A lot of effort goes into science communication, but the effectiveness of much of it is debatable. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics Conference in Wellington, 7 September ... (895 words)

The Advertising Standards Authority provides an accessible platform for members of the public to take on the merchants of woo. This article is based on a presentation to the 2012 NZ Skeptics ... (1184 words)

… then there's little hope for the world, says Alison Campbell, who attends far too many meetings. Fortunately however, that may not be the case. I attend a lot of meetings; that's the nature of my ... (512 words)

There may indeed be a place for creationism in the science classroom, but not the way the creationists want. This article is based on a presentation to the 2011 NZ Skeptics Conference. We live in a ... (1865 words)

On a recent visit to New Plymouth I was rather taken aback to see a billboard outside a central city church posing the question: "Evolution? How come we still have apes?" It wasn't so much surprise ... (410 words)

Pictures don't lie, right? Of course they do. And they were deceiving us long before Photoshop made the manipulation of images almost child's play. Today, nobody would bat an eye at a ghostly image ... (1003 words)

The Believing Brain: how we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths by Michael Shermer. Times books, New York. 386pp. ISBN 978-0-8050-9125-0. Reviewed by Martin Wallace. Aa a member of NZ ... (456 words)

The NZ Skeptics cast the net wide for the 2011 Bent Spoon. The NZ Skeptics have awarded their annual prize for journalistic gullibility to all those media outlets and personalities who took Ken ... (838 words)

The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values. Sam Harris. 2010. Free Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-4391-7121-9 Reviewed by Martin Wallace. If faith is belief without evidence, then it is ... (390 words)

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 ... (2253 words)

Alison Campbell finds some claims about raw foods hard to swallow. I was reading a couple of articles about 'raw foods' today. This is 'raw foods' as in 'foods that you don't heat above 40°C in ... (572 words)

Many people lost a lot of money investing in non-existent data compression software because well:established principles of information theory were ignored. This article is based on a presentation to ... (3162 words)

This article is a response to 'Truth is the daughter of time, and not of authority': Aspects of the Cartwright Affair by Martin Wallace, NZ Skeptic 96. The Cartwright Inquiry1 was held after the ... (2926 words)

Eyewitness testimony is commonly regarded as very high quality evidence. But recent research has shown there are many ways memories of events can become contaminated. This article is based on a ... (1298 words)

More 'ghosts' than ever are appearing in photos - thanks to digital cameras. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics 2009 conference in Wellington, 26 September. Since the ... (2077 words)

If students are to pursue careers in science, they need to be able to see themselves in that role. One way to encourage this may be through the telling of stories. This article is based on a ... (3474 words)

More bad news for homeopaths The leading medical journal The Lancet recently published yet another analysis of trials of homeopathy. After examining 110 such trials, the Swiss researchers concluded ... (558 words)