1 September 2025
I recently attended the yearly meeting of Ora Taiao: The Aotearoa New Zealand Climate and Health Council. This is a body made up of health professionals, organisations, and supporters who advocate for equitable, rapid, and regenerative climate action. The society is a not-for-profit politically nonpartisan incorporated society. Its objective is to lead by example in advocating for health-enhancing climate action.
21 July 2025
Thank you to everyone who filled in our recent survey about the possibility of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast hosts coming over to New Zealand next year, and whether this might have an effect on our conference plans for this year and next. We've been discussing your responses as a committee, and will be able to let everyone know fairly soon what our plans are.
7 July 2025
While I remain unconvinced by the premise of cryonics, I've come away with the impression that most cryonics companies currently in operation have protocols that enable the ethical treatment of family members caught unawares by their loved one's unorthodox final wishes. In one Alcor case study, staff were reported as telling one family that the condition of their daughter's body made it hard to justify proceeding with suspension, as the cooling and freezing process would exacerbate the damage to the brain caused by autopsy and transport delays. While this should be a given, I think many skeptics will agree that when it comes to fringe and pseudoscientific enterprises, the bar for decency is all too often on the floor. However, the aftermath of the Chatsworth incident (in which 9 patients thawed out) revealed that such protocols really benefit the companies. It ensures that the majority of their customers are prepared, true believers.
7 July 2025
In the June 9th edition of the newsletter, Mark wrote about the Russian right-wing new religious movement called Anastasianism, or the Ringing Cedars. I won't retread what he and the fairly detailed Wikipedia page cover, but I'm here to report that, despite Mark's hopes, Anastasianism is not isolated to the Wellington suburb of Brooklyn; its adherents and admirers can be found throughout New Zealand.
23 June 2025
After Bronwyn's article in the last newsletter about cryonics, Katrina and I have decided to get in on the action and write our own articles on related topics to accompany the second part of Bronwyn's series. It's been interesting to learn more about longevity and preservation - both the real science, and the pseudoscience. And thankfully there were a couple of fascinating documentaries I was able to watch to help me flesh out my article, so it wasn't all just reading for me.
26 May 2025
In August of 2023, I wrote two articles about the Two-by-Twos (TBT), a sect with “2” many names, and just as many problems. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 to catch up.
28 April 2025
I intend this episode to comment on several issues.
31 March 2025
Buckle up for a deep dive on Sovereign Citizens and the law in New Zealand.
31 March 2025
Further to my previous articles on climate change, this week I will talk about several short topics from recent publications.
18 February 2025
The IPCC report of 2022 notes that climate change is a major risk to planet Earth. (IPCC 2022). New Zealand's Net Zero Carbon Act has been passed by parliament, and has been accepted by the National party, Labour Party, Green party, ACT party and Te Pati Maori. The NZ First Party is ambivalent. This would suggest that very urgent and far-ranging changes are necessary to our society in New Zealand within the next six years, to try to get to 1.5° C of global warming by 2050 - or preferably earlier. It should be noted that we are already close to that target in 2024, and atmospheric greenhouse gases have increased rather than decreased year by year since then. These have led to year-on-year increases in record temperatures, with associated increases in floods, droughts, wildfires, strength of storms, sea level rise and catastrophic effects in many countries including New Zealand. The most affected countries are in the “Global South”, yet they produce the least greenhouse gases. New Zealand is the 7th highest producer of greenhouse gases per person in the world.
18 February 2025
A week ago I attended a talk given by Michael Connett, the son of long-time lawyer Paul Connett. Michael, like his father, lives in the US and has dedicated his life to fighting against the use of community water fluoridation. He's a lawyer, and specialises in civil lawsuits where there are claims of damage by toxic substances. He recently won a court case in the US where he argued that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was not doing enough to address concerns about the risks of fluoride in drinking water.
3 February 2025
In just over a month's time, Bronwyn and I will be driving up to Auckland to visit New Zealand's second Mormon temple. We're also going to try to visit the Kaimanawa wall on the way, so if anyone's been there and has any advice about driving the gravel road to the nearby camp site, I would love to hear from you. While in Auckland we'll try to organise a Skeptics' get together - maybe brunch somewhere on Sunday the 9th. So, if you're in Auckland, we'd love for you to join us for a chilled out chat.
3 February 2025
In the first part of this article, I looked at some of the common archaeological misconceptions used to spread doubt about Māori being the first to settle New Zealand. Having spent some time debunking some of the more common ideas floating around on social media, which are supposedly covered up to hide the “truth”, this second part will be devoted to looking at the more widely accepted versions of historical events.
21 January 2025
First published in the NZ Skeptic on November 1, 1996
21 January 2025
I saw a lot of anti-Māori disinformation on social media in the last few months before the 2023 New Zealand general elections. For clarity, disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people with a goal in mind, whereas misinformation is incorrect or misleading information that is spread without specific malicious intent. Such rhetoric can create a voting block large enough for politicians to pander to, and it would be tempting for MPs to then pledge to implement policies to attract these voters. It can also swing voters to vote for parties who are sympathetic to their newly formed views. The anti-Māori disinformation that was being spread on social media at the time largely took on two forms.
23 December 2024
Originally published in the February 1994 issue of our journal, The New Zealand Skeptic
9 December 2024
I'm sure many of you will have heard of the Free Speech Union (FSU), which formed in 2021 by registering as a Trade Union. They're a successor to the Free Speech Coalition, which formed in 2018 in response to problems Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux had with finding a venue in Auckland in which to spread their weird ideas on topics like immigration (I've watched a couple of Lauren's documentaries, and they're not exactly what I'd call factual).
25 November 2024
About a week ago (November 16th-17th 2024, for those reading way in the future) we held our annual NZ Skeptics conference, and for the first time the conference was a joint effort with the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH).
30 September 2024
Imagine the honour of being selected as one among the “10 Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs from New Zealand Accelerating the Growth of Economy in 2024” by Apac Entrepreneur, and featured in a Special Edition of their magazine.
24 June 2024
Our Skeptical Calendar, where we attempt to find at least one event of skeptical interest from New Zealand for each of the 366 days of the year, is nearly finished now, with just 20 or so days that we don't have an event for remaining. Here are the events that happened on this day in history for the next two weeks:
24 June 2024
New Zealand had a remarkable number of quacks and fraudsters active in the early 20th Century. They travelled the length and breadth of the country promoting their curative gadgets. The Cotter Collection includes many of these devices, and even a completed phrenology chart. A medicine chest contains pills and potions thought to provide cures for many common complaints. The outright quacks, who invariably came via Australia, once exposed in New Zealand returned to cause further mayhem there.
10 June 2024
We last left the story of Colin Amery at the precipice of his 2nd attempt at immigration to the Pacific, this time following his pregnant girlfriend back to her home country of New Zealand. Before he departed the UK, he decided to stage a UFO 'talk-down' on Hampstead Heath. Amery fails to provide any further detail on what a UFO talk-down is exactly, but boy did it deliver.
13 May 2024
As best as I can ascertain, Colin Amery has passed. I mean, I'm certain the British architectural historian named Colin Amery is dead, as he warranted multiple obituaries and “In Memoriam”s in 2018.
15 April 2024
Recently there has been a bit of media coverage about the show 'Country House Hunters' New Zealand being faked. It has been proven that at least some of the house hunters were already the owners of the properties they were viewing.
15 April 2024
I bring a shorter contribution this week, inspired by a couple of requests I have received courtesy of the Culty Conversations Facebook page. One was a DM which notified me that archived versions of Ohad Pele's website, kabalove.org, were removed from the Wayback Machine, and asked if I could advocate for the website to be reinstated. Flattered though I am that others think I have that much sway with an American non-profit, I wasn't surprised that this happened. It's an easy enough process, and there are several websites and blog posts about how to have your website removed. I mean, even the Internet Archive itself provides instructions on how to submit such a request, albeit with the caveat that there are no guarantees.
15 April 2024
The NZ Skeptics were messaged last week by someone (no name given) who thinks they've found a paranormal event - a message in a piece of music from 1995 that predicted the 7.5 earthquake on New Year's Day this year in Noto, Japan:
18 March 2024
Last week we received a request from the editor of the Katikati Advertiser asking for our response to a story that was being written about a psychic:
8 January 2024
At the Society for Science Based Healthcare, we spend a lot of time looking at dodgy therapeutic claims. Most of these claims are made by practitioners of alternative therapies. A few months ago Mark Hanna, a colleague of mine at SBH, messaged me with a curious thought:
25 December 2023
I'm lying, they didn't actually say that - but they might as well have done. What they did do was run with a headline of “'Doughnut-shaped disc': Is this a UFO over Christchurch?”. As far as I'm concerned, if they'd seriously suggested that Father Christmas may have flown over Christchurch in a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer it would have been no less ridiculous than what they actually did, which was suggest that aliens decided to expend huge amounts of energy, effort and time crossing light years of space in order to very visibly visit New Zealand's South Island. This kind of credulous reporting is not the kind of content that serious news outlets should be generating!
