16 September 2024
A couple of weeks ago I talked with a journalist about psychics, as she was looking into a story that Kelvin Cruickshank appeared to have muscled his way into. As well as giving her some information about how psychics work, and a little about Kelvin, I had also suggested to her that she should visit a psychic to get an idea of how they operate. A day later she let me know that she was planning to visit a psychic fair that weekend, and I suggested that I could meet her there to brief her on what to expect. So, on Saturday morning two weekends ago, Bronwyn and I headed to Upper Hutt and met with Virginia.
19 August 2024
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to attend a talk given by Sara Rahmani to the NZ Humanists in Wellington. At the talk she summarised her findings from a set of interviews she's conducted with Māori who have been happy to talk with her about their spiritual journeys with her. Although most of these journeys have been from belief to non-belief, taking a variety of different paths to get there, she has also interviewed a few people who still hold religious or spiritual beliefs.
24 October 2023
We've reported previously on Liz Gunn, the former TV presenter, now turned conspiracy theorist, who was the leader of the NZ Loyal political party. Her party received just 1.2% of the party vote, therefore denying their representation in parliament.
30 May 2022
I'd like to draw attention to the work done by Te Pūna Matatini. They have released an initial report on mis- and dis-information in Aotearoa New Zealand.
13 September 2021
As I've written in the past, NZ Skeptics often receive comments in our inbox and people often criticise us for parroting the mainstream media (usually abbreviated to MSM). Recent commenters have criticised us for sharing articles from the BBC, amongst others.
21 December 2020
Retraction Watch have written a nice summary of the year in retractions for The Scientist magazine. Unsurprisingly many of the scientific articles that have been retracted this year are on the topic of COVID-19, but there was one that caught my eye from the Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences titled:
1 February 2020
As a secondary school history teacher, I'm about to embark on the altogether outrageous exercise of asserting that science education in New Zealand needs a fundamental rethink. That the blatant misuse and mistrust of science evidenced across society must be dealt with by a more dynamic and comprehensive approach to science in the classroom.
4 November 2018
SleepDrops is a New Zealand company which sells small vials of liquid drops which are supposed to help you get to sleep and stay asleep. Their ingredients are a mixture of small doses of herbs and very small (homeopathic) doses of herbs. A look at the Scientific Research page on their website shows that there's a dearth of research for any of the ingredients in the SleepDrops products, and absolutely no research on the SleepDrops formulation.
1 November 2018
Highlights and reflections on Mark Fletcher's Survey: “The Critical Thinking Skills of Curriculum Level 8 Students” By Editor
13 May 2018
Healing crystals have become very popular recently, with people buying many different crystals to either wear or place in their homes and help with physical and mental health issues, monetary problems and any other problem you could imagine. There are even water bottles with crystals in that are supposed to somehow "energise" the water you drink.
30 July 2017
Emails have been released about the show Sensing Murder from OIA requests, and have brought to light (unsurprisingly) that the show has not materially helped the Police, and in some circumstances is considered to be a potential problem for ongoing cases.
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
17 July 2016
FYI is a great website for making Official Information Act requests. You can submit a request to a government department through the site and all correspondence is made public on the site.
10 July 2016
I was asked for my thoughts about the most recent Sensing Murder re-run last week, and an article was published on Monday talking about the program. I talked with journalist Carly Gooch about how there are only around 60 unsolved murders from the last 100 years, and that it wouldn't take much for a "psychic" to memorise some of the details of each of these cases. I also managed to find an article online from 5 years before the program was filmed which detailed most or all of the facts that the psychics were able to produce.
1 August 2014
Matthew Willey has a series of discussions about big questions.
1 November 2013
In spite of the quality international line-up of scientists and science communicators at September's annual NZ Skeptics Conference in Wellington, it's probably not surprising that most of the media attention on the event focused on the presence of medium Sue Nicholson (see NZ Skeptic 93). Many in the audience seemed bemused to see her there, and Nicholson, for her part, didn't seem to have much idea of what the Skeptics were about. "My Dad was as sceptical as anybody," she said. "He had no time for black people."
1 November 2011
Prominent physicist and science commentator Sir Paul Callaghan is resorting to vitamin C megadoses and Chinese medicine to treat his terminal cancer (Dominion Post, 22 September).
1 August 2011
Alison Campbell looks at a new 'resource' for New Zealand schools, helpfully provided by the creationist movement.
1 February 2011
Research at Victoria University of Wellington is shedding light on the often irrational processes by which people assess new information. This article is based on presentations to the 2010 NZ Skeptics conference.
1 November 2008
Vicki Hyde dishes out this year's Bent Spoon Award.
1 November 2004
Don't judge them by their demeanour. The vast majority of people in this business are sincere, well-meaning individuals, and they are very hard to distinguish from the con artists. They might well be honest, but this doesn't mean they can do what they think they are doing
1 November 2001
I'm pleased to welcome you officially to the 21st century, which I suspect will need Skeptics every bit as much as the last century, judging by the general level of activity over the past year.
1 May 2000
At last year's conference, John Scott spoke on the problems of mixing misinformation and medicine.
1 November 1997
Scientology recently offered $12 million to FACTNet, an Internet library providing information on the dangers of mind control and cults, including information critical of Scientology. FACTNet's directors turned down Scientology's proposal, because it contained terms they considered unacceptable.
1 November 1996
At the AGM, and in a subsequent letter from a member, the question was raised "what are we saving money for?". Certainly the Skeptics bank account is a reasonably healthy one, after ten years of frugal saving on the part of Treasurers past and present.
1 February 1994
A detective with long experience in tracing missing persons gave the 1993 Skeptics Conference the word on how useful psychics are in police work.
1 November 1988
We recently received through the kindness of skeptic Malcolm McCleary information on the thought of Barry Long. It comes from the "Barry Long Centre (NZ)" in Auckland. Mr. Long is an Australian who left his career in journalism and PR "when he started to question the purpose of his life. He was made aware that the truth or spirit was entering him and directing his life."
1 May 1988
Jesus Christ lives on Venus. Earth has narrowly escaped invasion by the Fish Men. Two machines pull in healing energy from deep space and spread it around Earth each night.
1 November 1986
To investigate scientifically and with an open mind, claims and events of an apparently paranormal nature.