21 January 2025
I have been a member of this group for a few years. I joined because I was tired of ill-informed, anti-scientific nonsense in our media especially stemming from our politicians. I am a 78 year old retired Orthopaedic Surgeon who has worked in science since my initial Zoology degree in 1967. I do not belong to any (anti)social media.
8 July 2024
We're currently looking at streamlining this newsletter, and one promising option we're looking at is to move its creation to Wordpress, our current website CMS (Content Management System). The only obvious difference this would make to you would be that our newsletter emails would no longer contain the full text of our articles - instead there would be an excerpt, along with a link to the full article online. I'd love to hear from anyone for whom that would be an issue, where it might make it harder for you to access our newsletter (just email me at newsletter@skeptics.nz). Ideally I may be able to figure out a way to include the full text of our articles still, but so far a workable solution has eluded me.
18 March 2024
Apologies for this week's newsletter being a little late - I was planning to finish it off last night, but I was hit by some weird medical issue where I had a horrible headache and ended up sleeping from 5pm to get rid of it.
27 November 2023
Apologies for the slightly late delivery of this issue of our newsletter - I'm currently tapping away on my keyboard on the ferry at Picton, waiting to start the final leg of our journey back home to Wellington from the conference.
20 November 2023
As mentioned above, during the Sunday lunchtime of the conference we'll be holding our Annual General Meeting. If you're a member of NZ Skeptics you can come along (even if you're not attending the conference) and hear all about our business. We'll also be attempting to run a livestream of the meeting in case you can't attend in person.
8 May 2023
Having been a member for many years, I think it is about time that I made a confession, which I am told is good for the soul even if it is not very good for my continued membership. I am a committed church member, even though the word “committed” makes me think of mental institutions and prisons. I think of the scriptural stories as parabolic and written to guide one's behaviour, definitely not intended as a scientific text. Therefore when a story is physically impossible or extremely unlikely, I simply shrug my shoulders and think that it is a fable and the important part is the message it is portraying. I would never think of using the Bible as a physics or astronomy textbook any more than I would use the physical science texts as a moral guide. Interestingly, I note that many people who have no religious affiliation take great comfort in thinking that when they die they will meet up with old friends who have “gone before”. I think it would be churlish of me to tell them of my doubts in that regard. Also, I have enough humility to recognise that we are still very far from knowing everything about the physical world.
24 April 2023
I'm still a member of the Eastern Lightning, aka the Church of Almighty God religion, along with Mark Honeychurch, and it has been a fascinating experience learning how this religion ticks. We discussed the group on a recent episode of the NZ Skeptics' “Yeah…Nah!” podcast, and I mentioned that I was unsure if they're actually a cult, but I felt that they checked many of the cult checkboxes. Others agreed that they crossed the threshold, and are probably a full-blown cult. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also calls them a cult. But are they?
10 October 2022
This week brings a welcome decision from the Supreme Court, in a case that the NZ Skeptics have been
24 January 2022
Ending on a positive note (no pun intended) this week, NZ Skeptics committee member Brad MacClure was featured in an article on Stuff about piano tuning, and skepticism. There's a nice write-up and associated video.
10 January 2022
If you're a member of NZ Skeptics you should receive a reminder to renew your subs soon. If you're not currently a member, you can join us for a very reasonable cost.
3 January 2022
Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for your support over the last year. We had a very successful conference late last year, and our membership has been slowly increasing, which is great! If you're a paid-up member, thank you for your financial support and you should be receiving a reminder to pay your (very reasonable) subscription soon. And if you're not currently a member, you can always rectify that situation by joining us.
12 July 2021
There's some classic skepticism in this week's newsletter - numerology, an American conspiracy theory and a scam that looks, walks and quacks like a Ponzi Scheme. And, as well as my usual ranting, we have a report from Barry Lennox. Barry was a committee member a few years ago, and he recently visited the Christchurch Home Show. You probably won't be surprised to hear that Barry found several stalls pushing unproven nonsense in amongst the spa pools and heat pumps.
1 March 2021
A big portion of this week's newsletter content was contributed by NZ Skeptics Committee member - Jonathan Harper.