25 December 2023
Publisher: Massey University Press
11 December 2023
Many of you, as skeptics, will have heard mention of 15 minute cities and, in our case, because New Zealand likes to be different, 20 minute cities. The 15 Minute City idea has joined Agenda 21, Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset in the pantheon of recent Big Ideas that actually exist, but have been converted by conspiracy theorists into grotesque versions of themselves where governments are supposedly trying to take away our rights and enslave us all. But, what is the idea of a 15/20 minute city, and how have the conspiracy theorists misrepresented the idea?
11 December 2023
For an island nation with a population of 5.3 million, I would hazard that we have more than our fair share of pākehā with a hotline to millenia-long dead Asians. And by more I mean a non-zero number, because mediumship is a paranormal practice/belief that so far has failed to provide any empirical evidence for its efficacy, other than the ability to make money disappear out of the pockets of those seeking confirmation of the afterlife, or one last chance to speak with their loved one.
27 November 2023
This weekend I hosted a Skeptical quiz at our annual conference in Dunedin. For those of you who missed out on the conference, here are my quiz questions so that you can play along at home. Feel free to look these things up if you can't figure out the answers but are curious to know. I'll be publishing the answers in my next newsletter.
20 November 2023
In honour of our upcoming conference, rather than giving a day-by-day recount of skeptical history, I pulled some Dunedin-specific events to share. While I wouldn't say Dunedin is the strangest place in New Zealand (that crown is currently held by Canterbury), its denizens are certainly trying their damnedest to convince us all about how haunted they are.
16 October 2023
2021: A group called Doctors Stand Up For Vaccination releases an open letter to the New Zealand public stressing the importance of vaccination. The letter is signed by 6535 registered doctors.
9 October 2023
1980: Colin Gardener and his neighbour Helena Bradley see a lioness near Gardener's home in Wellington. Which is notable because New Zealand has no indigenous big cats. A police search around the Meadowcrofts property turns up nothing. A few days later, Gardener and another neighbour, Maurice Bradley, catch another glimpse of the creature and determine that it is not a lioness but just an unusually big ex-domestic cat.
18 September 2023
Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that impacts behaviour, communication, and socialisation. The exact cause of Autism is unknown, and there is no single gene that is Autisticassociated with the condition. Almost 200 genes can increase the likelihood of Autism due to mutation or possible epigenetic causes. Autism presentation varies widely, and that ranges from Autistics who live independent lives with minimal support to Autistics who require significant support with communication and day-to-day living. It is not unusual for an Autistic to move along that spectrum depending on what emotional, societal, economic, or health pressures are placed on them.
11 September 2023
The Skeptical Calendar is 90% done and far be it for the Editors of this illustrious newsletter to even suggest its readers go out and be newsworthy, we might have a few days you want to aim for.
11 September 2023
I've got a broad collection of items this week. I start off looking at the recent spat between a couple of prominent alleged psychic mediums and their tours around New Zealand.
14 August 2023
Most kiwis will be aware that it's election year, with the general election only a few months away, scheduled for Saturday 14th October.
31 July 2023
Last Sunday evening, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Ms. Information at the Auckland International Film Festival. OK, that sounds a little more grandiose than it was - we purchased tickets like most other people in the audience.
24 July 2023
On 18 July 2023, a squad of undercover skeptics attended one of Julian Batchelor's “Stop Co-Governance” rallies. The evening proved dramatic. We passed through a gauntlet of counter-protesters to reach the venue. One of us was stopped and questioned by a security guard at the door. When the talk began, protesters in the audience began shouting objections or slogans and disrupting the talk. In one case, there was even a scuffle. Batchelor spent the first half hour asking protesters to leave, declaring that he was “trespassing” them, and waiting for police intervention. The police officers seemed to take their time removing protesters one by one. Audience protest eventually died down, but resumed at the end of the talk, by which point Batchelor's supporters had become short-tempered and shouted insults. Leaving the talk, we then faced another gauntlet of counter-protesters chanting “go home racists.” Somebody even threw a rock at our car as we drove past. In my time with the skeptics, I've never attended an event where emotions ran so high.
10 July 2023
Dan Ryan wrote an article a few weeks ago about our visit to a Freedoms NZ event, where Brian and Hannah Tamaki, Sue Grey and others extolled the virtues of their new umbrella political party. Currently Freedoms NZ consists of the member parties Vision NZ (Destiny Church's political wing), Rock the Vote, New Nation, Yes Aotearoa and almost the Outdoors and Freedoms Party (Sue just hasn't signed on the dotted line yet).
19 June 2023
A group of skeptical friends (Bronwyn Rideout, Mark Honeychurch and Tim Atkin) invited me to attend a political event, the “_Take Back Your Power Roadshow_”, last week. Freedom NZ, a new fringe political party that serves as an umbrella for five other parties, organised the event. The constituent parties are the New Nation Party, Vision New Zealand, the NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party, Yes Aotearoa, and Rock the Vote. They have been travelling around New Zealand spreading their message, asking for votes and donations.
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”.
12 June 2023
The further I explore the rabbit hole of fringe groups, the more I find out about the kiwis who were a large part of the fabric of these organisations - men like William Chesterman (BOTA) and David Mayo (Scientology), who made significant contributions to their respective organisations. Or, the variety of kiwis who earned the appellation of first New Zealander to establish the first New Zealand branch of an overseas religion or spiritual group of their choosing
6 June 2023
“An auditor and client using an E-Meter”, or the longest running stitch up in New Zealand History - you decide.
27 March 2023
In this week's newsletter, I've published the text from a couple of oral submissions the NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH) recently presented to MPs. One interesting part of this was a question asked of SBH, which allowed Daniel Ryan to detail some of the harms that Natural Health Products have caused in New Zealand. I've included Dan's email, and the short but promising response he received. I've also written about my time after graduation from the Eastern Lightning online fellowship meetings and my entry into the Level 3 group, as well as my brief foray into its leadership.
20 March 2023
I've been thrown into the editorial breach this weekend due to being the contributor who made the most…well…contributions. Fortunately, it is a job that for me has all the glory and none of the work, as the only thing that is required from me is to write up this introduction.
6 March 2023
It's a bumper issue today, but I make no apologies for bringing you a ridiculously long email! If you're using a web based client like GMail, you may need to click the “View entire message” link or similar to read the whole newsletter this week, or click the “Read this in your browser” button at the top of the email to open the newsletter as a web page in your browser.
27 February 2023
If you live in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which most of our readers do, it's time for the 5 yearly census.
27 February 2023
We've written about Liz Gunn before. For a refresher, she's a former lawyer, then broadcaster/presenter on Television New Zealand (Breakfast and Good Morning shows) and Radio New Zealand. She disappeared from view for a long time, but recently popped up as an anti-vax conspiracy theorist.
7 February 2023
I was in 9th grade in Canada when Columbine occurred, and alongside that tragedy came a burst of energy in Christian youth culture that arrived to save us poor sinners and goths. It also meant an uptick in documentaries that examined this modern iteration of the youth counter-counter culture (leaving us to perpetually wonder what the kids of Jesus Camp are doing). I missed out on youth group hijinx, as the lure of Christian rock and rounds of chubby bunny was not that strong, and I was that sort of teenage atheist jerk that even my most devoted Sally Anne friends knew I was a lost cause.
7 February 2023
This week's newsletter will feature no articles from me - and this makes me very happy. Why have I not written anything, you may ask, and why am I happy about it. Well, because I'm blessed - and not just once, but twice. Let me explain…
30 January 2023
Content warning: This article will include links to Rama Ranson's blogs which include language, themes, or imagery which can be triggering or upsetting.
24 January 2023
In his book, Islands of the Dawn: The story of alternative spiritualities in New Zealand, Robert Ellwood explores why New Zealand is attractive to fringe religious groups/alternative spiritualities, and why early settlers and guru seekers of the 1960s-70s loved those groups right back. However, not all groups caused the same level of headaches for the government like the Ananda Marga and Scientology did, or had the same cultural profile as the sannyasins of Rajneesh movement; Ellwood had a sizable list of secret societies that had gone defunct by the 90s.
16 January 2023
As Mark and I continue to chip away at the NZ Skeptical Calendar project, my search for fringe groups in the Papers Past database introduced me to Ānanda Mārga (The Path of Bliss or officially,Ānanda Mārga Pracāraka Saṃgha). The groups had an absolutely wild time in New Zealand and Australia throughout the 1970s before they disappeared from the archives, resurfacing intermittently when their humanitarian efforts were being promoted. Ānanda Mārga came to New Zealand in 1974 and soon there were groups in each major New Zealand city; they even operated a health food shop in Nelson.
16 January 2023
This is my first newsletter for the year. I had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year and had some nice time off from work.
9 January 2023
I hope you all had a good Christmas, and that if you had a break that it was an enjoyable one. I was lucky enough to be greeted by the following passive aggressive email on Christmas Eve by a Catholic man who emails me occasionally to challenge my lack of belief in the Christian god:
3 October 2022
In my last newsletter I mentioned the local body elections which are currently underway. The elections have some candidates standing who are aligned with various “freedom” and anti-vax groups. The media has done a fairly good job of identifying at least some of the candidates representing dodgy positions.
