28 April 2025
As I'm sure you're all aware, although I'd question whether it really should be international news, the Catholic Pope has died. So we're all now going to be eagerly awaiting the white smoke that tells us the Catholic cardinals have chosen their new leader. I wish this wasn't news - a small group of senior (both old and high-ranking) people choosing which of them gets to be in charge of a pre-scientific organisation with supernatural beliefs doesn't seem to be something we should have to care about. But…
18 February 2025
Unfortunately Mailchimp failed me last night, and refused to let me login to their website to send out the newsletter. But we're back up and running now, bringing you skeptical news from New Zealand and beyond.
21 January 2025
_After 6 weeks of searching, the scammers gave to me…
11 November 2024
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published the AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 in 2023, which summarises five years of reports on global temperature changes, fossil fuel use and likely climate impacts.
19 August 2024
So… I was planning on writing about an Autism scam that did the rounds on Australia news networks this month. Instead, Mark unintentionally sent me down a rabbit hole when he asked for an article about the approaching 100th anniversary of the Spiritualist Church Of New Zealand Act 1924 next month. It's branded a National Spiritual Day, which I'm anticipating may cause confusion and upset in other religious circles.
4 March 2024
In the news this past week has been the announcement of the potential closing of Newshub at the end of June this year.
25 December 2023
It's Christmas, so in the spirit of the season, 'living man' Roger William (née Roger William Blake), of Ngatea Water Gardens, staged another of his cantankerous one-person (if he currently is a person; it's so hard to keep track) pantomimes in front of long-suffering Judge, Brett Crawley at the Hamilton District Court on the 20th of December.
24 October 2023
In my newsletter article last week, one of the dates referred to the 2018 trial of Zholia Alemi, a former Auckland University medical student who was able to practise psychiatry across the NHS and evade discovery for two decades before being undone by her own greed. I was reminded about two other, peculiar cases of fraudster doctors in NZ and thought that it would make a good article and segment in the most recent episode of the Yeah...Nah podcast.
4 September 2023
Abi Loeb, who went against the tide of the scientific community back when the asteroid Oumuamua passed earth, and claimed it was an alien artefact, has struck again. This time, YouTube alerted me (presumably because I've been watching the UAP nonsense unfold on credulous American news channel News Nation) to the existence of a News Nation interview with Avi about his recent discovery of small spherules of alien origin dredged up from the seabed.
4 September 2023
Back in June I wrote about the sojourn Mark and I took to Prayers @ Parliament. With election season in full swing, I thought it would be a good time to return to the topic of Naisi Chen, Labour List MP. In my original editorial, it was clear Chen made an impression of sorts on us. Mark and I were both surprised and impressed with Chen's careful phrasing regarding the responsibility of religious leaders and representatives to repent on behalf of Christian brothers and sisters who harmed children; a positively ballsy move that appeared to be received well by the crowd.
1 May 2023
Well, hello there! Craig isn't looking and Mark is busy writing, so I thought I would slip in here and write the editorial for this week.
24 April 2023
Jonny Grady, a long-time committee member, sent an image he'd taken of a “UFO” to the committee last week:
13 March 2023
I've written about Voices for Freedom many times in the past. For review, they're a group of anti-vaxxers and “freedom” lovers and generally anti-government agitators. They started back in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic. They claim to have quite a following, though of course, that's unverified.
19 December 2022
In the good news department, Billy Te Kahika and Vinny Eastwood, professional conspiracy theory grifters, who organised protests during the Covid lockdowns in August last year, have now been found guilty of intentionally failing to comply with the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act.
3 October 2022
This past week has been replete with stories related to climate change. Firstly, there's Hurricane Ian which has wreaked havoc and destruction and loss of life in Florida most recently, but previously in Cuba and Puerto Rico. It's fairly obvious that extreme weather events are exacerbated by climate change, and that living near the coast is going to be an increasingly risky proposition for large numbers of people.
11 July 2022
This week I cover the sad news that a local psychic challenge has ended, but with some hope for the future. And last week, the Georgia Guidestones ended their existence after one of them was destroyed by explosives. Thanks to Mark Honeychurch for additional contributions for these items.
4 July 2022
Warning: The subject matter of this article may be distressing to some due to discussions about children, death, and handling of dead bodies.
