man appears to have invented a novel way to tell the future. He puts his hand down a woman's top, feels her breast, and presumably uses the information he gleans to work out what is in store for the woman. Of course, by using cold reading a fortune teller

Adult Coloring Books and Mandalas, A Warning For Christians

13 March 2016

A Christian blogger has warned that mandalas in adult colouring in books could be dangerous. She suggests that the magical new age claims made about mandalas are true, that they have the ability to heal if you meditate on them and that a good way to do this is to colour them in. Of course, as these magical claims are not Christian, they must be bad and Christians should stay away from them.

Superstitious? Me? That depends

1 February 2009

When the Sunday Star-Times decided to survey the nation on how superstitious New Zealanders are and about what, I got used as guinea pig. Having done a lot of survey design and analysis during the course of my hodge-podge of an academic career, I often end up writing more about the questions than answering them. Add to that the tendency for being, as Margaret Mahy once characterised our group, "a person in a state of terminal caution", and you can imagine the result.

New course on critical thinking for 2007

1 November 2006

Canterbury University will next year be offering a Stage I course on critical thinking, to be called Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus. Named after a classic book by Martin Gardner, the course, Philosophy 110, will be headed by founding member of the NZ Skeptics, Denis Dutton. Prof Dutton says it will fulfill a demand for a sharp, smart course in critical thinking from a standpoint quite different from that offered by traditional logic and philosophy.

The Royal healing touch

1 May 2005

The medical community in Britain is suffering a severe attack of lèse majesté, and it is feared some distinguished heads will roll on Tower Green.

Get Your Facts Straight

1 August 2004

A couple of months ago we were visiting my brother, and got talking about a friend of his, who had enrolled in a counselling course. It turned out that the course had come to be dominated by some rather staunch Maori elements, and my brother's friend, as one of only two non-Maori on the course, was embroiled in a dispute in which racial lines were very clearly drawn. But he was confident he had ammunition which would knock the course leaders off their perch, in the form of a book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand (see Feature Article). This purported to show that Europeans had in fact colonised this country thousands of years ago, and had established a thriving neolithic culture, until they were displaced by Maori early in the last millennium.

Newsfront

1 February 2003

A Feng Shui practitioner who died while on a life mastery course in Fiji was ready to leave his body, his widow believes. Stephanie Challis, pictured in the Nelson Mail (11 December 2002) smiling happily with her three children, told how her 41 year old husband Will had undergone a course of body cleansing which involved colonic hydrotherapy and drinking quantities of good quality water.

Fear and Loathing in Tuatapere

1 May 2000

That was never six months just then -- it felt much longer. Banised to the depths of New Zealand, in Tuatapere (almost as far south west as you can get in the South Island), life took on a gentler pace. Momentous things did happen -- the stoat population declined by 300 around where we were, and the yellowheads had a successful breeding season.

Parental Rights

1 February 2000

It's my right as a parent to decide what is best for my child. After all, I'm a caring parent who dearly loves her children and would do only what is best for them.

Forum

1 August 1991

Even the most republican-minded skeptic must admit that monarchical feelings sometimes have their uses. New Zealand was recently visited by Jacqueline Stallone. She arrived in a blaze of publicity, widely airing her views on astrology and other psychic matters.

Editorial

1 November 1988

When the local paper carried a new advertisement, for 'Esoteric Astrology,' I had to reply to the number given. 'Esoteric,' of course, means 'intelligible only to the initiated' and the account given by its exponent laid her open to prosecution under the trades description act since it was clear that she, at least, had no idea what she was talking about. She said that her kind of astrology made no attempt to foretell the future, but that she used the predictions obtained to counsel people who were worried and perplexed. When I asked her what was the connection between the movement of the planets and the personal problems of people in New Plymouth, she replied in the pitying tones of a teacher talking to a backward five year old, "Well, you know that the moon is responsible for the tides." The following dialogue then ensued.

Critical Thinking

1 August 1988

"Critical thinking" is the name given to a way of reasoning, in everyday language, which is a great benefit to everybody who uses it. It is a tool which can be used to improve our understanding of other people's arguments, to improve our own reasoning, to improve decision making, and to aid communication. It is especially useful for skeptics and debunkers. It is also a new idea, since in the past people have never been taught how to reason properly using everyday language, which is how most of us reason most of the time. Most of us could improve our thinking considerably by using critical thinking methods. I would like to see the Skeptics involved in the promotion of this subject.

Health skills course opposed

1 August 1988

An access training scheme to teach alternative medicines is about to start in New Plymouth. But the four-week health skills course has drawn criticism from le to alternative therapies and to the course's ing. The course, in mid-November, will teach homeopathy, reflexology, massage, herbal knowledge and stress management.