5 September 2022
Stuff.co.nz: The Tupperware Party is over
29 August 2022
Work on the NZ Skeptical calendar (our attempt to find a New Zealand skeptical event for every day of the year) continues apace, with 346 individual events recorded and now only 140 days remaining to be filled. This month has been especially busy, with Brian Tamaki and the rest of the anti-mandate, anti-vax pundits making headlines with one debacle or another.
8 August 2022
Highden Manor House (Source)
8 August 2022
New Zealand introduced community water fluoridation (CWF) in the 1950s, expanded its coverage rapidly in the 60s, and has been relatively stable until recently.
1 August 2022
I've been interested in the mention of “12,000m tonnes of water” to be shipped out every day. The figure is clearly ridiculous, but it is interesting to think of the logistics if it was to be true. When assessing a figure spat out by someone, I like to try to put it into some kind of perspective and see if it passes the “sniff test". Below are some figures that might instantly put this one to bed.
9 May 2022
Country of Origin: Michigan, United States
11 April 2022
We're currently putting together a calendar of historical skeptical events relevant to New Zealand - and we're aiming to have at least one event for every day of the year. It's been a lot of fun so far, and we've found a lot of fascinating stories about New Zealand that I'd never heard before, like:
14 March 2022
Over the last few months or so, while I've been perusing the crazier corners of the internet, I've seen occasional mentions of a really interesting conspiracy theory - in Facebook feeds of COVID deniers, screenshots from private conspiracy Telegram groups, and videos from various protests and marches. The rumour that Jacinda Ardern's partner, Clarke Gayford, is secretly either under arrest, released on bail or imprisoned, and that this is for a drug related offence.
7 February 2022
Bronwyn Rideout investigates the connection between the Lotus Heart restaurant in Christchurch and Sri Chinmoy.
24 January 2022
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
24 January 2022
A week seems like a very long time at the moment! But just over a week ago, the island nation of Tonga experienced a huge volcanic eruption and resulting tsunami. The effect of the tsunami was made worse by the fact that the islands are low-lying so seeking high ground is all but impossible.
27 December 2021
I think we have cause to celebrate. Despite not knowing what 2022 will bring, Aotearoa/New Zealand has a pretty high rate of vaccination - with over 91% of the eligible population having received two doses, though with Maori still under 80%.
6 December 2021
The 96-hour fireworks industry is both a source of joy and dread for New Zealanders nationwide. Fireworks can only be sold privately in this country between November 2nd and November 5th, and while this period is an ideal lead-in to Guy Fawkes Night, those of us living near pyrotechnic enthusiasts know all too well that amateur backyard displays will be a feature of our lives until late into the summer.
15 November 2021
I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened last week. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit the march on Parliament on Tuesday or experience the “gridlock” in Wellington central on Saturday. There was one thing at Tuesday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition (created by “Apostle” Brian Tamaki), have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.
10 November 2021
I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened yesterday. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit this particular march on Parliament. There was one thing at yesterday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition created by "Apostle" Brian Tamaki, have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.
1 November 2021
Whether I am good at getting epiphanies, I am not sure, but the question is: are the epiphanies sensible or stupid? I shall leave it up to you to decide.
27 September 2021
As I write this on Sunday morning, we've now switched over to New Zealand Daylight Time, putting our clocks forward by one hour until early April next year. The touted benefits are that we can enjoy more time in the evenings outside when it's still light, and the sun isn't rising so early in the morning.
27 September 2021
And speaking of anti-vaxxers, there's another one that's emerged from the woodwork.
13 September 2021
Saturday this weekend marked the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 in the US. Of course, because of time zones it was Wednesday 12th September here in New Zealand when it happened, just after midnight.
13 September 2021
Our annual conference is coming up in November, on the weekend of the 19th - 21. As we've previously publicised, we're holding it in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics. COVID willing, we'll be having an in-person conference in Wellington, and they'll have theirs in Sydney.
19 July 2021
Sticking with the COVID theme, I reported in a previous newsletter about the website set up to allow medical professionals and “concerned citizens” to sign their name to the statement:
30 June 2021
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about lawyer Liz Lambert's effort to claim a small part of New Zealand - the Abel Tasman National Park - as her own property, which she's called New Freeland. Well, it turns out that she's worried about an organisation who have not just claimed Allodial Title over a piece of land, but have claimed sovereignty over the entirety of New Zealand. Liz has been warning anyone who will listen that this rival group, the Crown of the Mauri Nation, have secretly entered into an agreement with the government to hand over the keys to our country.
28 June 2021
There's a lawyer in New Zealand called Liz Lambert who thinks she has hit upon a legal loophole that allows people to claim any piece of land as their own. As background, there are two main forms of land ownership in many countries - Fee Simple and Allodial. Fee simple is the type of land ownership you or I have access to. As archaic legal terms, Fee in this case means ownership, and Simple means without any kind of time limit (freehold rather than leasehold). Governments, on the other hand, usually have Allodial ownership of land, which is more of an absolute ownership without a requirement to pay anyone rates, etc (although in some cases there may be private allodial ownership, such as church land in some european countries). So, in New Zealand's case, the Crown has Allodial Title over New Zealand, and we citizens can then purchase a Fee Simple Title to part of that land. It still belongs to the Crown under their allodial title, but we've purchased a right to live on it forever (barring certain circumstances like compulsory acquisition).
24 May 2021
Yet another anti-hero of the COVID story is Dr Simon Thornley, of the COVID Plan B group who we've mentioned many times in the past.
10 May 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
5 May 2021
A recent article from Radio NZ did a great job of pointing out just how useless online polls are, and raising concerns about how often New Zealand media outlets, including Newshub, the AM Show and the Herald, rely on them as source material for news articles.
3 May 2021
A.C.E., or Accelerated Christian Education, is a Christian based curriculum used in New Zealand - both in some Christian schools, and by parents who homeschool their children. The curriculum boasts that it covers from kindergarten to year 13, and that it is recognised by New Zealand universities.
3 May 2021
I've noticed an interesting, and worrying, shift with some of the more extreme online communities recently. On the one hand it's great to finally, and belatedly, see social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google hold people and organisations to account when they spread nonsense such as COVID vaccine misinformation. For example, just this week Advance NZ's Facebook page has been temporarily removed. Local conspiracy theorists such as Damien DeMent, Lee Williams, Vinny Eastwood and Karen Brewer are currently concerned over suspension of their social media profiles, because they are perpetuating dangerous untruths.
29 March 2021
A couple of weeks ago, I spent an enjoyable weekend away with some friends up in Russell, in the Bay of Islands. A couple of points from a skeptical perspective; firstly, one of my friends told me about an interview he heard with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand, which I've since listened to (detailed below), and the second was a conversation I overheard which illustrated to me how “fake news” and misinformation is innocently spread.
8 March 2021
I've recently read calls for high profile figures in New Zealand to endorse the new COVID vaccines, as a way to reassure the portion of the public who currently feel unsure about the vaccines' safety. It's been suggested that public figures such as Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield and others might want to allow the media to record them being immunised against COVID. Personally I think that, at least for those who are conspiracy minded, watching those who are supposedly a part of the conspiracy be injected is probably not going to be very convincing.
1 March 2021
After some investigation it seems that this magazine (it's a stretch to call it a journal, a title which should be reserved for scientific publications) is being purchased by at least one public library (Titirangi).
9 February 2021
Late last year we were contacted by Sina Nasiri, who had written a heart-felt article about his journey to atheism while growing up in Iran. His article explored the risky business of finding people to trust and confide in, in a society where being an atheist is no trivial thing – where apostacy from Islam is punishable by death.
1 February 2021
Last week I attended, online, the funeral of Ngaire McCarthy, who died just over a week ago from cancer. Ngaire was an outspoken Māori atheist, humanist and rationalist who spoke to the NZ Skeptics at our 2014 conference in Auckland. She told us about how the census shows comparable rates of dis-belief amongst Māori and Pākehā in New Zealand, and how Christianity had imposed itself on Māori culture, merging in a way that makes it hard to pick them apart today.
11 January 2021
I can't help but wonder what 2021 is going to bring us, given that we've already started the year with the US Capitol being invaded by right wing extremists and QAnon conspiracy theorists. Closer to home, Billy TK's Public Party appears to be coming apart at the seams, with staff members taking over the party's website to detail Billy's financial mis-management.
4 January 2021
As you'll no doubt know, 2020 ended seeing the successful and record-setting development of a range of vaccines for COVID-19 from various companies.
7 December 2020
Scoop.co.nz published a survey looking at New Zealanders perceptions of misinformation. One finding was “The majority of New Zealanders surveyed agree that disinformation has the ability to greatly influence someone's opinion (91 percent), but far less (53 percent) acknowledge that disinformation could influence them.” This hubris is something we need to work on. That belief that it can't happen to you is the very reason wrong ideas may be lurking untouched and untested in your belief system.
23 November 2020
This week Richard Saunders, from the Australian Skeptics pinged me online with a video of relevance to NZ Skeptics. Back in the 1990s Australian journalist Mike Willesee did a piece on a New Zealander Don Brooker who ran a colour therapy clinic in Cambridge, Waikato.
