21 July 2025
On Friday evening Bronwyn and I, rather than running our usual Skeptics in Cyberspace meeting, visited the Johnsonville Community Centre to experience the signs and wonders of a Christian Revival event, where we were promised healing, hope and miracles.
7 July 2025
The article from Aaron Davies about blind testing diet colas is a really interesting one for me. As a little background info for you, Aaron is an ex Jehovah's Witness and was a NZ Skeptics committee member a few years ago. In the article I'm the “Mark” mentioned in the testing. So, if you've read the article already, you'll know that when challenged with picking out my favoured beverage, Diet Coke, from a line-up of identical looking drinks in identical looking cups, I successfully identified the Diet Coke.
23 June 2025
How long can humans really live without changing their actual form, for example by doing something drastic like a brain transplant, cloning, or uploading themselves to the cloud?
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…
17 March 2025
A couple of years ago, I wrote about some of the most elite “High IQ” societies, and how they mostly seemed to be nothing more than vanity projects created by self-professed polymaths who had built up cult-like followings. The supposed pinnacle of these groups was the New Zealand based Tera Society; headed up by Roddy Young, and with an entry requirement of a one-in-a-trillion IQ. In reality I suspect Roddy wouldn't even manage to pass the Mensa IQ test.
17 March 2025
When cyclone Alfred hit Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the North of New South Wales recently, I was watching the news coverage closely. My sister lives on the Gold Coast and, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, she was going to be in the zone predicted to be hit with the most damaging winds. She was pretty sure this was no big deal for her, and fortunately she was right.
3 March 2025
Astute reader that you are, it has probably not escaped your notice that politics has taken a turn for the conspiratorial in the last few years. We've recently seen a rise in anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, and people convinced that They (whoever They are) made up a global disease in a bid for control over the populace.
3 February 2025
It's not a good day when a closer analysis of the path of a near-earth approaching asteroid doesn't rule out impact, but instead shows that it might actually hit earth in 2032.
29 October 2024
Last weekend I travelled down to Christchurch for the DeCult conference, and it was fascinating to hear so many personal stories about the many ways in which cults coerce and mistreat people, as well as some of the ideas people have about how we may be able to minimise the damage that cults are able to do. There were lots of brave people who, having gone through hell while members of these groups, still had the energy to stand up to them and fight once they realised the wrongs that had been done. I was able to say hello to quite a few survivors of different cults who I've met over my years as a skeptic in New Zealand, and also some of our NZ Skeptics members who had made the trip to the conference. And our chair, Bronwyn, gave a great talk about ISTA and Highden that I was able to hear. Although I was volunteering to help at the conference, and had been rostered to work in a different room while Bronwyn was speaking, I managed to organise someone to cover me and my daughter so that we could sit in and hear her telling everyone about just some of the weirdness around Highden and Bruce Lyon.
14 October 2024
I was thinking the other day about the lyrics of the Mark Knopfler song “Sailing to Philadelphia” . It's a gorgeous song, recorded as a duet by Knopfler and James Taylor. It's all about the chaps who surveyed the Mason-Dixon line. You should have a listen.
30 September 2024
A few days ago I was scanning my spam folder, making sure nothing important had been accidentally classified as spam, when I noticed a cryptic email:
16 September 2024
It has been reported that former supermodel Elle Macpherson refused to follow the medical advice of 32 doctors to have chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis, instead opting for holistic alternative therapies.
5 August 2024
The first batch of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccinations hit New Zealand in February 2021. That means we have now had 3.5 years to study the side effects.
5 August 2024
Anke Richter, who we've talked to on our podcast in the past, has promised to write an article for our newsletter soon. In the meantime she'd like us to let you all know that, if you're in Christchurch, there are a couple of interesting events coming up.
8 July 2024
Craig wrote a couple of weeks ago about a couple of strange ideas he was introduced to at a Matariki event he attended - the idea that Matariki's brightness can predict the future, and also an idea that the earth has apparently recently shifted on its axis by 20 degrees.
8 July 2024
I managed to attend the Spiritual Expo in Dunedin last month. A week later, I also went along to a two hour long medium session at the Dunedin Spiritualist Church. I will be talking about the medium experience later in this article but, first, the Expo.
10 June 2024
I've done a lot of book shopping recently, while working on our plagiarism project - and in this time I've found some real gems. And, by gems, I mean god-awful books. Thankfully my shopping has been done in charity shops and at book fairs, so these bad books have cost me just a dollar or two each - with the added twin bonuses that a) the money I've spent has gone to charity, and b) I've removed at least one copy of these books from circulation.
10 June 2024
This was the first time to a Spiritual Church for me, and I had no idea what to expect. The service started at 6pm on a Sunday, at their own facility in South Dunedin. When I arrived, I found a small room that could probably seat 50, along with a small tearoom that opened out to the main part of the church. It was clean and tidy, and looked very much like any other church - apart from the absence of any Christian paraphernalia.
27 May 2024
On Saturday (the 25th of May), our chair Bronwyn, long-time skeptic Tim Atkin and myself visited Practical Philosophy and Meditation, a group running out of a very nice building at the bottom of Aro Street in Aro Valley, Wellington. We were going there because, despite outwardly looking like an educational institution (until very recently the Wellington branch had been called the School of Practical Philosophy), a little investigation shows that the group runs “schools” around the world in a curiously cult-like fashion, offering cheap philosophy courses as the hook to attract adherents who can then be convinced to pour their money, time and devotion into the group.
27 May 2024
On May 10th, New Zealand First MP Tanya Unkovich lodged a proposal for the Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill (https://bills.parliament.nz/v/1/667c1a87-e8f8-4ea7-8ab9-08dc70a23431). This is similar to recent laws put forward both in the UK and across the US, in that it would require separate single sex male only, female only, and unisex toilets in new buildings.
29 April 2024
As we've just had two weeks of school holidays, I've just spent a week in Australia. Sadly during that time a new set of Mormon missionaries were unable to visit me at home to try to convert me. But, don't despair, they've already messaged me again and we've arranged to meet on Saturday. At this point I'm not sure if they seriously think they have a chance to win me over, or if I'm just a sport for them - but I enjoy the conversations, so I'll continue to let them visit me at home and take a couple of hours of my time.
29 April 2024
The MLM Olive Tree People came to my attention a year ago, and I've been keeping my ears open for any news of expansion because the conceit of the entire MLM at present is something to behold. At the time, I was more interested in following a different MLM called Elomir. Elomir sold oral film strips that can apparently assist in mental clarity and weight management, but operations quickly flamed out due to poor stock management and poor stock in general. Some Elomir reps landed in The Olive Tree People MLM, just as some Monat reps are attracted to it now.
2 April 2024
A few months ago Bronwyn wrote an article about Sex.Life, a New Zealand podcast by Morgan Penn, a “somatic sexologist”, and Hayley Sproull, a comedian. The first season of the podcast is of interest to skepticism, as it details Morgan's 10 day visit to Highden Temple (outside of Palmerston North), owned and run by Bruce Lyon. Bruce claims to channel the spirit of a long-dead spiritual master, and also runs Sex Magic classes - part of the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA).