20 June 2022
On Friday, June 2nd 2022, homophobic and antisemetic slurs were grafittied on both sides of Glora of Greymouth, with a burned rainbow flagged staked to the ground out front while the owner/operator slept inside. The deconsecrated church is a performing arts venue/arts project which hosts events for the rainbow community.
30 May 2022
The Ishango Bone - photo by Joeykentin
16 May 2022
This week we're covering a few different topics. I look at some potential good news in relation to SIDS and look back at claims made about it in the past. We've got some bizarre claims of paranormal ability related to wind control (don't think I've ever come across that one before), and I look at the recent crash in cryptocurrency markets.
28 February 2022
Welcome to the Skeptics Newsletter!
7 February 2022
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
20 December 2021
Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital made the news last week, with an 89 year old man being charged for his part in the abuse of children who were under the hospital's care in the 1970s. Dr Selwyn Leeks, who was the lead psychiatrist at the centre, has been charged with “wilful ill treatment of a child”, but due to his ill health will not be prosecuted.
26 October 2021
A recent article on the Ars Technica site details the story of a so-called ethical hacker who was employed by a company to build a pro-Trump fake news empire. (Note, this is the real fake news, as in news that isn't true - compared to the “fake news” that Trump infamously categorised unfavourable coverage of him as.)
20 October 2021
Mike Adams is well known to skeptics. For many years he's run the Natural News website, which started out as a source of medical misinformation paired with a shop selling expensive, useless supplements. Some of his sillier posts included using a microscope to take zoomed-in photos of McDonald's chicken nuggets as a way to make them look unappealing.
20 October 2021
One of the signatories to the NZD SOS declaration, Dr Matt Shelton, is an interesting case - he made the news a few weeks ago when he sent a text message to his patients saying:
13 September 2021
In the good news department this week, it was announced that there's been a shakeup at the Magic Talk network - a radio station that specialised in talkback.
6 September 2021
Obviously as skeptics we're pretty clued up on the idea of not using unproven therapies, especially when there's positive evidence that they don't work. It's been apparent for a while now that the evidence for Ivermectin as a COVID treatment or preventative is not very good, and it's been sad to see how many people don't seem to care about the lack of evidence and are taking it anyway.
16 August 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
2 August 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
19 July 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
19 July 2021
Yes, the pandemic is still with us, and alarmingly new strains are emerging. Evolution does what evolution does.
5 July 2021
In the good news department, YouTube has de-platformed local misinformant Vinny Eastwood, also joining another local, Damien De Ment, also banned. Vinny Eastwood was king of promoting conspiracy theories, but it seems that various complaints have seen his channel now removed.
5 July 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
28 June 2021
(In)famous German psychic Michael Schneider made the news recently when he claimed to know the exact coordinates of Madeleine McCann's body. Madeleine, aged 3, went missing in 2007 while she was on holiday in Spain with her family. Despite several leads over the years (and many psychics making predictions), there's been no definitive answer so far as to what happened to Madeleine - although there is one likely suspect.
31 May 2021
Apparently a UFO was seen in Hawkes Bay late last week. Several people reported seeing a large rectangular shaped object in the sky at dusk, with green and red lights, moving strangely.
24 May 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
7 April 2021
The Outdoors Party's health spokesperson recently shared a video clip from the TV show Dexter, showing a scene where the serial killer protagonist of the show remembers being rescued as a child from a shipping container - and, as you might have guessed, the container has EVERGREEN written down the side. Coincidence? Apparently not, if you're one of the many people who believe that the Ever Given, which was recently freed from the Suez Canal, was transporting children as part of a child sex trade run by Hillary Clinton.
29 March 2021
This week has seen the news of the ship (the Ever Given) that's been stuck for days in the Suez Canal. Interestingly, having glanced at the headlines and pictures, in my mind the ship was called the Evergreen, but that's the name of the company that runs it (Evergreen Marine).
22 March 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
22 February 2021
Or, at the very least he's apparently quit politics. This one was a bit of a surprise to me, as the conspiracy minded Billy had only just announced that he was re-naming his Public Party to the Freedom Party. Maybe he quit because he realised that there had already been a Freedom Party in NZ, and that all of the most obvious domain names had already been taken? Alternatively, it might be that recent accusations of financial mis-management and fraud are making life in the limelight a little too uncomfortable for Billy at the moment.