1 February 2020
For the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue
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.
1 November 2019
A quick word to let you all know that our project to promote herd immunity through vaccination is still in the fund-raising stage. We have been working behind the scenes to secure funding from a large donor, but still need your help.
1 November 2019
By Chester Borrows, former Chair of Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora - the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group, which recently completed its work to inform the Government on reform for New Zealand's justice system. He is a former Minister of Courts
1 May 2019
Skeptic summary: Despicable. When people are in a vulnerable situation, it is harder for them to be sceptical. We need to support our family and friends to avoid these tragedy vampires.
1 May 2019
The Force Field Film Challenge, aimed at helping kids to learn about the importance of vaccines, is an innovative competition being spearheaded by the New Zealand Skeptics.
1 February 2019
For the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue
1 February 2019
We are proud to mention the honour our regular contributor Siouxsie Wiles received this year.
16 December 2018
Cocksy, a celebrity builder on New Zealand TV, has cancer and is currently on an experimental new treatment.
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
As a metaphor for anxieties, stories of the paranormal provide a great release. For those of us up at night worrying about bills to pay, health issues, children or even climate change, shows about good guys surviving an onslaught of zombies, demons and so on, can provide a welcome catharsis.
1 November 2018
Air New Zealand has just announced The Impossible Burger is now available to a minuscule number of their customers, a move described as an “existential threat” by New Zealand First's Mark Patterson. So what is all the fuss is about?
28 October 2018
Herbal remedies are very popular these days, with many pharmacies in New Zealand happy to promote products that don't work as treatments for medical conditions, or even just as a preventative measure - a way of keeping healthy.
1 August 2018
Unorthodox claims about the origin of the Māori go way back. Co-founder of the Polynesian Society and erratic polymath Edward Tregear claimed in 1885 they were “Aryan”, based on such unlikely things as the similarity between waiū (milk: from wai, water and ū, the breast) and whey (Old English hwǣg). What follows is even less persuasive.
8 July 2018
Mark Hanna has written a great blog post detailing the issues the Chiropractic Board has had getting their members to abide by their codes and New Zealand law. While I'm not surprised to hear about Chiropractors' efforts to circumvent laws designed to protect patients, it is disappointing to hear. The Chair of the board wrote in their newsletter about a worrying experience she had:
24 June 2018
You may ask what blasphemy has to do with skepticism - often I've talked with people about the intersection of skepticism and religious belief. I feel that religion should never be above skeptical scrutiny. A common question asked of the Skeptics Society is whether someone can be both an atheist and a skeptic - I always say that yes, someone can be both, but that I believe it requires the person to avoid shining a skeptical light on their belief. Skeptics usually stand by the idea that nothing is above questioning, and so a skeptic who isn't willing to scrutinise their religious beliefs seems to be a strange case to me. We should have no sacred cows.
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.
1 February 2018
For the article “Don't waste money on superfoods and supplements” published in Stuff, 29th Sept 2017.
1 November 2017
On 27th August the Sunday Star Times published an article by Simon Maude on an unnamed naturopath whose inept attempts at cancer treatment led to the death of an Auckland woman last year: Naturopathy under microscope after cancer sufferers speak from under shadow of death
1 October 2017
The Pharmacy Council recently ran a consultation about a new proposed Code of Ethics, after they tried to weaken their code a couple of years ago to remove the requirement that pharmacists could only sell alternative medicines where there was evidence that they work.
1 October 2017
I recently found out that a movement which is popular in America has reached our shores. The Freeman movement, otherwise known as Sovereign Citizens, consists of people who believe that it is possible to declare yourself no longer beholden to the laws of your country, and not liable to pay taxes. Normally the process involves filling in obscure government forms, opting out of government forms of ID such as driving licenses and passports and writing signed declarations using lots of very big legal sounding words.
27 August 2017
Stuff has a great article about a Naturopath who has been involved in treating the cancer of two patients who have died recently. The patients have both spoken out about how they think they made a mistake in trusting the naturopath.
26 March 2017
Mark Hanna of the Society for Science Based Healthcare and I had an exchange over IM a few months ago, where we realised that there are so many bad claims being made for alternative therapies that if you picked a random combination of condition and treatment, chances are high that someone in NZ is making illegal claims that the treatment can successfully treat the condition.
19 February 2017
Anti-vaccination advocates in New Zealand have raised enough money to bring a screening of Vaxxed, a movie created by disgraced ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield and promoted by Robert de Niro, to New Zealand. The movie is an attempt to sow doubt about vaccines, and makes extensive use of secret audio recordings of CDC employee and "whistleblower" William Thompson.
18 September 2016
The Effective Altruism movement is becoming popular in New Zealand. The basic idea is that logic and critical thinking can be applied to charity giving, and that charities range from being great at helping people to being as good as useless, or even detrimental.
12 June 2016
Chris Savage, an ex police officer from Australia, has a long history of being outright dangerous. He's anti-vaccine, and claims to be able to treat autism and cancer with magnesium (chloride) and DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) infusions. He's currently in New Zealand, and has been treating people while claiming he's a doctor.
5 June 2016
An image of dozens of dead kiwis was recently used by an anti 1080 Facebook activist group, New Zealand's Not Clean Green, to show that the poison is harming local wildlife.
5 June 2016
Valerie Todd, an osteopath, has been found guilty by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal of performing acupuncture on three patients in Nelson in 2014 without the required qualifications, and will likely be fined $1,500 and a portion of the trial costs.
17 April 2016
Mark Hanna and I wrote a letter to the New Zealand Medical Journal about research we had completed showing that the majority of chiropractors break the Chiropractic Board policy on advertising. The policy states:
7 February 2016
"The prime origin and cause of cancerous tissue is the over-acidification of the tissues then the blood due to lifestyle and dietary choices. A cancerous tissue begins with our choices of what we eat, what we drink, what we think and how we live. Cancer is a liquid and this liquid is a toxic acidic waste product of metabolism or energy consumption."
1 November 2015
In December 1952, letters appeared in the Otago Daily Times reporting sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects across the length of New Zealand. The story was apparently quite convincing, as the correspondents were relatively respectable people scattered widely around the country.
1 November 2015
From the NZ Skeptics Conference November 2015...
1 November 2015
This issue we have a Guest Editorial piece by Lisa Taylor. Lisa is a proofreader and writer for NZ Skeptic, and is an active member of Wellington's Science-Based Healthcare Activism and the NZ Skeptics Committee.
1 November 2015
At first I thought this was a windup (my emphasis) – then I realised it was for real! (and happening in Auckland in September):
1 November 2015
The anti-fluoride circus made a new home this spring in the Coromandel locality of Thames (population 6,700). This circus did not feature any elephants though, or monkeys, or even humans performing under duress, neither were there any dramatic highwire acts or somersaults, unless you were to count the verbal gymnastics of those seeking to remove artificial fluoridation from the town's supply. In the hours before the referendum results were released, the Advertising Standards Authority found that Fluoride Free New Zealand (FFNZ) and their supporters had made a series of misleading claims during the campaign.
11 October 2015
During the recent visit of Pope Francis to the United States, in every city he visited, (Washington DC, New York City and Philadelphia,) there were people at the fringes of the largest crowds wearing bright yellow shirts, often carrying large yellow signs, handing out literature proclaiming the end of the world for October 7, 2015 from eBible Fellowship, led by Chris McCann.
16 August 2015
He is a nuclear physicist, whose PhD focussed on nuclear decay. He worked in electronics for the military for nearly 40 years, and argues that the earth is only 6,000 years old.
1 August 2015
In 2014, NZ Skeptics had the pleasure of hosting the rogues of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast at the NZ Skeptics Conference. As they say on their show, here's a quickie with Bob.
1 August 2015
Living with a ghost hellbent on messing with neatly hung pictures has become a daily chore for the Stony River Hotel proprietors.
1 May 2015
The Dominion Post recently ran an article about “Glowing GE bacteria” which were “produced illegally in New Zealand using mail-order kits from America”. Perhaps unsurprisingly given that the phrase 'genetically engineered' was mentioned, Green MP Stefan Browning and GE Free New Zealand spokesperson Jon Carapiet chimed in to share their dismay that people/kids were fiddling with complex natural systems and things that posed a threat to our GE-free status (which we aren't). I'm paraphrasing here, but I think that was the sum of it. The usual GE = evil sort of stuff. Let's look at what happened and if it posed any risk to anyone.
1 May 2015
For some time, those of us studying the problem of misinformation in US politics – and especially scientific misinformation – have wondered whether Google could come along and solve the problem in one fell swoop. After all, if Web content were rated such that it came up in searches based on its actual accuracy – rather than based on its link-based popularity – then quite a lot of misleading stuff might get buried. And maybe, just maybe, fewer parents would stumble on dangerous anti-vaccine misinformation (to list one highly pertinent example).
1 February 2015
Recently released United States Air Force files have confirmed that a suspected UFO photographed in the skies above Auckland more than 60 years ago was actually just a cloud.
1 February 2015
I found out what a skeptic is when I was living in London. My husband Mark listened to a weekly podcast called The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe hosted by a bunch of brothers and their friends. After Mark finally persuaded me to arrive at the 21st century and purchase myself an iPod, the first thing he did was subscribe me to the podcast.