18 March 2024
Apologies for this week's newsletter being a little late - I was planning to finish it off last night, but I was hit by some weird medical issue where I had a horrible headache and ended up sleeping from 5pm to get rid of it.
18 March 2024
With the encouragement of Mark and Bronwyn from the NZ Skeptics committee, I attended a meeting about Effective Altruism at Rationalist House in Auckland on the evening of 13th March.
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:
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.
4 March 2024
I'm a bit of a fan of internet drama - at least the kind where someone is accused of wrongdoing. The to and fro of accusations, rebuttals, evidence, and eventual apology video, with a backdrop of hundreds of eager new YouTubers hoping to gain followers by creating reaction videos, giving their own commentary, or even adding to the investigation, is fascinating to watch, and its online nature means that everything is easily accessible from the comfort of my living room. I can watch half a dozen videos, then go searching for background information, piecing together my own picture of who the main players are, how they're perceived within the online community, and just how screwed their internet “careers” are.
19 February 2024
You may or may not have heard the term “crank magnetism”. I had heard of the term, but I'd completely misunderstood its meaning. Yes, this item is going to be a bit of a laugh at myself as much as anything!
19 February 2024
Our ongoing plagiarism project is going well - thanks to the people who reached out and offered to help with running the text we have through TurnItIn. We're now receiving reports from two different academics who are putting the documents through two different plagiarism detectors. Our evidence, and the website we're building to showcase it, is coming together well. It's been a lot of work so far, but there's a lot still to do, so we'll keep working until we've built the most thorough case we're able to put together - we really want to make sure we do this well, as it involves serious accusations.
5 February 2024
This article is a brief introduction to facilitated communication (FC) - what it is, and what harm it can do for a person being facilitated. I will also give some guidance on what you can do to help.
23 January 2024
A few days ago the NZARH, an organisation based in Auckland that I help out with, received an email from someone looking to forge connections:
8 January 2024
Plissken Boon is attempting to warn the world of the catastrophe that is about to overtake the Covid vaccinated and unvaccinated. I can't find anything about him and he doesn't have a bio. He appears to live in NZ. A reasonably complete version of his jeremiad is on substack A Very, Very Clever Way ... To Kill You! (substack.com) dated 14th January 2023. His writing is awful...he uses ellipses frequently and unnecessarily, his screed is very long and disorganised, full of repetition and much belittling of those who cannot see the truth of his research.
25 December 2023
Although most of my friends on Facebook are either skeptically-minded or at the very least have a respect for science and evidence, I do have some outliers. In the past I've sent or accepted friend requests from visiting Mormons, conspiracy theorists and others who are comfortable engaging with me. Additionally, a significant proportion of the time I spend on Facebook is spent browsing the facebook feeds of people who have a very different world view to mine.
11 December 2023
You'll no doubt have heard about the supposed revelations of COVID vaccine deaths recently revealed by an IT employee of Te Whatu Ora - a government agency - the MInistry of Health.
27 November 2023
Recently Facebook has been showing me AI generated fake images in posts from pages that appear to be designed to trick people into thinking the images they post are real. Since I keep interacting with these posts out of skeptical curiosity, I've found that there are now plenty of scammy AI posts in my FB feed. It's clear to me that they are AI-generated, but the worrying part is that many people are being fooled by them.
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
And speaking of documentaries, there's recently been not one, but two short documentary series on streaming platforms about the Twin Flames Universe cult, each with three episodes.
24 October 2023
I trust you all voted in our recent fractious election, even if your vote was “None of the above”, as democracy is more precious than some people realise. Democracy is under fire in many parts of the world, as people become sceptical about its benefits, or as some awful leaders and their parties come to power, or (as is the case in the US) threaten to. But there is another way of looking at the purpose of democracy, as proposed by the eminent philosopher Karl Popper.
9 October 2023
Over the past week or two, I've been having email conversations with a person from the other side of the skeptical fence. This person I'll refer to as Mark - which is his real name, but I'll not give any more information about him. (By the way, our skeptical newsletter writer Mark Honeychurch has sworn he's not running some elaborate joke on me!)
2 October 2023
Crybully: “A person who engages in intimidation, harassment, or other abusive behaviour while claiming to be a victim” - Wiktionary
25 September 2023
There was a recent RNZ interview done as part of their Expert Feature series, which runs on Monday afternoons with host Jesse Mulligan.
11 September 2023
I might be behind the times (I usually am!) but this week, while doing some YouTube surfing, I came across a video on Fractal Wood Burning - specifically warning of the dangers of it. (And, of course, the YouTube algorithm, which I liken to a toddler, has now filled my page with other videos like it!)
14 August 2023
It's been a very busy week for me, with various things happening, including recording the latest episode of our Yeah… Nah! podcast in which we interviewed Dr Siouxsie Wiles and Gwen Isaac about the Ms. Information documentary we've recently covered. It's well worth a listen (in my humble opinion).
14 August 2023
I've already discussed in my previous articles about the Global Flourishing, or GloFlo/∑±, movement. A few months ago I joined this group, which was claiming to be rationalist and have the answers the world needs to survive. I had my doubts, and was there because of my concerns that the group was looking less like a social movement for positive change, and more like a cult. The group was run by Paul, who had changed his name online to Ui and then again to ∑±78c7e.
7 August 2023
As a reminder of what we covered in my last article on the Global Flourishing movement, also called ∑±, it's a new group setup in Auckland recently by a member of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists. The group claims to be aligned with skepticism, humanism and rationalism, but appears to have some concerning characteristics that make it look less like a group of skeptically-minded people, and more like a cult - at least to me.
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.
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).
3 July 2023
As a skeptic I love a good mystery - the kind of puzzle that Arthur C Clarke would write a book or make a TV show about. A couple of weeks ago I found a set of YouTube videos about a contrived mystery - one that's been deliberately created, rather than many of life's “mysteries” that come about because of misunderstanding and a lack of scientific understanding - or real mysteries where there's nothing otherworldly, but just a lack of information that would explain the backstory to a situation.
26 June 2023
Reading some of the latest research on chronic pain management led me down a rabbit hole of further reading, and the discovery of just how damn weird and counterintuitive pain is.
19 June 2023
Bronwyn suggested I do a bit of psychology myth-busting. So here goes. There are so many I could write a book, so I've picked five. You will notice I haven't included any that relate to actual mental health disorders, I will leave that to the professionals.
12 June 2023
No doubt everybody knows about the news of late last week about the indictment of former US president Donald Trump on various federal charges relating to his wilful retention of classified documents, hiding documents, and obstruction of justice. In my opinion, this is a cause for celebration, that they've finally built a case that they can prosecute.
6 June 2023
Today I'd like to bring something slightly different to this august newsletter, by discussing crank economics - something that exists in abundance, but can be a little difficult to discuss in venues like this. For one thing, it falls outside the standard set of sceptical skills, and for another it is essentially impossible to discuss crank economic ideas without implicating political beliefs, and that's a fraught exercise at the best of times.
22 May 2023
I was so pleased to hear on your latest podcast that you are interested in becoming a scrapbooker and/or card maker! It's a great way to preserve your memories rather than have them languish on your phone, to be lost at Google or Apple's whim.