15 February 2021
Conspiracies are in the news a lot lately. In recent newsletters we've talked about them a lot, and there's more to cover this week, both from an international and NZ-based perspective.
28 December 2020
In other news, Australian ex-celebrity chef Pete Evans has finally been kicked off Facebook for spreading conspiracy theories about Covid-19. He had previously been fined $25,000 for trying to sell a 'Bio Charger' device as a fake coronavirus cure via a livestream on the platform.
28 December 2020
Dr. Siouxsie Wiles wrote on twitter recently about a NZ Herald article which wondered if New Zealand's response to the pandemic was an overreaction. While pointing out that she hadn't read the article (it was pay-walled) she said “But if the answer isn't a resounding NO WE DIDNT then the piece is insulting, ridiculous, disappointing, & dangerous”.
21 December 2020
In the news this morning, it's been reported that our very own New Zealand monolith has appeared at Adventure Park in Christchurch. I'd love to think that this monolith could stay until I get a chance to visit it, but given that the original monolith mysteriously disappeared, and that a bunch of young Christians destroyed a similar monolith in California and replaced it with a cross, I worry that our version may not last long.
7 December 2020
The ABC News website published a story about a keto pill scam using a famous (in Australia) NZ born TV Doctor (Dr Brad McKay) to promote their nonsense without his knowledge. Dr McKay was not happy with the fact they had stolen his identity to promote their products, but is still struggling to get the posts removed as Facebook has given him the equivalent of a sorry-about-that shrug and taken no action. He has approached multiple authorities and agencies in Australia but (at the time of writing) is still waiting to hear back from them.
23 November 2020
This past week has seen the news of development of successful vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The vaccines have a claimed efficacy of nearly 95%. This is good news, and a triumph for science and medical technology that they've been able to be developed so quickly. There are other companies that have vaccines in the pipeline so it's likely that there will be several more vaccines available in the coming months and years.
16 November 2020
You probably already heard that Exxon knew about climate change back in the 70s and 80s, and chose to double down on the misinformation, but now, as an EV driver myself I was interested to learn the latest news to come out about climate change denial relating to big Auto, specifically Ford and GM. In the first part of an investigation by E&E News, we find out that the automakers were well aware that car emissions caused climate change 50 years ago. Their own scientists were telling top executives that emissions from the vehicles they were producing would lead to climate change.
16 November 2020
Good news! We have found someone who has a copy of the video (VHS tape) taken of James Randi speaking at Canterbury University back in 1993. Next steps will be to check if it's good to digitise, and if so, we'll look to publish it to our YouTube channel. Keep posted.
16 November 2020
In Homeopathy news, Edzard Ernst, retired academic physician and specialist in complementary and alternative medicine (and skeptic hero) has created a “challenge for all homeopaths of the world”. In a similar way to the James Randi Educational Foundation's one million dollar paranormal challenge, Ernst has come up with a scientific way for homeopaths to “prove” their worth. What entrants need to do is identify the contents of 6 homeopathic solutions that they have chosen, but that have been transferred into containers marked 1 – 6 by a notary and sent back to them.
1 February 2020
Skeptic summary: The kiwis who are taking a stand against vaccination misinformation. We salute you.
16 December 2018
The Crimes Amendment Bill passed its second reading in parliament this week, and it now looks likely that our blasphemy law will be repealed in the near future. This is great news, and is being mirrored in other countries.
28 October 2018
Ireland has had a bit of a rocky history with its blasphemy law, with a complaint made against a local comedian for calling the Catholic communion wafer "haunted bread", and Stephen Fry being threatened with legal action for an interview he gave on Irish TV a few years ago.
14 October 2018
Pakistanis are threatening to strike nationwide if leniency is shown to Asia Bibi [Ah-seea Beebee], a woman who has been sentenced to death for a blasphemy charge. The charge was related to the fact that she is Christian, and in 2009 she drank water with the same cup some Muslims at her workplace had been drinking with, and then made comments defending her religious belief when challenged about her actions and told that she was unclean.
16 September 2018
Alex Jones, who runs the website InfoWars, seems to be coming apart at the seams.
8 July 2018
HRV have plead guilty to 11 counts of misleading customers about their water filters. They were charged with making untrue claims about the levels of chemicals in New Zealand tap water, as well as their filter's ability to soften the water and help with eczema and dermatitis.