1 November 2014
Herald on Sunday (17 August) reporter Russell Blackstock has been along to check out Avatar - not the movie, but a self-improvement course founded by an ex-Scientologist.
1 November 2014
A new group advocating a strong basis in rigorous science for the provision of safe and effective healthcare has been established in New Zealand. Mark Hanna explains.
1 August 2014
"… she successfully resisted the forces pitted against her, giving an astounding manifestation of some power other than that making up the ordinary phenomena of nature." So wrote the_ Feilding Star _on 25 October 1899, reporting on an early incarnation of the supernatural showpeople that still tour the world today. But other newspapers took a sceptical line that media today could learn from.
1 August 2014
At the 2013 NZ Skeptic Conference Vicki Hyde presented a series of soundbites and talking points skeptics can use in discussions with others. Here are some of them, presented as a smorgasbord of ideas to be dipped into.
1 May 2014
Daniel Ryan reports from the front line of the battle against the anti-fluoridationists.
1 May 2014
1 February 2014
Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at a new medical journal - available at all good supermarkets.
1 February 2014
And so another year begins, and as I write this on New Year's Day 2014 there is the opportunity, as with every new year, to reflect on past years and consider the prospects for the future. 2014 will no doubt be an especially busy year for recollections and commemorations, marking as it does the centenary of the start of World War I. Few could have had any idea, on that New Year's Day of a century ago, of what the next few years would bring.
1 November 2013
Each year the New Zealand Skeptics bestows the Bent Spoon Award for the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue.
1 November 2013
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 2013.
1 August 2013
Alison Campbell thinks there are better ways to lose weight than one recently touted option.
1 May 2013
In Issue 100 of the NZ Skeptic I commented on how issues of concern to this society never seem to go away. A classic example of the moment is the case of Neon Roberts, the seven-year-old English boy whose New Zealand-born mother took him into hiding rather than have him subjected to radiotherapy along with chemotherapy to treat his aggressive brain tumour, and fought in the courts for her right to use alternative therapies instead.
1 May 2013
A homeopathic preparation of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is gaining popularity in New Zealand (NZ Herald, 2 March), despite costing upwards of $3000 per litre.
1 May 2013
Is wellbeing a subject that can be approached scientifically? The following article is a based on a presentation to the 2012 NZ Skeptics Conference.
1 May 2012
A drug awareness programme run by the Church of Scientology has received government funding to spread its views through schools and community groups (Sunday Star Times, 19 February(.
1 May 2012
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 that someone could know so little about evolutionary theory that they would think this was a persuasive argument - versions of this are often to be seen in the less sophisticated creationist publications - it was more that they should feel the urge to display their ignorance on a busy street corner.
1 February 2012
Massive changes are transforming the skeptical movement.
1 November 2010
Concerns over animal welfare issues on farms have seen Rural Women New Zealand and Fonterra rapped with the Bent Spoon, the annual recognition of gullibility and a lack of critical thinking awarded by the NZ Skeptics.
1 November 2010
One of the main reasons for the success Al Qaeda has had in getting bombs past checkpoints in Iraq is that the main device used to detect explosives is a uselss fake (NZ Herald, 24 July).
1 May 2010
When Richard Dawkins made a flying visit to New Zealand in March he attracted people from all over the country - including three from this household. Tickets to all events were quickly snapped up, but fortunately friends in the Auckland Univeristy Alumni Association put some aside for us.
1 November 2009
Vicki Hyde hands out this year's Bent Spoon and Bravo Awards
1 August 2009
A therapy marketed as a guaranteed way to stop smoking appears to lack a sound theoretical basis and to have little experimental support.
1 August 2009
THOSE zany Ancient Celt people never give up, do they? Now they're campaigning to protect some boulders on a hillside at Silverdale, north of Auckland, due to be levelled as a site for a new hospital (NZ Herald, 6 May).
1 May 2009
Although formal religion is continuing to decline in this country, belief in the supernatural remains high. That seems to be the main conclusion to be drawn from a recent survey of New Zealand religious affiliations and attitudes carried out by Massey University as part of the International Social Survey Programme.
1 August 2008
The Skeptics have lost one of their founding members, with the death of Bernard Howard in Christchurch, aged 88. Active to the end, he collapsed suddenly while walking to the bus stop. As a regular attendant at Skeptics conferences, Darwin Day dinners and other events, and a frequent contributor to the NZ Skeptic, he will be sorely missed. As Denis Dutton said in the Christchurch Press, "Bernard had a probing mind and knew how to ask the right questions, especially the embarrassing ones. I have never encountered a man with such a rapier-sharp, yet gently delivered, wit. He is irreplaceable."
1 May 2008
The Intelligent Design (ID) movie Expelled (Editorial, NZ Skeptic 86) has scored a spectacular public relations own-goal at a screening in Minneapolis (New York Times, 21 March). University of Minnesota developmental biologist PZ Myers, best known for his blog Pharyngula, was one of many who took up the offer to register on-line for the pre-release public screening.
1 November 2007
The teaching of evolution in New Zealand schools may seem secure, but it has faced many challenges, and these appear to be on the increase. This article is based on a presentation at the Evolution 2007 Conference, Christchurch.
1 November 2007
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.
1 August 2007
The Letters to the Editor columns have been spilling over with irate readers concerned about yet another attack on New Zealand's sovereignty. The cause of all the anger is the proposed Therapeutic Goods Act, which would see a trans-Tasman agency take over the regulation of therapeutic products-a term which includes not only medicines and medical devices, but also complementary medicines and dietary supplements. No one seems too concerned that the new Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Authority will be regulating medicines; the fuss is all about what this move will do to the alternative health industry.
1 August 2007
Ethnic fundamentalism is a form of 'secular religion', an oxymoron that resists criticism. This article, originally presented at the NZ Skeptics conference in Auckland, September 2006, interrogates the beliefs of those who insist that ethnicity plays the primary and determining in creating the person. Are such beliefs merely old-fashioned and discredited racism in a new guise?
1 May 2007
A visit to the birthplace of science prompts some thoughts on spatial and temporal patterns in alternative medicine.
1 May 2007
Four Papua New Guinea women, believed by fellow villagers to have used sorcery to cause a fatal road crash, were tortured with hot metal rods to confess, then murdered and buried standing up in a pit (Stuff, 25 January).
1 May 2007
There is no point in being gullible. What is so special about believing things that it is more righteous than questioning things?
1 February 2007
Claims about pre-Maori colonisation of New Zealand refuse to go away.
1 February 2007
Garfield was right-there's nothing like a piping hot lasagne on a winter's night. Especially when eaten with good wine and fine people.
1 February 2007
www.pointofinquiry.org
1 November 2006
Jim Ring finds some material to pass the time on a recent flight.
1 November 2006
A Listener article on Brazilian medium and 'miracle-worker' Joao de Deus has taken the annual Bent Spoon Award from the New Zealand Skeptics.
1 August 2006
Warwick Don celebrated the 21st annual NZ Skeptics conference by presenting a potted history of the society.
1 August 2006
Over the last few years, there have been frequent suggestions that the Skeptics organisation in New Zealand should have a new name. At present, our formal name is the New Zealand Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Inc. Originally, this was an adaptation of the name of our sister organisation in the US, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. The American organisation has recently changed its formal name to Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. This has been a prompt for our committee to re-open the issue here. The reasons put forward for change, both here and in the US, can be summarised as:
1 May 2006
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.
1 February 2006
Checking facts should be part and parcel of academic life, but too often it isn't done.
1 February 2006
Research scientist Hamish Campbell spoke of his experiences as Te Papa's museum geologist at the 2005 NZ Skeptics conference.
1 November 2005
Genealogy as normally practised gives us a very misleading view of our genetic heritage. This article was originally presented at the 2005 Skeptics Conference in Rotorua.
1 August 2005
A spiritualist group has been given $2500 to teach people to communicate with the dead, the Herald On Sunday reports (15 May). The Foundation of Spiritualist Mediums received the Auckland ratepayer money after an application to an Auckland City Council committee. Foundation president Natalie Huggard said it was an essential service to Auckland and was in high demand.
1 August 2005
Psychic scammer Maria Duval failed to foresee trouble over 'her' misleading advertisements. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is funded by the advertising and media industries, and has the stated purpose of ensuring that advertising is socially responsible and truthful. The ASA administers the Advertising Standards Complaints Board, which is the body that hears complaints about ads, and the Advertising Standards Complaints Appeal Board.
1 November 2004
A new star on the psychic circuit impressed the makers of TV3's 20/20, but not the NZ Skeptics
1 November 2004
Journalists in New Zealand generally show a lack of scepticism when dealing with issues of science and pseudoscience - except for mainstream medicine. This article is based on a presentation to the New Zealand Skeptics Conference, 11 September, 2004
1 August 2004
A London-based New Zealander has been named "World Champion Worm Charmer" after a competition in Devon. Garry Trainer, from Auckland, won the award by convincing 51 worms to come to the surface of a metre-square section of a field in 15 minutes.