8 May 2023
Having been a member for many years, I think it is about time that I made a confession, which I am told is good for the soul even if it is not very good for my continued membership. I am a committed church member, even though the word “committed” makes me think of mental institutions and prisons. I think of the scriptural stories as parabolic and written to guide one's behaviour, definitely not intended as a scientific text. Therefore when a story is physically impossible or extremely unlikely, I simply shrug my shoulders and think that it is a fable and the important part is the message it is portraying. I would never think of using the Bible as a physics or astronomy textbook any more than I would use the physical science texts as a moral guide. Interestingly, I note that many people who have no religious affiliation take great comfort in thinking that when they die they will meet up with old friends who have “gone before”. I think it would be churlish of me to tell them of my doubts in that regard. Also, I have enough humility to recognise that we are still very far from knowing everything about the physical world.
1 May 2023
Curiosity is part of the human condition, and we are always seeking out information. We devour it. But the world is overflowing with information, and it is really hard to work out what is worth spending our time on and what is not.
24 April 2023
The School of Prophets Aotearoa has this year's annual training school on 4th-6th May in Christchurch, and the fees are very reasonable ($180) - although you have to pay for dinners and accommodation. But before you rush to sign up, perhaps to find out the next month's Lotto numbers, be aware that (1) you'll need to have intermediate or senior level experience as a prophetic minister and (2) you'll need a pastor's reference to attend. The course is apparently not suitable for beginners.
17 April 2023
The last time I wrote my newsletter, I wrote about the NZ Skeptics $100K challenge. We'd just launched it, in conjunction with the NZARH (New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists), who are putting up half of the prize money.
11 April 2023
In my previous articles about Eastern Lightning, the Chinese cult group that I've joined to get an insight into how they operate, I've talked about:
3 April 2023
Do you think that QAnon is not ambitious enough in its scope? Then you need NESARA.
3 April 2023
At the beginning of this month, we launched our $100K paranormal challenge. The idea is that if somebody can demonstrate a paranormal ability or product, they get to claim the $100,000.
27 March 2023
In my last two articles about Eastern Lightning, I've documented both the central tenets of the religion that they have been trying to teach New Zealanders over the last few months in their Level 1 and 2 fellowship groups, and some of the tactics, such as love bombing, that they've been using outside of the fellowship time to keep members invested in attending the group. Immediately after finishing in the Level 2 group, I was moved to a new Facebook chat group called “_NZ gathering in Almighty God-(10pm Mon/ Wed/ Fri)_”. As you can see from the title there was some blessed relief here, with a reduction from nightly meetings to just three a week. Thank God!
20 March 2023
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my experience of joining the Eastern Lightning group, a Chinese Christian sect that is currently trying to expand through spamming New Zealanders on Facebook, and running online fellowships to introduce new adherents to the religion. I detailed my first few days in the group, working through their “Level 1” lessons, and some of the conversations I had during the love bombing I received on the first few days from multiple church members.
6 March 2023
I received a company wide email at work recently from a colleague, where they were recommending an app to help people concentrate during work hours by minimising distractions. What caught my eye, though, was a justification given for the need for this app. Apparently if you've been distracted at work, it takes people on average 23 minutes - or, to be precise, 23 minutes and 15 seconds - to fully regain your focus and get back to your work properly. Now, as a skeptic, the specificity of that number alerted me that this was probably nonsense. On top of the unlikely nature of that number, I wondered what relevance “fully” regaining your focus is. If your focus (however that may be measured) is 95% recovered in the first 60 seconds after a disruption, and the rest of the time is a slow crawl to 100%, I imagine that's not so bad. If it's a linear recovery, then it's not so great.
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.
6 March 2023
Have you ever received spam messages from an obscure Christian church on Facebook? I did, and it led me down a rabbit hole into the mysterious world of Eastern Lightning. I started investigating Eastern Lightning, aka the Fellowship, aka The Church of the Almighty God, at the end of January. A cult-like, doomsday Christian church, I joined the religion on the 1st of February. It's been a long and gruelling month. I have lots to share, but for this week I'll try to analyse what I've managed to find out about their local membership.
27 February 2023
If you live in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which most of our readers do, it's time for the 5 yearly census.
13 February 2023
As I write this on Sunday morning in Auckland, we're beginning to see the start of bad weather from Cyclone Gabrielle, which is expected to cause high winds and extreme rain in the upper North Island.
13 February 2023
I began my weekend on Friday night with a trip into the Auckland CBD to try to catch roving fundamentalist evangelical preacher Lincoln Russ.
7 February 2023
No, I'm not talking Skynet here or robots overrunning the earth. I'm talking about the more subtle tools in the background that tend to do a bunch of boring administration. You probably haven't even thought of them overly much. But they might be responsible for what your doctor decided to prescribe you on your last visit, that job you never got shortlisted for, your acceptance into a programme of study, or the reason your bag was searched at the airport.
30 January 2023
As most readers will know, I live in Auckland, which has been subject to torrential rain this weekend, resulting in wide-spread flooding, and three people dead, so far. It was certainly a record-setting event, with close to 300 mm of rain recorded over a 36 hour period at one site, and nearly 250 mm of rain at Auckland Airport (which was closed due to the resulting flooding). It's fairly safe to say that the amount of rain we got can be attributed, at least partly, to climate change. Expect more of the same in coming years.
24 January 2023
I was listening to Steve Hassan speaking on a podcast recently, A Little Bit Culty - hosted by ex NXIVM cult members Sarah Edmondson and her husband Anthony Ames. Steve is well known by now for his BITE model of control in cults, and I've written about this model and its usefulness before.
16 January 2023
“Jock's a Scotsman, and he doesna' like whusky.”
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
Skeptics, rationalists, atheists, freethinkers and other secular folk often encounter an annoying rhetorical device when discussing politics, ethics or history with religious people. If conversation turns to some atrocity or scandal committed by adherents of some religion, members of religion often deny that it has anything to do with their “real” religion. Pedophile priests are “not real Catholics,” suicide bombers are “not real Muslims,” and so on.
19 December 2022
Last Monday (12th December) there was a tragic incident in Wieambilla, Queensland, leaving six people shot dead.
21 November 2022
Our annual conference starts on Friday, and for those of you who plan to come but haven't bought a ticket yet, you'd better be quick. I spent yesterday afternoon with Bronwyn and Daniel, running through a sound check at the venue, testing that the technology works as expected, finalising our catering and trying out our Friday night "entertainment” (we also had enough time to grab a quick beer at the Welsh Dragon bar, our venue for Friday evening's event).
21 November 2022
On Wednesday evening I attended the Wellington leg of Franklin Graham's God Loves You tour at the TSB Arena. If the name sounds familiar, it's probably because Franklin is the son of Billy Graham, who was quite possibly the most famous Christian evangelical preacher of the 20th century. Billy Graham was well known for his large revival rallies (known as Crusades), with claims of bringing millions of people to the religion. Bronwyn has previously written for us about one of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's projects, the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.
21 November 2022
Craig wrote last week about his experience at the Auckland Go Green Expo, and I also mentioned that myself and Bronwyn, along with Daniel Ryan, attended the Wellington Go Green Expo a couple of weeks ago. As I mentioned briefly on last week's podcast episode, apart from the frustration of the fact that the vast majority of stalls have nothing to do with going green, one particular stall annoyed me more than any other.