27 May 2018
As we talked about at the end of last year, there's been a real push to sell Kangen Water devices in NZ recently. An article in the Herald recently has detailed Ainsley Brunton's efforts to sell the water in Whanganui to unsuspecting customers. Her water devices are selling for $4,000, with promises that the water can help with cancer, diabetes and other serious diseases. Enagic in Australia is selling the machines to New Zealanders who are passing them on, and Enagic's prices for a machine that does nothing useful to water vary between $2,300 and $6,500.
13 May 2018
1 May 2018
How much fake news is in your Coffee News?
1 May 2018
Skeptic summary: A facebook page protesting against the poison 1080 (which has been proven to help bring back native bird numbers by reducing predator numbers) received more than 1000 posts before a misleading photo was removed.
1 May 2018
How to be a positively skeptically active person, some suggestions
1 May 2018
On 23rd February 2018 Buzzfeed.com broke the news that the prominent atheist and skeptic Lawrence Krauss had been accused of sexual assault. Later we learned that this news had a New Zealand connection as Professor Krauss was not going to be attending the show in Christchurch with Richard Dawkins. Looking at Skeptics in the pub message boards I can see attendance may be affected by people's feelings toward the remaining speaker's attitudes to women.
18 March 2018
The Regent Theatre in Dunedin is in the news again, as it's been flooded. This is unfortunate, as it appears that someone accidentally left a tap on that has caused damage to carpets and the ceiling. However, the staff at the theatre believe that this wasn't negligence, it was a ghost!
18 March 2018
Kelvin Cruickshank, one of our famous local psychics who has appeared on Sensing Murder, has "helped" a family to locate the body of "Curly" - an elderly gentleman called Raymond Stirling who went missing in Hamilton in January. A police search had been halted after 11 days with no luck, and then Curly's daughter in law ended up at one of Kelvin's paid shows (at $65 a ticket).
11 March 2018
A Reiki meeting has been deemed newsworthy by the Taranaki Daily News.
25 February 2018
Liza Schneider has written an article for the BoP Times, printed online in the Herald, which promotes nonsense therapies for animals.
25 February 2018
An Indonesian teenager has apparently "baffled" doctors by laying eggs. He's laid about 20 eggs over the last 2 years, and x-ray images show an egg inside him before he lays it. The x-ray image makes it unlikely that sleight of hand is involved - he's probably not pretending to produce an egg from internally, but actually just making it appear in his hand at the right time.
11 February 2018
An Australian woman, Shona Leigh, has publicly spoken about how she supposedly cured herself of cervical cancer with cannabis oil. This story seems to be popular in NZ because of the new Labour government's recent efforts to relax our laws on medicinal cannabis use.
11 February 2018
Georgian College in Toronto has cancelled a course in homeopathy, due to negative feedback.
28 January 2018
As if people not vaccinating their kids isn't enough nonsense to deal with, there's an increasing trend for pet owners to not vaccinate their pets as well. This appears to be due to silly concerns such as that their pets might suffer from autism, despite the fact that autism hasn't been observed in animals.
3 December 2017
Sir Peter Gluckman, the PM's Science Advisor, says that NZ has a science denial problem, but that it's no worse than the rest of the world. Peter thinks that social media bubbles are contributing to this issue, by allowing people to get their news only from places that agree with their existing views on topics. He points out that traditional media is becoming more likely to be polarised as well, which is not good.
12 November 2017
Republican Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore has been accused of sexually assaulting a 14 girl when he was 14. He has a worrying track record - as well as other accusations of sexual harassment of young girls, he's twice been promoted to the Supreme Court and then removed because of his refusal to follow church/state separation laws. He was suspended for trying to stop legal gay marriages from being performed.
5 November 2017
Auckland council are "revisiting" their decision to use popular weedkiller glyphosate, more commonly known as RoundUp. Auckland councillor Wayne Walker seems to be pushing a move to stop using the weedkiller, despite the fact that Federated Farmers and New Zealand's EPA say that it is safe.
1 November 2017
I enjoy a good coffee, a bit of light astrophysics chat with Neil de Grasse Tyson, and spring with its blossoms and daffodils.