1 August 2004
Few events have so captured the local imagination as the search for a thermal bore near Methven. Word of the search spread after a drilling rig appeared in a paddock. Nothing unusual in rigs -- they dot Mid-Canterbury in the eternal quest for reliable sources of irrigation water. This rig, though, was not after cold water, but hot.
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.
1 August 2004
Did the ancestors of the Celts sail to New Zealand and establish a network of megalithic survey points and astronomical sight lines? Some think so
1 February 2004
I've just witnessed a miracle. Probably. On January 2 I took part in a trip to the outer Hauraki Gulf to search for a bird that until recently had not been seen since the nineteenth century. Three specimens of the bird, the New Zealand Storm Petrel, sitting in museums in Paris and London, were believed to be the only representatives of yet another of this country's extinct species.
1 February 2004
Cellulite is the term used by women's magazines to describe dimpled fat. It has no scientific or anatomical validity and it is simply ordinary fatty tissue that assumes a waffled appearance because fibrous tissue prevents the skin from fully expanding in areas where fatty tissue accumulates. This has been confirmed by a study where biopsies of fat and cellulite were microscopically indistinguishable by pathologists who were blinded as to the samples' origin. Calling fat "cellulite" is part of the modern trend to seeking alternatives to the (unpalatable) truth, in this case an adipose euphemism.
1 February 2004
Government hypocrisy is rife amid the talk of a "knowledge-based economy"
1 November 2003
The Eugenics movement in New Zealand had legislative successes greater than anywhere in the world outside the USA and Nazi Germany
1 November 2003
The British General Medical Council (GMC) has found family practitioner Michelle Langdon guilty of serious professional misconduct and banned her from practising for three months. According to press reports, Langdon had advised a couple that the gastrointestinal symptoms of their 11-month-old were caused by "geopathic stress patterns" beneath their home and then "dowsed" for a remedy by swinging a crystal attached to a chain over a book of herbal remedies. A hospital emergency department subsequently found that the child had gastroenteritis. The GMC also examined evidence that another patient had been prescribed an herbal remedy for a sore throat after the doctor dowsed for the treatment.
1 August 2003
Had an email the other day from someone we hadn't heard from in a while. Among other things, he took the opportunity to ask why we heard so little from the Skeptics in the media, and made unfavourable comparisons with the Consumer's Institute. Given the breadth of that organisation's support base and consequent level of funding, that hardly seemed fair.
1 August 2003
Dr Neil McKenzie, better known to music lovers as Dr Jaz, died in May following a long battle against a brain tumour (Bay of Plenty Times, May 15 2003).
1 May 2003
Zheng He is not a name that is well known in the west. However, his seven voyages from China, through the Indian Ocean to Africa between 1405 and 1435 would place him among the world's great explorers. Yet retired submarine captain Gavin Menzies is convinced Zheng He's feats were even greater. He believes a massive Chinese fleet conducted four simultaneous circumnavigations of the world between 1421 and 1423, during which they discovered the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, even Antarctica. But while they were away, the Chinese emperor turned his back on the outside world and, when the ships returned, had all mention of them erased. Why the records of Zheng He's other expeditions were kept, Menzies does not explain.
1 May 2003
Increased litigation will do nothing to reduce the rate of medical misadventure
1 November 2002
Mind the Gap! The book title is intended to remind all who have waited on curved London Underground railway platforms of the risk a careless step poses. The risks Dr Trask warns of are those which can label the writer as illiterate, ignorant of the nuances of English usage, or at least possessed of cloth ears. In offering this review to New Zealand Skeptic I do not imply that readers are particularly in need of the author's advice; rather, his comments have a distinctly skeptical slant, which should be music to skeptical ears (see entry: cliches). Consider the following entries in his alphabetical list.
1 November 2002
The year round suntan, carnation in the button hole, silk tie, Armani suit and tongue should all be equally smooth. Sartorial elegance and verbal eloquence are powerful substitutes for evidence.
1 November 2002
Proceedings on Saturday were meant to be opened with a talk from Elric Hooper, but we were denied the opportunity to hear that leader of New Zealand theatre. In order to keep appointments in the USA in the following week, he had been forced to fly out on 11 September, the only day on which seats were available.
1 May 2002
Aristotle's Books in Auckland has started a skeptics section of titles. Books debunking the New Age and religion in general are found there.
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 August 2001
A Colorado colour therapist was jailed for 16 years after being found guilty of causing the death of a 16 year old girl. It must have been quite traumatic for the jury who watched a videotape of the session in which the girl begged for air and screamed that she was dying". What we need in New Zealand are equally tough laws that protect children from acts of omission, particularly where children are denied safe and effective medical treatment in favour of ludicrous quackery. (Dominion June 20th, Hokum Locum #59)
1 August 2001
Skepticism is very much concerned with assessing the quality of evidence in support of a particular claim. But evidence means different things to different people. In the first of a two-part series, Jim Ring examines the legal profession's view of the matter.
1 May 2001
Being a skeptical parent in New Zealand isn't always easy, but it has its rewards. This was originally presented to the Skeptics' World Convention in Sydney, in November.
1 November 2000
Thanks to reader Alan Pickmere for drawing my attention to colon cleansing. In a radio advertisement Alan heard the claim that the average adult has up to 10kg of preservatives and toxic waste in their colon. The actor, John Wayne had 20kg removed at autopsy, doubtless dating from the time spent venting his spleen against commie actors facing Senator Joe McCarthy's inquisition. Come to think of it, perhaps he should have "vented" more often.
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.
1 May 2000
Here's an idea that WINZ have yet to suggest -- but it may not be far off!
1 May 2000
At last year's conference, John Scott spoke on the problems of mixing misinformation and medicine.
1 February 2000
Sceptics have put up $100,000 in a bid to make a controversial Australian spiritualist eat her words over claims she does not need food.
1 May 1999
I START with another example of chemists' lack of ethics and the gullibility of the public. In November 28 issue of the Listener, the ever suspicious Pamela Stirling did a good expose on Cellasine, the new herbal cellulite "remedy", which sold out in a few days when it came here.
1 February 1999
Founding member Bernard Howard reminisces on the Skeptics' history in this guest editorial.
1 February 1999
This is an abridged version of Professor Hill's presentation to the 1998 Skeptics' Conference.
1 August 1998
John Riddell contemplates how the newspapers would read if psychics really had the powers they claim
1 May 1998
THE YEAR 1909 was a tense time for New Zealanders. For centuries, Britain had the world's unrivalled navy, and an invasion of the motherland was unthinkable. Her colonies and outposts enjoyed similar protection. But all of that changed in 1908, and with an unnerving suddenness, as grave concerns were expressed in Great Britain over Germany's rising military strength which prompted fears a surprise invasion might be launched at any time.
1 November 1997
IN THE United States, creationists have long waged a strong political campaign to have their ideas recognised by the courts and the educational authorities. But in this part of the world, it seems, their strategy is rather different. The Creation Science Foundation, the largest Australasian creationist organisation, regards the "top down" approach of their American counterparts as unproductive: it is more effective, says CSF's Carl Wieland, to work first on developing a broad base of popular support. In an article titled "Linking and Feeding," Wieland outlines their strategy of making contact with people ("linking") through subscription to their magazine Creation, and then providing them with ongoing creationist material ("feeding"). This material is then read by the recipients' friends and family
1 May 1997
NEW ZEALAND MYSTERIES, by Robyn Gosset; Bush Press, 1996; 208 pages; $29.95
1 May 1997
Britain's The Skeptic magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary with a Top-Ten survey of paranormal phenomena of the decade.
1 February 1997
The social vision associated with the name Walter Nash, or for present purposes Jack Marshall, has crumbled. The most secure and decent high culture, which flowered for some decades, is now on almost every measure except GNP in rapid decline2.
1 February 1997
Names have been concealed to protect them from the international legume conspiracy.
1 November 1996
The media love to manufacture a mystery, and the Kaimanawa Wall is a great example of this. Watch closely, as a perfectly natural rock formation becomes a megalithic structure...
1 February 1996
Australian creationist Peter Sparrow toured New Zealand recently.
1 November 1995
This year's Bent Spoon Award has ruffled a few feathers. In a controversial decision, what the Skeptics described as an "alarmist" Justice Department report on domestic violence in New Zealand has received the award.
1 February 1995
Karekare beach is surrounded by high cliffs which shield my house from television transmissions so that I gain most of my media information from radio and print.
1 November 1994
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.
1 August 1994
Neither Nutrasweet nor sugar-rich diets produce any change in children's behaviour. (New England Journal of Medicine 330:301-307, 1994)
1 August 1994
Skeptics who've ordered direct from Prometheus Books will be well aware of the realities of the extra exchange and bank costs that can make a price quoted in US dollars burgeon into a massive account in New Zealand money.
1 May 1994
Did you catch TV3's Inside New Zealand documentary programme a few weeks ago on "Satanic Ritual Abuse"? If so, you won't have forgotten it, try as you might to "repress" the memory. It was one of the most sublimely awful hours of television ever to be broadcast in Godzone -- silly, irresponsible and sleazy. A middle-aged woman led a camera crew around the North Island to the sites where as a child she claims to have been sexually abused in the late 1940s and 1950s by her mum and dad, the parish priest, town dignitaries, and no doubt the local dog catcher and all the dogs.