14 November 2022
Many skeptics will be familiar with the practice of some Christian fundamentalists to stand on street corners warning the public of their impending doom in hell should they fail to repent and believe in Jesus as they do. Usually, these are reserved for inner cities where they can target vulnerable young people (at least, that's what I've seen happen).
31 October 2022
In depressing (but expected) news this week, it seems that it's highly unlikely we'll be able to constrain global warming to 1.5C, and that we're on a path of irreversible damage to the climate which may well lead to catastrophic failure of the climate and likely extinction of vast numbers of species including humanity. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I do worry for the future young people today.
31 October 2022
Our annual NZ Skeptics Conference, being held in Wellington on 25th - 27th November is just weeks away now.
31 October 2022
This week the social media landscape changed. Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter, after a rather interesting historical timeline around the deal:
25 October 2022
In just a few days a curious annual internet event will begin: No Nut November (NNN). For those not in the know, nutting is a colloquial term for a man ejaculating - and No Nut November is the idea that it's good for people to take time off from ejaculating during November. At places like Reddit's “NoFap” group (fapping is a slang word for masturbating), people talk through November about how well they're doing with the challenge, which has somehow morphed from being an internet joke to something that many young men are taking seriously.
25 October 2022
A notorious religious group from South Korea called Shincheonji (also known as Mount Zion) has apparently been actively recruiting in Auckland recently. Shincheonji has a long history in New Zealand, with underhanded recruiting techniques used to pull people into the cult group. Many years ago, the church in Wellington was using university students to lure people in. I also found a warning from a popular evangelical church here in Wellington from last year, letting people know that a group member had been attending church services and attempting to convince people to jump ship and join Shincheonji. Apparently this process can start as “an invite for coffee” followed by an invite to a Bible Study, from where attempts are made to convince the mark that Shincheonji is the one true religion.
17 October 2022
We've covered Alex Jones many times in the past. Alex Jones is a fairly well-known far-right radio show host and conspiracy theorist. Most skeptics will be aware of his InfoWars website, which promotes conspiracy theories and certified-real fake news.
17 October 2022
We've talked about the local body elections over the past couple of months, and now the results are in. Local freedom, anti-vax and conspiracy theory group Voices for Freedom tried to sway the elections by encouraging their members and supporters to stand but hide their affiliations.
12 September 2022
For anyone who wants to groan about how bad our local press can be, there's an article from the Telegraph, reprinted by the Herald and titled "Scientists discover humans produce invisible aura of air-cleansing molecules", that talks about the idea of the existence of an “aura” around our bodies. The article uses a recent study that looks into a small amount of “free radicals” that are generated by our skin to argue that, technically, these chemicals could be considered to be an aura.
29 August 2022
On Tuesday, Freedoms and Rights Coalition members converged on Wellington for another protest about our “freedoms”, and of course I was there to see what was going on.
22 August 2022
Last week Stuff Circuit, part of the Stuff media organisation, released their Fire and Fury documentary.
22 August 2022
So in a couple of months we're all going to have the opportunity of voting in the local body elections, for our city, district and regional councils. And in some areas, there are elections for local and community boards too.
15 August 2022
By which I mean I recommend watching a new documentary called “Gloriavale”, which focuses on the infamous religious group. I most definitely don't recommend converting to their religion and moving to the Gloriavale compound on the South Island. I went to a Film Festival viewing of the documentary yesterday, before general release to cinemas next week, and there was also a fascinating Question and Answer session afterwards with some of the filmmakers and subjects of the documentary. Here's the trailer:
1 August 2022
I've always been interested in IQ tests and how they work. There's an interesting, and deep, conversation to be had about the issues with IQ tests. Without going into too much detail, although IQ tests appear to have some utility, there are problems for example when it comes to cultural differences among the people being tested. If an IQ test has been written from a single cultural perspective, and makes assumptions based on that culture, people who haven't been brought up in that culture can do badly on tests because of their differences in understanding of the questions being asked.
1 August 2022
Online news outlet Vice reported recently about a growing problem of witches, psychics and tarot card readers having their online profiles copied as a way to steal their business. I also found an episode of the “Your Magic” podcast where host Michelle Tea talks with Sarah Potter, Sabrina Scott and others about the problem:
25 July 2022
This past week has seen the alarming heat waves in Europe, with the UK seeing highest ever temperatures, exceeding 40C.
25 July 2022
Just a friendly reminder that the Covid pandemic is not over. We continue to see cases and an alarmingly high daily death rate, which had an all time high of 32 people dying one day last week.
18 July 2022
I have a good friend who often helps me out by sending me articles that might be of interest to Skeptics - and they sometimes come in handy both for this newsletter, and for my regular weekend radio chats with Graeme Hill on Today FM. He's is one of quite a few skeptically minded friends I have who have no interest in the organised skeptical movement in New Zealand - he just lives his life being wary of the nonsense that surrounds us.
11 July 2022
In my last newsletter, I put a call out for people to help with a project investigating pharmacies and the pseudoscientific products they had on their shelves. We got a good response, with several people coming on board to help with the project.
11 July 2022
If you've been around skeptical circles for a while, you'll have no doubt heard of the Georgia Guidestones - a granite monument that was constructed back in 1980 in a rural area in the US state of Georgia.
11 July 2022
I regret to inform you that the psychics have won. They've clearly demonstrated their abilities and the $100,000 challenge at Puzzling World in Wanaka is now over.
11 July 2022
I got into a conversation with some people on Twitter over this past weekend, after commenting on an article about people overdosing on vitamin D.
27 June 2022
This weekend I took a look at the FutureFit website. This site is designed to make people aware of their carbon footprint - the amount that their household is contributing to climate change through Greenhouse gas emissions.
27 June 2022
NZ Skeptics has been running a project that investigates products sold in pharmacies that are based on pseudoscience - you know the sort of stuff - homeopathy, and various herbal remedies with scant evidence of efficacy.
27 June 2022
Last week it was announced that the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade - the landmark case from 1973 that protected the rights of pregnant people in the US to have abortions. The ruling set out rules around what states could regulate depending on the trimester stage of the pregnancy.
20 June 2022
The title of this one's a mouthful, and it's an interesting one to pick apart - it includes some of my favourite technologies, one that I think is going to be an important part of our future and the other which I think is a storm in a teacup, and unlikely to disrupt anything of note.
20 June 2022
I once met Katherine Smith, the Editor of the New Zealand Journal of Natural Medicine (not a magazine I'd recommend reading - it'll make you angry!). We had an enjoyable chat, and as we were at a wellness and spiritual festival, WellFest, she had no idea I was a skeptic. She showed me her folder of photos and cuttings about the “synchronicity” she'd experienced in her life - a series of spirals, stretching from a spiral painting she made as a young child, through to photos she'd taken in the '80s with faint spirals in the background, and a recent picture of a weird glowing spiral in the sky she'd cut out from a newspaper. I told her that I recognised the sky spiral, that it was a picture from Norway of a Russian rocket booster. Of course she was having none of it - the spiral in the sky was a sign for her, part of a message the universe was sending her through a series of events too unlikely to be coincidence. And of course she wasn't interested in reading into this phenomenon any further - she'd decided what it was, and what it meant to her, and that was enough.