2 July 2017
Alex Jones, anchor man of the news outlet InfoWars in the US, hosted Robert David Steele on his show this week, and talked about Robert's theory that NASA are holding slave children on Mars. This has led to NASA officially denying the accusation, along with another recent claim that there are no active rovers on Mars.
18 June 2017
A breatharian couple, Camila Castello and Akahi Ricardo, have publicly claimed that they live on "cosmic nourishment" from the "energy that exists in the universe and in themselves". They claim that they didn't eat at all for a period of 3 years, and that they hardly ever eat. When they do eat, it's a piece of fruit or some broth.
4 June 2017
Dave Hansford from Nelson has written a book - called "Protecting Paradise: 1080 and the Fight to Save New Zealand's Wildlife" - about New Zealand's use of the poison 1080. The name appears to be a play on the Graf Boys' documentary Poisoning Paradise, which tried to paint a picture that 1080 is not as safe as the government says it is.
4 June 2017
Although there is a history in skepticism of people being "skeptical" of climate change, modern skepticism understands that there is a broad consensus amongst scientists that climate change is both real and caused by humans.
21 May 2017
After incidents with Stephen Fry and Jakarta's mayor, blasphemy made the news and there has finally been a push in government to repeal our archaic blasphemy law. Bill English expressed his surprise that we have a blasphemy law (which is funny, given that he's Catholic and the Catholic church have unsuccessfully tried to use the law in this country in the past), and David Seymour attempted to introduce a private member's bill to parliament to repeal the law (section 123 of the Crimes Act).
21 May 2017
A claim has been made by Noel Hilliam that European settlers beat Maori to settling NZ, and that reconstruction of skulls from a woman and man have shown that they originated in Wales and the Mediterranean, respectively. The woman had blue eyes and blonde hair, and the
7 May 2017
On April 11th I submitted a complaint to Medsafe about Te Kiri Gold, a bleach made by farmer Vernon Coxhead which he is selling as a cancer cure.
5 February 2017
Vicki Latele, who was jailed for mortgage fraud, has had a tough time. She has cancer, and has had her stomach removed. It appears that the standard treatments, such as chemotherapy, have not helped her, and she's been released from prison on compassionate grounds.
18 December 2016
Nigel Antony Gray, who "predicted" last month's earthquake on Facebook, has recently shown just how daft, and dangerous, he is.
18 December 2016
In the scheme invested money receives a return of 30% profit after a month. It works as a classic Ponzi scheme, where the incoming money from new members is used to pay members whose investment is withdrawn. These schemes work while they gain in popularity, but stop working as soon as they stop growing. The most famous example of this is the Bernie Madoff fraud, where it's estimated that $65 billion was lost.
27 November 2016
There have been a few stories in the news recently about earthquakes that have left me feeling skeptical:
21 October 2016
As usual, it's blurry footage from far away that is most likely a human. It appears to be a tall figure, dark, with a big stride and holding something white swinging in its hand. The white object could be a carrier bag. Of course, as the footage is taken from far away so our brains end up doing a lot of guesswork to try to make sense of what we're seeing.
28 August 2016
Julia Rucklidge from Canterbury University has suggested that processed food may be a cause of a mental illness epidemic.
17 July 2016
A leaflet has been shared in several british towns purporting to be from an unknown Muslim organisation, "For Public Purity", asking for locals to refrain from taking their dogs out in public as it is an affront to Islam. However, Muslim groups deny that there is any effort on their part to ban dogs and that the leaflets are likely a hoax designed to foment unrest in England.
17 July 2016
Somebody asked Sandra Clair from Artemis, who writes for the Herald and sells natural remedies:
10 July 2016
Yet another infomercial style article has been published on the NZ Herald, this time talking about the benefits of bee venom. Abeeco are a major seller of bee products in New Zealand, and they have several successful ASA complaints against them. Abeeco talks in the article about their products, but all they are able to produce in support of them is anecdotes - no proper data. The article even has an 0800 number at the bottom, and although it just says to call the number for "more information", nowhere does it state that the number is Abeeco's sales line!
10 July 2016
Australian Ken Ham's Creation "Museum" has opened its newest attraction, the Ark Encounter, on Thursday.