22 February 2021
A member emailed us this week to share an unaddressed letter she received in her mailbox. Thankfully the anonymous author of the document has put in the hard work of joining all the unconnected dots of some of the conspiracies I've mentioned above, and more, and has figured out that the overall aim of the New Zealand government is transhumanism - apparently we're going to be converted to Human 2.0 via the COVID vaccine. As a technology enthusiast I'm having a hard time seeing the downside to being upgraded, although I have to admit to being worried that, given Bill Gates' involvement, my new nanobots may be running a Windows based OS. Hopefully I'll be able to flash them to a more stable BSD or Linux OS, just as soon as I figure out where my serial port is.
15 February 2021
NZ Skeptics membership runs on a calendar year basis and we're about to switch to a new system for collecting subs. If you're enjoying these newsletters and you're not a member, we encourage you to join us - it's a very reasonable $40/year for individuals and only $20/year if you're unwaged.
4 January 2021
NZ Skeptics is a registered charity. If you're already a member now's the time to pay your subs. If you're not a member, please consider joining us to support the work we do. Membership is only $40/year for waged/salaried people, and $20/year for unwaged people. You can sign up on our website.
1 February 2019
We are proud to mention the honour our regular contributor Siouxsie Wiles received this year.
22 July 2018
BBC
11 March 2018
In an article on the NZ Herald, reprinted from the Washington Post, Christopher Mellon argues that there is solid evidence for UFOs, and that the US are not doing enough to investigate.
1 August 2017
The NZ Scientology Headquarters opened to much fanfare in Auckland. Three local skeptics go along for the experience.
12 June 2016
There is now a second panel that has been convened to review Christchurch Council's "Tonkin Taylor" coastal erosion report. The panel has been instructed to:
4 October 2015
A crew member felt their trousers being tugged, the bottom of someone's seat was kicked, a chandelier prop worked intermittently, and a hat was knocked off
1 November 2014
This year the NZ Skeptics Annual General Meeting was held separately from the conference, on 7 September in Wellington. Among the business attended to was the election of a new chair-entity, Mark Honeychurch, replacing Gold who takes on the new role of Head Geek, responsible for technological support. The_ NZ Skeptic _took the opportunity to ask Mark a few questions about himself, and his vision for skepticism in New Zealand.
1 November 2012
A fiasco over a 'Natural Therapy Clinic' at Wanganui Hospital was finally resolved satisfactorily - but for the wrong reasons.
1 August 2004
On Saturday, July 10, Cynthia Shakespeare died in a car accident on the way to a tramping trip. With her death we have lost a wonderfully enthusiastic and energetic member of the Skeptics.
1 May 2004
It was a dark and stormy night. But (almost) without flinching we set off to hear Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Kevin Grazier speaking about the Cassini mission to Saturn.
1 November 2003
Claire Le Couteur reports from the 2003 Skeptics' Conference in Wellington.
1 February 2000
A respected member of Skeptics passed away at the Hampton Court Rest Home at Taradale, napier, on 29 September last year.
1 August 1999
From a medical member, recently moved to a rural practice:
1 February 1999
Founding member Bernard Howard reminisces on the Skeptics' history in this guest editorial.
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 1996
Since the call for responses to the awarding of the Bent Spoon to the Justice Department's Hitting Home report, we've received responses from 16 people, some of which of which have been published in this and the previous Skeptic. Others were in the form of private commentaries or conversations. One member contacted the authors of the report directly for clarification and further comment, and passed on the correspondence that ensued.
1 May 1995
Thanks to a member who was present, we now have a set of audiotapes which record the complete proceedings of the 1994 CSICOP Conference in Seattle, on The Psychology of Belief
1 February 1992
Gentlemen attending the most recent Christchurch meeting of NZCSICOP unselfishly agreed to give of their all for their country. They have member Lawrence Livingstone to thank for the suggestion.
1 February 1990
As you know, we occasionally get copies of the Newsletter of overseas skeptical groups. We recently received a copy of Skeptiker (2) 1989, a beautifully produced newsletter from Germany.
1 February 1990
The Skeptics have organised some splendid meetings over the years, but our 1989 conference at the University of Canterbury promises to be the hottest ever—peaking at about 900 degrees celsius, to be precise....
1 February 1989
The first two NZCSICOP conferences enjoyed such success that they are difficult acts to follow ... but our third conference may prove the most lively of all.