20 June 2022
On Friday night just over a week ago I went to a Save Our Children meeting. Now, most people will read that and think I've been a civic-minded citizen, going along to a charity meeting. Save Our Children is a good thing, right? To which the answer is no, because Save OUR Children is not the same thing as the established charity “Save THE Children”.
13 June 2022
Louise Wallace is a reality TV actor, most recently having appeared on The Real Housewives of Auckland - a show I've not seen, but the title of which puts me off immediately. She's also previously appeared on various current affairs shows, and also worked as host of The Weakest Link, a TV quiz show from the early 2000s..
13 June 2022
I continue to monitor the emails sent out by the Voices for Freedom crowd. My reaction is usually a combination of disbelief and despair. My impression is that they're struggling to remain relevant. Now that the vaccine mandates have disappeared, they seem to be concentrating on all manner of whacky stances.
7 June 2022
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my visit to Counterspin's travelling roadshow (maybe circus is a better term?), but I figured that everyone might want some background - and an update on how their tour's going.
23 May 2022
I watched a great video on YouTube the other day, the latest in a series of videos by Mark Rober where he uses glitter bombs to surprise scammers. His project started off using a device that targets people who steal packages from people's porches. A fake package was built that would activate when opened, with a glitter throwing disc, a mechanism to press down on a fart spray nozzle, and cameras to record and upload thieves' reactions when they opened the packages in their homes or cars.
23 May 2022
Yesterday evening I attended an interesting Counterspin Media event in Wellington. Counterspin, for those not in the know, is an “alternative” media organisation in NZ run by Kelvyn Alp and Hannah Spierer. They have a small studio from which they create long videos about conspiracy ideas, and post these videos to places like Rumble, Telegram and GTV (because they keep getting banned from more moderate platforms such as YouTube and Facebook).
9 May 2022
Most of us will know Ken Ring both for his claim that he can predict the weather by looking at the moon, and his supposed ability to predict earthquakes. Here's Ken talking about how you can supposedly also use rainbows to predict the weather:
2 May 2022
Recently there's been a flurry of activity from a group in New Zealand who believe that they are Sovereign Citizens - that they have disconnected themselves legally from the laws of our country. Sovereign Citizens believe that the government is an illegitimate corporation with which they have no contract - that they can therefore exempt themselves from our country's laws, and pick and choose which laws they want to obey, which they describe as common law.
25 April 2022
A friend (Gaylene Middleton from the New Zealand Humanists) contacted me on the weekend as she had been messaged by one of her Facebook friends about a Government Grants assistance program she is apparently eligible to receive funds from. She immediately looked up the name of the program - Federal Grant For Family Home And Care Support (FGHS) - and found an article warning that it was a scam, and then she messaged me to double check and because she thought I may be interested in it. Here are the messages she received from her FB friend, which she passed on to me (apologies for the really bad grammar):
18 April 2022
As I write this on the Sunday of Easter weekend, it was announced on Saturday evening that John Cameron, lead pastor at Arise church, had resigned his position on the board, though remains as an employee of the organisation. Additionally, his brother Brent had also resigned from the board. This was announced through a statement on their website.
18 April 2022
It would be hard to miss that there has been some controversy in the science community in Aotearoa/New Zealand around the role of Mātauranga Māori (translated as Māori knowledge) in the school curricula.
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:
11 April 2022
Arise church is near to my heart - when I first arrived in New Zealand back in 2005, my wife joined the church while it was still small, and before it was even called Arise. Since then it has grown to be a behemoth - every so often I check on Arise's annual returns, and it seemed that each year they would expand enough to make about $1 million more than the previous year. At the moment that number stands at $13 million in income for the last year. They also own several properties worth a combined $21 million, including a church building in Wellington worth $10 million or more.
4 April 2022
I've previously revealed that I keep an eye on Voices for Freedom by subscribing to their email newsletter, where they send out communications to their flock. I don't pretend that they're not aware they have “moles” who subscribe - and so it's likely that their newsletter only contains the most sanitised versions of their thoughts. I don't have the personal free time or inclination to subscribe to their Telegram channels to see what's really being discussed behind the scenes.
21 March 2022
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, propaganda raises its head. Propaganda has always been a tool of war (and peace) but we're seeing escalation to new levels.
14 March 2022
It's nice to be reminded sometimes that the number of skeptics in society is likely to exceed the number of Skeptics in our Society by several orders of magnitude. I was reminded of this recently after seeing a couple of interactions on social media, one where a friend tackled misinformation, and another where it was the friend that was spreading misinformation. In both interactions, the misinformation was quickly and easily debunked, with references given to sources. The first one was about Ukraine's president Zelenskyy being a Nazi, as “proven” by a picture of him holding up a football (I'm from England, so for all you kiwis I mean soccer here) shirt with his name and a swastika on it. The second is about the recent parliament protest, with an image of a child who had supposedly been pepper sprayed by the Police.
7 March 2022
The population of New Zealand is changing – and not just because there are more of us, including many new immigrants, or because people are living longer. The other great change is that fewer people are religious and New Zealand is increasingly secular.
7 March 2022
Last Wednesday, the “anti-mandate” protest at the Parliament Grounds in Wellington, which had lasted for 23 days, came to an end. It was not an end that the protestors wanted, but was forced on them by police action.
28 February 2022
Although Bronwyn's put together this week's newsletter, I couldn't help myself and wrote a small piece about the protesters' obsession with Nuremberg.
14 February 2022
I'm sure everyone is aware of the convoy that headed to Wellington on Tuesday. This collection of cars, campervans and the occasional truck has descended on our capital, supposedly as a protest against the vaccine mandates that our government has put into place over the last few months. On my way into work in Wellington on Tuesday I hit the motorway a little before the first of the groups of vehicles did, and was greeted with the depressing sight of a hundred or more supporters on the bridges between Porirua and Wellington, many of them holding signs created by Voices for Freedom.
7 February 2022
Another person I've written about in the past is Dr Sam Bailey. To refresh your memory, she's a doctor, previously practising as a GP, based in Christchurch. She appeared on a TVNZ medical show - The Check Up.
31 January 2022
I'm not normally one for jumping on bandwagons, but when I saw friends posting on Facebook over the last few days that they were cancelling their Spotify subscriptions, I figured this was one cause I could get behind.
24 January 2022
As you read this you'll know that the country is now back into the red traffic light setting. The Omicron variant of COVID is now out in the community and, given its transmissibility, expected to spread widely and quickly. In the press conference yesterday it was acknowledged that there is likely undetected transmission of Omicron in the community. Omicron has likely been transmitted by flights around the country (a flight attendant was infected with Omicron) and people also have attended a wedding and visited various venues.
17 January 2022
I'm not a fan of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, the original and most "successful" of them, has not followed its creator's vision of being a decentralised currency that allows people to make payments to each other without having to go through traditional banking systems. Rather, instead of Bitcoin being used as a digital currency for purchasing online, people are using it as an investment, speculating on its price and hoping for “massive gains”. This is evidenced by both its high price per coin and its volatility. Hardly any Bitcoin transactions are actually involved in buying or selling goods, and the high price of Bitcoin these days means that the Proof of Work idea for securing the Blockchain (the shared list of transactions that records all transfers of Bitcoin) ends up using over 1,000kwh of electricity for each transaction. The promised decentralisation of Bitcoin is also mostly a myth these days. What Bitcoin has become is a way for greedy people to make money from other greedy people. Its creator, the enigmatic “Satoshi”, is probably despairing of what happened to his creation - if he's still alive.