3 July 2016
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/81470129/Christchurch-City-Council-to-reduce-use-of-potentially-dangerous-weedkiller
19 June 2016
Consumer NZ used secret shoppers to visit 46 NZ beauty clinics with a raised skin spot. The issue was such that the undercover person should have been referred to a GP, but 7 of the 46 clinics said that they were able to treat the problem themselves, with lasers, electrocution, needling or cutting.
19 June 2016
The Bilderberg Group met last week, and there were protests by the usual conspiracy crowd.
12 June 2016
The most plausible benefits probably occur from the mixture fermenting, producing heat. It's pretty unlikely that anything else in the spa is helping your body.
12 June 2016
Maureen is the newest member of parliament, a National Party MP who seems to have a few pseudoscientific beliefs.
17 April 2016
Family First may be de-registered as a charity soon. They have been sent a notice of de-registration from Charities Services, but plan to fight it in court. They have previously defended against an attempt to be de-registered last year.
13 March 2016
Christchurch council has voted 12-1 to look into ceasing use of glyphosate to kill weeds. The decision seems to have been made based on a recent International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report which labels glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic". Many other products come under a similar classification, such as coffee, alcohol and bacon. The important question isn't "is it carcinogenic?", but "how carcinogenic is it?". (Paracelsus)
21 February 2016
Yet another sea monster has been found, this time in Swansea, NSW, Australia. Ethan Tipper posted the photo on Facebook, asking "What the f*** is this?".
7 February 2016
Someone has put Mr Trump forward for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Supporters said in the submission that Mr. Trump deserved the prize for:
27 September 2015
A blood moon is a new name for a lunar eclipse, where the earth travels between the sun and the moon. The full moon turns red.
27 September 2015
Matthew Dawson-Clarke, 24, from Auckland was in Peru and took part in a cleansing ceremony.
20 September 2015
A Southern Cross survey suggested some 1.56m New Zealanders regularly took the products. About 750,000 had done so for at least five years.
1 August 2014
Author and journalist Ian Wishart claims Taranaki could be the last resting place of a giant lizard- like "dinosaur" and is issuing a challenge for it to be rediscovered (Taranaki Daily News, 10 May).
1 August 2012
Police are checking for any link between gunman Brian Schlaepfer's "slightly eccentric" behaviour of meditating in a pyramid and his role in the Paerata massacre.
1 November 2008
Another annual conference has come and gone, with the usual collection of thought-provoking presentations. This issue we present two highlights, from Waikato University biology lecturer and science communicator Alison Campbell, and Greek Honorary Consul Nikos Petousis.
1 November 2007
It's Bent Spoon time again-the time when the Skeptics highlight the worst-and best-of the year's media.
1 May 2007
After a bloodless coup, the NZ Skeptic has a new editor. This doesn't mean much in practical terms; for many years I've been working closely with previous ed Annette Taylor. She will now take on the roles that I used to-subediting, proofing, making cups of tea, cooking dinner and the like. It won't be long before we can enlist the daughter into the production of this fine publication.
1 February 2006
The leading medical journal The Lancet recently published yet another analysis of trials of homeopathy. After examining 110 such trials, the Swiss researchers concluded that there was no convincing evidence that homeopathy was any more effective than placebo. In the accompanying editorial, the editor, Dr Richard Horton, made a comment which has an uncanny, and no doubt intentional parallel with the views of the founder of homeopathy over two hundred years ago:-
1 August 2005
Apparently mediums and the paranormal have replaced cop shows as the latest television drama genre of choice -- if you are to believe TV3's marketing, whether news or promo puff pieces, there's fact behind the fiction. Yeah right....
1 February 2005
SCIENCE has not "progressed only by slow cautious steps" as Piers McLaren claims (Forum, Spring 2004), but by great bold ones. Scientists should resist new ideas but it is a myth that they do so irrationally. Contrary to Maclaren's letter, quantum theory rapidly won the day. Planck published in 1900, Einstein in 1905, in 1913 Bohr produced a quantum structure for an atom. By 1922 all three had won Nobel prizes for work on quantum theory.
1 May 2003
Breaking news as this issue goes to press (Waikato Times, April 30 and elsewhere) is the recall by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of 219 products manufactured by Pan Pharmaceuticals. This is the biggest recall of medical products in Australia's history; the TGA has also withdrawn Pan's licence for six months.