1 May 1994
Vicki Hyde suggests (Skeptic 30) that we are in for a lot more doomsday predictions as we approach the year 2000. I am afraid she is right, but why should fundamentalists get so excited about a round number of years?
1 February 1994
That arbitrary slice of the continuum of time known as 1993 has been a busy one for the New Zealand Skeptics. High spot of the year was the visit of James Randi in early July. Unfortunately, his timetable allowed only four public appearances, one each in Christchurch and Auckland and two in Wellington.
1 February 1994
For those of you who didn't notice, the end of the world came and went on November 14th. It also ended on November 24th, and is set to do so at the end of this year. If you've got a Christmas trip to Los Angeles planned, don't bother going -- a massive earthquake wiped out the city of the Angels as well as neighbouring San Diego at 7pm on May 8th.
1 February 1994
Lights in the sky are not always aliens on the lookout for earthlings to abduct. Sometimes they are mostly a load of hot air.
1 November 1993
The New Internationalist Review, a magazine not normally known for gullibility beyond the political, decided not all that long ago to examine the paranormal. Our intrepid reporter Peter Lange decided to have a look.
1 November 1993
There is a worldwide epidemic of satanic child abuse allegations. Are they true? Has satanic child abuse happened here in New Zealand?
1 November 1993
In the years since the Skeptics' beginnings in 1985 we've seen paranormal and pseudoscientific fads come and go. The Shroud of Turin was big back then, till carbon dating did it in (except in the minds of the hard-core Shroud Crowd, who now claim that rising from the dead involves an emission of neutrons which increases the atomic weight of the carbon in your winding cloth). Uri Geller is more feeble than ever, UFO sightings are in decline, and Bigfoot has made himself even scarcer than usual. But quackery in the name of "alternative" medicine still flourishes, and cold readers (such as the lamentable James Byrne) periodically meander on stage.
1 August 1993
Several copies of each issue of our newsletter are sent to the international skeptical movement's headquarters in Buffalo, New York. Many of these are distributed to our sister organisations around the world, and it is gratifying when items by our members are noticed in other publications.
1 May 1993
Our everyday "cuppa" comes from the plant Camellia sinensis and it, together with a number of other common drinks including coffee, cocoa, guarana and maté contain small quantities (10-100 mg per cup) of caffeine, a mildly stimulatory alkaloid. In addition many people enjoy hot and cold beverages made from a wide variety of other herbs such as chamomile and dried raspberry leaves.
1 May 1993
A CSICOP video library is run by Alastair Bricknell, RD2 Kuaotunu, Whitianga. Tapes may be hired for the cost of postage and packing, around $5 (extra donations gratefully accepted).
1 February 1993
The New Zealand Skeptics lost one of its founders with the recent death of Dr Jim Woolnough, aged 77.
1 February 1993
The failure of clairvoyants to locate the missing Wellington man, Michael Kelly, or to know the manner of his death, will not startle many skeptics. No major missing persons case in the history of New Zealand has been solved with paranormal help, despite the fact that police have been deluged with clairvoyant tips over the years -- from Mona Blades to Kirsa Jensen, Teresa Cormack, Luisa Damodron, Heidi Paakkonen or Michael Kelly.
1 November 1992
Are Skeptics pussy-footing around by not attacking the major source of superstition and pseudoscience -- religion?
1 August 1992
A very interesting look at the state of homeopathy in the UK in the '90s, including its use by some "conventional" doctors and vets. Details are given of a few trials (some double and triple blind) that have been conducted claiming to give support to homeopathic techniques. Unfortunately, relatively little time is permitted for dissenting views, and I am sure many of our rural members will have other explanations for some of the "miraculous" animal cures presented. A thought-provoking programme nevertheless; it should be essential viewing for any skeptic confronting homeopathic enthusiasts.
1 May 1992
Simon Upton, the Minister of Health, recalls a childhood and adolescence without television, and warmly welcomes the "Great New Zealand Television Turn-Off"
1 May 1992
Every year the Bay Area Skeptics takes a look at how successful psychics were in predicting the preceding 12 months. It looks like 1991 was as much a fizzer as previous years.
1 May 1992
What's worth a Skeptic's attention? In this issue's Forum, Carl Wyant asks why worry about fraudulent spoon benders when there are far more harmful forms of ignorance and wickedness about, such as Chinese superstitions promoting female infanticide.
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 1992
In a memorable encounter, National
1 February 1992
James Randi is being pursued by Uri Geller in the US courts, to gag his outspoken comments on the "paranormal" performer. The cost of Randi's defence is frightening, and NZ Skeptics were quick to contribute to his defence fund.
1 November 1991
The Bent Spoon, as oft we've pointed out, is the only negative press award in New Zealand. Recipients' reactions to it have varied.
1 November 1991
Television New Zealand says it will axe an Earth Care advertisement claiming that burnt possum testes can keep possums at bay, if the biodynamic technique turns out to be no more than quackery.
1 November 1991
Among the papers at the Skeptics conference were Bill Malcolm's four. entertaining "illustrated truth kits" — short two-projector slide-shows on topics like fad diets, the New Age, fringe therapies, and scientific method. This one is the New Age primer.
1 November 1991
by Charles Berlitz; Grafton Books, 208 pp; $14.95 (paperback)
1 August 1991
Denis Dutton travelled up the Sepik River in New Guinea earlier this year to study tribal carving. He couldn't resist teaching the locals a few tricks.
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.
1 August 1991
Gaia is alive and well in New Zealand, as the following abridged Department of Conservation report shows. It was prepared for a meeting of the Engineers for Social Responsibility by DOC botanist Philip Simpson. The full report is available from DOC.
1 May 1991
Alternative views of reality exist outside the Western framework of rationalism and science, and these views have an internal logic of their own with their own variety of scepticism.
1 May 1991
Colin Lambert is a magnetic healer from Waihi, and in this book he tells his story. Brought up as a Baptist, and a former painter and paperhanger who left school at 14, his background could not be more ordinary. Today, however, his occupation and philosophy of life are utterly remarkable.
1 May 1991
With this issue, the Skeptic comes under a new editorial regime. Vicki Hyde, whose excellent New Zealand Science Monthly has recently hit the stands, comes aboard as managing editor. Vicki's extensive science journalism background, her publishing experience and her literate editorial eye — not to mention her sceptical temperament — make her the perfect person for the job.
1 February 1991
In this talk a journalist reflects on the rise and fall of a media superstar.
1 February 1991
NEW research dismissing the role of tinted lenses in treating reading difficulties has sparked an angry reaction from special education experts.
1 November 1990
An intention to celebrate the New Zealand Sesquicentennial with a series "Great Paranormal Moments in New Zealand History" has been abandoned. Readers may, however, be interested in the following item from "100 Years of News', a publication of the New Zealand Herald on the occasion of its centennial in 1963.
1 November 1990
The New Zealand Woman's Weekly has been the recipient of a New Zealand Skeptics' Bent Spoon Award. Does Broadsheet, "New Zealand's feminist magazine", make a more intelligent response to matters of interest to Skeptics?
1 November 1990
The New Truth articles on the "Disappearing Regiment" were examined in New Zealand Skeptic No. 15. A curious sequel to these stories, headed "Mystery clouds hold secret to rail horror!", appeared in New Truth's issue of 20 October 1989. After reading the "Disappearing Regiment" articles (25 August and 1 September 1989), Mr Jack Bramley, a wood carver now living in Whitianga, told New Truth of three clouds he had seen from Taupo and which had remained in the same position near Mt Ruapehu for the three days before Christmas 1953. In the article the clouds were linked to the disaster which occurred when the Wellington-Auckland express was plunged into the Whangaehu River shortly before 10.30 pm on 24 December 1953.
1 November 1990
With immigration a topical issue, some New Zealanders may be interested in an article in a recent Omni (January 1990) which looks at apocalyptic prophecies. In it Mark Harwell of Cornell University's Global Environment Program offers cheer to those fearful of nuclear winter: "Move to New Zealand. It's way the hell south and has 30 sheep per capita. You can survive on lamb chops until the smoke clears out of the stratosphere."
1 August 1990
The above is a suggested logo for NZCSICOP. It was designed by a Wellington Skeptic, Hugh Young. Hugh has provided the following commentary:
1 August 1990
The Skeptics have been saddened by the deaths of two of our most lively and engaged members.
1 August 1990
A recent leading article in The New Zealand Medical Journal looked at Diet and Behaviour. Food intolerance was strongly associated with the mother's level of education. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing? As regards the putative link between sugar and problem behaviours the article says "'...it is just as likely that restless or aggressive children seek out more sugar as that sugar causes the inappropriate behaviour." The authors conclude "...it should be recognized that modification of a particular child's diet is almost always accompanied by changes in management."
1 May 1990
The 1989 Annual General Meeting of NZCSICOP was held at the Science Lecture Theatre, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, on 3 September 1989.