17 January 2022
I was scrolling through my emails today, looking to see if I had received any Why Are You A Skeptic responses from any of you. Sadly there was nothing I'd missed; no stories of how you'd found skepticism after an all-night bender where you'd snorted ketamine and met God, or how you've always been skeptical since the age of two.
10 January 2022
Over the past week or so we've seen headlines separately related to the magnitude of the holiday road toll, and high number of summer drownings.
3 January 2022
A surprising endorsement of COVID vaccines came out recently - from none other than Donald Trump. Trump has a spotty history when it comes to supporting good science, and he's well known to skeptics for touting several unproven cures (including that particularly confusing press conference where he talked about bleach and an internal UV light).
3 January 2022
The Lotus-Heart restaurant in Christchurch has chosen to take a stand against vaccine mandates, by refusing to let customers know if they require a vaccine pass, not promoting use of their COVID Tracer QR Code, and not having any system in place to check vaccine passes. As a result they have been fined $20,000 dollars by WorkSafe.
20 December 2021
A couple of weeks ago I attended an online sermon from Destiny Church with a few friends. The sermon started off fairly tame, with Brian joking about viewers eating popcorn - so I went and grabbed a bag of popcorn for us to eat while we watched. I figured it was the least a group of heathens could do.
20 December 2021
Last week Craig introduced a new section to our newsletter, which he's named Why Are You A Skeptic. We're keen to hear from each of you about why you're a skeptic, and to publish your stories in the newsletter. If you're up for it, please send your story to newsletter@skeptics.nz. For now, here's my story of how I came to skepticism, and why I'm involved with the NZ Skeptics:
13 December 2021
It has emerged that there's a man who's been showing up to receive the COVID vaccine on behalf of other people (for which he's being paid), having up to 10 vaccinations in a single day.
13 December 2021
We love getting feedback on the newsletter, and hearing others' perspectives. And, we think that others would like this too.
29 November 2021
NZ Skeptics has its Annual General Meeting on Sunday 12th December. We'll be holding this online, and we'd encourage any interested members to come along.
22 November 2021
For those who use Facebook - you may have seen a video advert recently using Jacinda Ardern as a way to promote a cryptocurrency. Obviously this is fake - Jacinda does not want you to “invest” your money in any crypto currency, and it's very likely that there's not even a real crypto currency or crypto company - just a website that will get you to transfer your hard earned money to scammers. Even if there was a real cryptocurrency involved, you would likely lose most or all of the money you risked. I saw people talking about this scam on Facebook, but I have enough layers of ad blocking at home that it proved too hard to get Facebook to show me any adverts at all, so I don't have a copy of the video.
15 November 2021
The BBC (in its travel section) has an interesting article on the Skirvin hotel in Oklahoma, supposedly the most haunted hotel in the US. The article talks a little about the hotel and the ghosts that supposedly haunt it, and then details how the journalist paid for a ghost hunting couple to come and see if the hotel was really haunted. Things have changed in the ghost hunting world - where historically ghost hunters have used physical devices to record “anomalies” such as temperature changes, Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF) fluctuations and the like, these modern day ghost hunters have an app for that - or rather several apps, of which they mention the names of two of them in the article. So I figured that, as a skeptic, I really should take them for a test drive and see what they can do.
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.
8 November 2021
It continues to amaze me the lengths science deniers and anti-vaxxers will go to to try to convince people of vaccine harm. This week, Daniel published some pictures from an anti-vax group on our Facebook page, purporting to show extreme bruising after the COVID vaccine. You can take a look at Daniel's post here but here's a taste of the claimed bruising
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.
26 October 2021
Last week Sue Grey (lawyer) was back at the High Court challenging a “no jab, no job” order on behalf of aviation security workers who lost their jobs at the end of September for refusing the vaccine.
18 October 2021
It seems ridiculous, but a man in the US is suing a psychic he asked for life advice. The psychic, Sophia Adams, told customer Mauro Restrepo that his marriage was at risk because of a “mala suerte” (bad luck) curse placed on him by an ex-girlfriend. For only US$5,000, she was willing to lift the curse and save his marriage.
18 October 2021
Sandra Goudie is the Thames Coromandel Mayor who has been in the news for refusing the Pfizer vaccine, saying she will wait until she can receive the Novavax vaccine. Goudie is quoted in the NZ Herald as saying she “believes it is "absolutely wrong" that some people should be mandated to have the vaccine…”
18 October 2021
The government is really pushing the COVID vaccine at the moment, including with this weekend's Super Saturday - where around 130,000 vaccines were administered in a single day.
18 October 2021
I naively thought that the whole QAnon movement would fall apart after Trump lost his bid for re-election. For those who have somehow not heard about QAnon before, it's a conspiracy that started in the US a few years ago, and is supposed to be the writings of a high-level government insider who leaks secrets via hidden meaning and codes in his messages. However, it's been obvious since the start that QAnon is not an insider, but just a made up persona used to promote right wing ideas and Donald Trump in particular. As Wikipedia says:
11 October 2021
Back to COVID seriousness now. It's been a frustrating week where we've seen the Delta variant now escape Auckland and head out to other parts of the country.
4 October 2021
When talking with people about skepticism, I've often used a convenient classification to separate what I see as two main camps of skeptics. In my oversimplified model there are a) those who are skeptical because they consider themselves to have read enough to be experts themselves on a wide range of topics, and b) those who defer to people who are the experts on any given topic - people who have relevant qualifications, decades of experience, and the respect of their peers and the wider academic community.
27 September 2021
This week I came across an article about a COVID anti-viral pill. There's some hope that an antiviral (similar to the well-known Tamiflu) could work that would be used to treat people with COVID. The action of the pill would work to reduce the viral load.
27 September 2021
And speaking of anti-vaxxers, there's another one that's emerged from the woodwork.
27 September 2021
Dr Samantha Murton, president of the Royal NZ College of GPs, has spoken out about the problems of social media "influencers" who spread wellness misinformation online. Although many influential people on social media are followed because they have celebrity status - sports stats, TV celebrities, etc - many influencers have built their following purely based on their social media work, posting on topics that people want to read about, and pushing for people to "like and subscribe" using a variety of often dubious tactics.
13 September 2021
I've written in the past about Sue Grey, the lawyer and past candidate for The Outdoors Party. She's an out and out conspiracy theorist and her Facebook page is a magnet for the most rabid anti-vaxxers.
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.
30 August 2021
The COVID Delta outbreak in Aotearoa New Zealand continues, with Auckland (where I live) and Northland being remaining in level 4 and the rest of the country moving to level 3 from Wednesday 1st September.
23 August 2021
Of all the people who spoke publicly about this week's arrest, Amy Benjamin, a senior lecturer of international law at AUT, was the most surprising to me.