1 November 1998
Hypnotist Lawrence Follas claims he can increase the size of a client's bust by telling her to imagine her breasts are growing (Sunday News 24 May). He says his client's breasts have grown 2cm in three months, and some women in the States have added an extra 6cm by the method. The programme involves seven one-hour sessions at $75 each. A tape of Follas's hypnosis session is given to the woman who must listen to it every day.
1 May 1997
The other night, after a particularly fine feed of nachos, my friend pulled out her numerology book and proceeded to do my chart. I'd done some things wrong in a past life, and there were a number of lessons I hadn't picked up on -- but generally I was happy to learn my soul was a fairly evolved one.
1 May 1996
It is rare that Nelson interests the world's news media. The "sheep suspended from pine trees" story was sufficiently bizarre to get their attention.
1 February 1995
From a Skeptics' mailing list comes a record of psychic slip-ups for the previous year.
1 August 1994
Late in his life, in answer to a question, Freud compared the human condition approximately to the contents of a baby's nappy. When I first heard this story, it seemed to mark a bitter old man. That was when I was in high school in the late 1950s. Higher education was spreading in the world's democracies. Ignorance and superstition, the plague of the human species since the caves, were on the way out. Reason, knowledge and tolerance would rule the future of the world. Or so it seemed. Does it look like that today, even to high school students? A few news items:
1 May 1993
From Jerusalem comes news that Israel's former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has ruled that trained monkeys may turn off lights or do other domestic chores forbidden to Jews on the sabbath. But only a borrowed monkey -- or a dog or other animal capable of performing such tasks -- can be used because their own beasts must be allowed to rest.
1 May 1993
President Bush was not re-elected. Madonna did not become a gospel singer, and a UFO base was not found in the Mexican desert. These were just a few of the many predictions that had been made for 1992 by famous "psychics", but were dead wrong, as chronicled by the Bay Area Skeptics.
1 May 1993
The TVNZ fortnightly newsletter, Networks, recently carried the welcome news that a Senior Editor in TVNZ's news division has written a book. The Astrologer and the Paradigm Shift will, according to Networks "clear up many common misconceptions about astrology."
1 May 1992
A scale replica of the Great Pyramid of Egypt has been built in Coromandel as a chapel and healing centre.
1 November 1990
Anabolic steroids were in the news during the Commonwealth Games and Dr Michael Kennedy has been studying their use by athletes for the past ten years. His conclusion is that "anabolic steroids have no effect on aerobic sports, such as running and swimming, but may lead to a small improvement in the performance of trained weightlifters." He quotes a 1972 study that showed when athletes were given placebo and told they were steroids, they got stronger and trained harder.
1 May 1990
You may be aware that 'crop circles' have been much in the news recently in the UK. In case you have not seen them, they are perfect rings or discs of flattened crops which apparently form overnight, sometimes in groups.
1 August 1989
An alternative approach to health is being expounded in New Plymouth by an Australian visitor, Mr Nick Singer.
1 August 1988
The Evening Post, 31 August 1987
1 May 1988
Our heartfelt thanks to the efforts of our many members who helped make the Wellington meeting such a success. The papers aroused great interest, and it was extremely gratifying to see the number of media reporters who stayed around simply to listen, long after they had fulfilled their obligations to their employers.
1 November 1987
Circle the dates 29 and 30 August on your calendar, for these are the days for the second annual conference of NZCSICOP, to be held this year at Victoria University in Wellington. We plan to have lectures and symposia all day Saturday and till noon Sunday, so there will be opportunity for a good mix of material. Accommodation will be in Weir House and can be expected to be quite reasonably priced. Last year's meeting was of course very successful, and we can expect an equally arresting series of presentations this year in Wellington. Plan now to join us. And if you have any ideas either for a presentation yourself or for a speaker or event you'd like to see, please let me know.
1 November 1987
The meeting organized by Christchurch members on "Medicine: Orthodox, Fringe and Quack" was held in the School of Medicine on 6 December, 1986. It was, as far as can be judged, a success on several counts. It was attended by over 80 people, many of them medical practitioners; the fee charged enabled us to make a small profit; we enrolled some new members; and gained further attention from the news media.
1 November 1987
It's thumbs up for Sunday News in a long running battle with self proclaimed psychic Colin Amery.
1 May 1987
Former Star news editor Josh Easby has collected . an award for journalistic excellence for his "psychic duel" with an Auckland clairvoyant.