1 May 1990
Early on Saturday, 2 September, on a bright but cold Christchurch day, over one hundred and fifty members and others met at the University of Canterbury for NZCSICOP's Fourth Annual Conference. After Chairman Tony Vignaux's welcome and introduction, Dr Bridget Robinson of the Christchurch Clinical School opened the programme with a talk on "Alternative Medicine, Cancer and Quackery". Mr Hugh Young of Radio New Zealand followed with "Cashing in on Gullibility". Other speakers were Dr Denis Dutton, "I know they're out there—The Psychic Universe of the UFO Believer"; Dr Matt McGlone, "On This Planet Skeptics are the Real Aliens"; Dr Colin McGeorge, "The Psychic Dog of Fendalton, the Horrible Severed Hand, and Other Colonial Wonders"; and Dr John Campbell, "Strolling Across the Coals—Physics Takes a Cool Look at a Hot New Age Fad".
1 May 1990
At the Annual Dinner on 2 September media excellence awards were made to the following:
1 May 1990
Is it the influence of New Age vegetarian extremists?: the latest paranormal enthusiasms are cress seed-sprouting (it's a more growing experience than metal spoon-bending) and crop circles. We have Time Magazine's authority for crop circles having occurred here, and not only the British Skeptics but the New Zealand Skeptics would welcome any information about the crop circle phenomenon in this country.
1 May 1990
Warwick Don was elected at the AGM to succeed Prof. Tony Vignaux as Chairman of the New Zealand Skeptics. Mr Don, a senior lecturer in Zoology at the University of Otago, was a founding member of the society. However his experience as an advocate for science and the scientific approach goes back much further. My personal collection of clippings contains two articles he had published in Otago University's student newspaper in 1966 and 1967 responding to attempts to recast evolution in a religious mould. He is also a formidable debater against creationism—as was evident from the letters in The Nelson Evening Mail (27/5/87 to 30/7/87) in which he and Jim Ring presented the skeptical viewpoint. Mr Don's special concern at the moment is the draft Form I-V science syllabus—in particular its inclusion of non-scientific elements.
1 May 1990
According to the Otago Daily Times, 19 June 1989:
1 May 1990
"Three Kiwi soldiers' shock claim 'ALIENS TOOK GALLIPOLI REGIMENT". So declared the front page of New Truth's 25 August 1989 issue.
1 May 1990
The following article appeared in The New Zealand Herald of 6 September 1989. It was the most comprehensive coverage of the 1989 Conference to appear in the national press.
1 May 1990
One of the highlights of the 1989 Conference was an entertaining history of the paranormal and pseudo-science in New Zealand. Part of Dr McGeorge's talk follows, beginning with his account of an attempt early this century to control quackery by legislative means.
1 February 1990
For those of us who cannot communicate by paranormal means, email is a useful alternative to letters, FAX, and phone calls.
1 February 1990
With this issue we farewell our editor Keith Lockett, who has served us so well in the nurturing and development of the New Zealand Skeptic. We have all seen how, from modest beginnings, the Newsletter has grown in stature and contents to a periodical that can hold its head among like journals internationally. Even the bleak patches when Keith was desperate for contributions proved temporary and recent editions demonstrate that we have a lively and informative journal that we will be proud to place in libraries in New Zealand and exchange with groups overseas.
1 November 1989
MAGNETIC HEALING AND OTHER REALITIES, by Colin Lambert (Moana Press, $24. 35), Reviewed by David Riddell.
1 November 1989
No doubt the dates for the 1988 conference were selected after consultation with the noted Christchurch psychic Omniscia. The vibes clearly showed 20/21 August to be good for discussing paranormality: that same weekend was chosen for a Psychic Fair in Dunedin and for the Theosophists' Festival of Life—"An open day for alternative spiritualities in Auckland". Conspiracy theorists, however, will see these latter events as attempts to derail the Skeptics' publicity machine.
1 August 1989
A very short note this time as space is limited.
1 May 1989
Interest in the healing power of mineral stone crystals has taken off in the past five years and not only in the United States.
1 February 1989
The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1987-1988. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at the University of Auckland, August 20-21.
1 November 1988
The Evening Post, 28 December 1987
1 August 1988
A front page report of a self-proclaimed psychic's prediction that Louisa Damodran's body would be found "on a beach" has earned the "New Zealand Truth" an award for gullibility from the country's Skeptics.
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.
1 August 1988
Shortly after our Wellington convention, Radio New Zealand presented a superb Insight documentary on NZCSICOP. This half-hour programme was broadcast on a Sunday morning on National Radio and rebroadcast the following evening. The producer was Colin Feslia, who will be remembered for having patiently taped the whole of our Wellington meeting. We have to admire the way he assembled the material into a coherent, interesting half hour of radio. It is an excellent introduction to the Skeptics.
1 May 1988
In his predictably naughty way, Brian Edwards did a bit of stirring when he was the after-dinner speaker at the annual conference of the New Zealand Skeptics Society during the weekend. Skeptics, he needled, should have at least something to believe in. Members counter-stirred. At their annual meeting the next day, they passed a resolution "endorsing the existence of Santa Claus, but still expressing doubts about the tooth fairy."
1 May 1988
The New Zealand Skeptics are offering $10,000 for a paranormal person.
1 February 1988
A flying competition with a difference will be held in Auckland at the weekend.
1 February 1988
The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1986-1987. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at Victoria University in Wellington, August 29-30.
1 November 1987
New York may be the slickest and sharpest of cities, but its smartest citizens are turning to tarot cards, psychics and inter-species communicators to solve their problems. Shirley Lowe has tuned in.
1 August 1987
About the time this newsletter arrives, the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal will have sponsored its first special-issue conference. The half-day meeting at the Christchurch Clinical School is entitled "Medicine: Orthodox, Fringe, and Quack, " and it brings together a diverse group of people on an important set of concerns. We hope that the next number of the "Skeptic" will have reports, both from us and from the press, to indicate that the meeting was a success.
1 August 1987
SIR, M L Lester (Post, Sept 26) says "The New Zealand Skeptics Society has repeatedly claimed that there is a widespread (nationwide) problem here in New Zealand with fake psychics, mediums, charlatans, magicians and so on".
1 August 1987
The Evening Post, Thursday, October 2, 1986
1 May 1987
You have as much to gain by showing that someone has paranormal powers. David [Marks] and I would win a Nobel Prize if we could prove that. We've nothing to gain by just refuting another case.
1 May 1987
In the after glow of our first annual convention, NZCSICOP members will have to feel pleased by the progress of our organisation. The meeting itself attracted considerable media attention, all of it favourable, and discussion of our aims and purposes continues to reverberate in letters weeks later. Our membership now stands at just short of a hundred and it is still growing. And well it must, for a group such as ours has much work to accomplish. Unless we have enough people scattered nationwide who are willing to take an active part in our projects we cannot flourish.
1 May 1987
Any medium who demonstrates communication with spirits under controlled conditions will be able to collect $232,000, Dr David Marks, the chairman of New Zealand Skeptics said yesterday.
1 May 1987
We are interested in monitoring the activities of Mr Emond Harold, who is currently touring New Zealand. He energises crystals with thoughts of love, and helps alleviate the effects of repetitive strain injury and leukaemia, while turning a bob or two for himself. Though he knows lots about people heating their homes (with volcanoes) in Atlantis, we doubt if he has read the medicines act of 1981. Please send any news or cuttings regarding Mr Harold to Bernard Howard, P.O. Box 13, Lincoln College, Canterbury.
1 May 1987
A group called New Zealand Skeptics has called on newspapers and magazines in New Zealand to carry a disclaimer with their astrology columns.
1 May 1987
I would like to thank Dr David Marks and the Committee of the N.Z. Skeptics for inviting me over and to Dr Dennis Dutton and Ricky Farr for their hospitality. I am glad to be at the first convention of the New Zealand Skeptics. Having organised the first two conventions in Australia, I know how much work is involved and am glad someone else, Dr David Marks, is organising this one.
1 February 1987
I was a teacher of Biology and Science at a State High School in North Queensland throughout 1983 and 1984. In this article I wish to briefly present the successful creationist campaign there as 1 personally saw it, and to point out trends and other factors which were conducive to this success, with comparative references to the New Zealand education system.
1 February 1987
For many readers this newsletter will be their main method of contact with other skeptics. It is essential then that it be a lively and thought provoking assessment of the scene in New Zealand. The stimulating and amusing material can only come from members. It is true that there is plenty of good stuff in the Skeptical Inquirer and the Australian Skeptic but I do not want to use that as I suspect that most N.Z. sceptics will receive one of those publications already. Hence this is a strong plea for articles. I have already sent some begging letters to particular members and I shall send more. We also need members to send me cuttings from the the press with examples of fatuity and danger (I seem to see very little of this in our New Plymouth papers, perhaps we are more sensible than elsewhere in N.Z.). Please send me material to make this a trenchant, relaxed and informative publication.
1 February 1987
The Health Department was planning a study of pesticides and other Chemicals which New Zealanders might be consuming In food and water, said the acting departmental press officer, Mr John Boyd, yesterday.
1 February 1987
Health quackery flourishes in New Zealand because we are less critical of fraud, less critical of what, in the United States' would be labelled as criminal deception.