23 August 2021
It feels like it was inevitable that some of the conspiracy theorists, or “freedom fighters” as they call themselves, would end up protesting our latest level 4 lockdown. I'm not surprised that their shared delusion that lockdown is just a ploy by the government to permanently remove our freedoms would cause them to risk the health of all of us. But it has been disappointing to see a few hundred people around the country gathering to protest at a time when we've all been told to stay at home to limit the spread of a deadly disease.
23 August 2021
The not totally surprising result of these protests is that the police have been arresting protestors. However, they've not tried to arrest everyone, or to pick up just those who are the loudest or the most aggressive. Instead they have been carting away key members of the conspiracy/fringe movement.
16 August 2021
Last weekend I got my first shot of the COVID vaccine. Given my advanced age of 55 years, I became eligible to book a vaccine, which is done through the “book my vaccine” website. I found the process to be pretty smooth, and they allowed my wife (who is younger than me) to ride my coattails and also receive her vaccine.
9 August 2021
This one surprised me a little. I fed GPT-2 about a dozen holy texts, with the intention of generating some text that was their distilled, combined wisdom. Instead, what I received each time I ran the generator was an attempt to recreate text from just one of the books I'd trained it on. The results are impressive - although the text generated by deep learning doesn't always make a huge amount of sense, I think it could be reasonably argued that the same is the case for genuine holy texts!
2 August 2021
In good news this week, Facebook has finally shut down the anti-vax, conspiracy-theory-mongering group Voices for Freedom's page. They're upset:
26 July 2021
Sensing Murder psychic Kelvin Cruickshank is currently touring the country. He's been down in the South Island recently, visiting Christchurch and a lot of smaller towns, and selling tickets at $65 a pop. Next month he'll be touring the North Island.
19 July 2021
Over the past few weeks there have been various extreme weather events that are now being attributed to climate change, whereas once scientists were more cagey on the issue - saying that it's never possible to blame any one event on climate change. But the evidence is stacking up, and we see temperature records being broken - 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record.
19 July 2021
Yes, the pandemic is still with us, and alarmingly new strains are emerging. Evolution does what evolution does.
19 July 2021
As I've written before, one of the main purveyors of vaccine misinformation is the anti-vax, conspiracy theory group Voices for Freedom. You will have seen their distinctive branding with their blue, teal and green signs and professionally printed placards.
12 July 2021
I enjoy playing computer games, and own both a gaming PC (RTX 3060 Ti, i5-10400) and a VR headset (Quest). So when I heard about an ambitious new game for PCs, VR and phones, it piqued my interest. The game is called Earth2, and is pipped to be a 1:1 copy of earth, with a faithful reproduction of the entire planet in software. Their website makes comparisons to the movies The Matrix and Ready Player One, both of which feature VR environments that are indistinguishable from reality. This sounds pretty ambitious... maybe too ambitious.
12 July 2021
While trawling conspiracy websites and videos, as I tend to do for fun, I stumbled across a recommendation for a local kiwi numerologist. But the recommendation said that, unlike the usual mystical nonsense, this particular numerologist uses science and maths to find real patterns that are actually useful.
5 July 2021
This past week saw the release of a report on misinformation, on research conducted by the Classification Office Te Mana Whakaatu. The Classification Office is traditionally responsible for classifying media, such as films and assessing whether material may need to be restricted.
23 June 2021
Someone called Daryl Trask has recently placed a petition on change.org asking people to sign their support for an overthrow of our government. The petition says:
23 June 2021
Now that I've found out about Rebel Wisdom, I'm hooked. I usually have to go hunting for my nonsense, but the Rebel Wisdom website has everything in one place: Rupert Sheldrake (who has silly ideas about supernatural mental powers), Alan Watts (who has silly ideas about religion and philosophy) and Jordan Peterson (who has silly ideas about all sorts of things) are all featured.
23 June 2021
US Senator Louie Gohmert, from Texas, has recently asked the country's Forestry Service if they can look into a thought he's had about how to combat climate change:
21 June 2021
Speaking of anti-vaxxers, they've recently set up a website which allows people, including doctors, nurses and allied health professionals (including alt-med practitioners) to register themselves as objecting to the COVID vaccine rollout. They claim to have 33 doctors, 123 nurses, 244 allied health practitioners (gee, I wonder why this number is so large compared to the number of doctors!) and over 3,300 NZ “concerned citizens”.
21 June 2021
We're still in the COVID pandemic but last week I had some cause for cheer. I've previously reported on the actions of anti-vaxxer groups, who seem to be made up largely of privileged (and entitled) middle-aged people (Boomers and Karens, to be derogatory).
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.
19 May 2021
Sue Grey, Nelson lawyer and co-leader of The Outdoors Party (an anti-vax, anti-5g, anti-1080 political party), had her day in court last week, taking the government to court over their COVID vaccine rollout. Although I was not able to spare the time to spend the day in court, I did manage to briefly visit the outside of the High Court in the morning, and when I got there Billy TK, who had decided to join the circus, was arguing outside with security guards. It turns out he had been kicked out of the court foyer for filming in a prohibited area, and of course his being removed was just proof that the system is corrupt. Go Billy!
12 May 2021
On Monday night I visited parliament, where a group called Jesus for NZ had been invited by National MP Simon Bridges to hold a church service called the Power of One.
10 May 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
10 May 2021
I've been watching the Facebook page of Voices For Freedom. To me it's staggering the output of their page, with their frequent posts. often several a day. They have over 7,000 people following the page.
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
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.
3 May 2021
Normally I would be excited to hear that a prominent biologist is in New Zealand, but in this case the biologist in question is Dr Bruce Lipton - a figure who is well known to skeptics.
28 April 2021
Essential oils are concentrated extracted plant chemicals that have a strong smell of the plant they were extracted from - their "essence". These oils are often heated in a diffuser, or evaporated via a wick, in order to spread their smell. Of course, if nice smells were all these oils were about, there wouldn't be much for me to be skeptical about.
28 April 2021
The Centner Academy in Miami, Florida has barred its teachers from being able to see students if they've been given the COVID vaccine, and will not be employing new teachers who have already been vaccinated. They argue that because the vaccines have not yet been fully tested, there is a risk that they could have unknown issues that may affect other people.
21 April 2021
There's been a lot of talk recently in "alternative" circles about vaccine deaths. This has been prompted by the massive global rollout of several different types of COVID vaccines - mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna), Viral Vector (AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson), Inactivated (CoronaVac, Covaxin), and others.
19 April 2021
Honestly, I don't think I could make up something this daft if I tried. Thanks to an astute member of our NZ Skeptics Facebook group, I now know about a New Zealand company - Hippo Health - who are marketing a fascinating sun block for animals.
19 April 2021
Thankfully the claims in this pamphlet are pretty easy to debunk:
14 April 2021
A work colleague reached out to me the other day with an interesting question. One of his close family members has fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole, and now spends a lot of time talking about QAnon, the "Deep State", etc. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with these kinds of rabbit holes, it's not entirely benign - the family member has now branched into COVID vaccine denial, which has a real chance of negatively impacting on their health.
12 April 2021
Research by the American Center for Countering Digital Hate has revealed that almost two-thirds of all misinformation about vaccines being spread on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter arose from just twelve individuals and their associated organisations. And on Facebook they account for 73% of all anti-vax content.
12 April 2021
Last week Mark wrote an interesting item in the newsletter around Scientologists using deceptive means to lure people in to their “courses”. We got some feedback from a reader in the US - we love getting feedback! - so I thought I'd share it. Ray from Philadelphia writes:
24 March 2021
A UK company, Football Index, has financially collapsed over the last as its users have realised that the entire thing is nothing more than a pack of cards.
24 March 2021
On Saturday I attended one of several Freedom Rallies around the country. In Wellington, the rally was set for midday at the train station. It was a fairly low key affair, with flyers being handed out saying that masks and the vaccine are both ineffective.
22 March 2021
I read a very good article today in The Atlantic explaining some of the subtleties around the COVID vaccine. In particular we shouldn't be surprised when vaccinated people get infected.
17 March 2021
We've just had the second anniversary of the horrific Christchurch massacre, and as skeptics it's sad to have seen over the last two years those in our country who have posted content denying that the attack was real, or claiming that it was a "false flag" operation. It's been hard enough over the last 20 years watching high profile conspiracy theorists, such as Alex Jones, engage in denial in the US for events such as the Sandy Hook massacre and the 9/11 attacks. But to see this kind of wrong headed thinking at home somehow feels worse. I guess we've been able to rest on our laurels watching America suffer from a spread of the conspiracy mindset, and at least for me it seemed implausible that the problem would ever reach our fair shores. I guess I was just too naive.
17 March 2021
A group who monitor extreme Right Wing groups, Hope Not Hate, have published an article detailing a weird attempt to hijack the QAnon conspiracy. The new conspiracy theory, called Sabmyk, has been creating new channels on Telegram, Gab and BitChute in an attempt to entice those who have become disillusioned with QAnon since Trump left office and the promises of QAnon fell through. Why not Facebook and Twitter? Probably because many right wing activists have been driven off of those platforms in the last few months as admins have removed thousands of accounts for posting hate and misinformation. Telegram offers a modicum of anonymity, and Gab and Bitchute are a social network and video hosting site respectively that are less regulated and more welcoming to extreme views than the mainstream social media sites, claiming that they're pro free speech.
17 March 2021
The AstraZeneca vaccine has made the news recently, as several European countries have halted its rollout temporarily due to reports of blood clots. These issues are real, but it's important to look at how many incidences of this issue there are, and how that compares to other vaccines. It turns out that not only is the incidence of reported clotting similar to that seen with other COVID vaccines, but it's also similar to what you'd expect from a population that haven't received any medical interventions. Both deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism levels for the millions of people who have taken the vaccine are about what would be expected of a random selection of people in their day to day lives. Sadly some people just get blood clots at times, and people can have exacerbating medical conditions that mean they're more susceptible to this issue.
15 March 2021
Today is the second anniversary of the horrific Christchurch massacre, and as skeptics it's sad to have seen over the last two years those in our country who have posted content denying that the attack was real, or claiming that it was a “false flag” operation. It's been hard enough over the last 20 years watching high profile conspiracy theorists, such as Alex Jones, engage in denial in the US for events such as the Sandy Hook massacre and the 9/11 attacks. But to see this kind of wrong headed thinking at home somehow feels worse. I guess we've been able to rest on our laurels watching America suffer from a spread of the conspiracy mindset, and at least for me it seemed implausible that the problem would ever reach our fair shores. I guess I was just too naïve.
1 March 2021
As everybody no doubt knows we're back in lockdown again - level 3 for Auckland and level 2 for the rest of the country.
22 February 2021
The controversial conservative US radio host Rush Limbaugh died this week. Although this isn't something that the NZ Skeptics feel is okay to celebrate, we do acknowledge that Limbaugh was responsible for the spreading of many damaging and harmful conspiracy theories, and was very mean spirited to people he saw as the enemies of the US, including those who were black, gay, liberal, female and/or atheist. Unsurprisingly, the work Rush Limbaugh undertook spreading his divisive message was recently rewarded with America's Medal of Freedom. Rather than going into more details of Limbaugh's life, I will leave it to the (hopefully impartial) BBC's obituary if you would like to know more.
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
Or at least that's what NewsHub would have us believe, with an article published on Tuesday about the benefits of Reiki, an energy healing technique that involves the practitioner manipulating your “energy field” by waving their hands around your body.
18 January 2021
The author of my Bible – The Vagina Bible, Gynaecologist, columnist and author Dr. Jen Gunter was on Twitter recently, again, to educate people about how a vagina is able to self-clean, without any help from the wellness industry which is doing its best to make money out of people by shaming them into thinking they have to fix a problem that isn't there.
18 January 2021
There were many false claims made on 14th January, by Billy Te Kahika and his supporters outside the Beehive in Wellington. The most dangerous claim was that Covid-19 is no more deadly than the flu (2 million people have died worldwide at the time of writing). Among other strange things, they claimed that Jacinda Ardern is a communist who wants to keep putting New Zealand into lockdown, including organising one again on 15th January, the day after the protest.
11 January 2021
An image that has been making its way round the internet recently purports to be a circuit diagram for a 5G chip which is inside COVID vaccines. However, those who are technically musical minded have pointed out that the image is actually that of a guitar effects pedal called Metal Zone from company Boss.
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.
4 January 2021
Around this time of the year it's common to be spending time with extended family and friends.
4 January 2021
NZ Skeptics is a registered charity. If you're already a member now's the time to pay your subs. If you're not a member, please consider joining us to support the work we do. Membership is only $40/year for waged/salaried people, and $20/year for unwaged people. You can sign up on our website.
4 January 2021
At the start of each year, it's common for psychics and mediums to put out a bunch of predictions for the coming year. These predictions generally fall flat, although a common strategy for some psychics is to put out so many, often vaguely worded, so that there's a chance that some of them will actually come true, at which point they capitalise on this, claiming to be the World's Most Accurate Psychic™!
28 December 2020
In the very first verse of The Grinch, we learn that the Grinch hated Christmas, and then Dr. Seuss writes “Now please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason”. My young self always wondered about that. Why couldn't I ask? Was I supposed to not ask questions so I wouldn't feel guilty about parcelling him up in my mind as the bad guy? That advice always seemed very sinister to me. I'm instinctively deeply skeptical when someone tells me not to question something.
28 December 2020
What's the harm in viral conspiracy theories? This bbc.co.uk blog investigated the people who had been affected by and involved in the spread of misinformation in 2020. The piece touches on Covid-19-deniers who ended up contracting the illness, people who became internet sensations and ended up speaking to thousands about their conflicting and nonsensical notions, and the hurt of having newly estranged family members.
21 December 2020
As Skeptics we're not very fond of scammers, and we often try to protect the public from those who would rip them off with dodgy devices and ineffective products. The video below documents a feat of engineering, a device that targets the problem in the US of people who steal people's parcels - and it targets them in a pretty funny way. Although theft is not really a scam, it's still enjoyable to see unethical people get their comeuppance - and it's mentioned later on in the video that this device has also recently been used against scammers. And to be honest, I needed a good excuse to share this video!
14 December 2020
Renowned Otago researcher, Jim Flynn has died, aged 86. He discovered a very interesting effect - now named after him - the Flynn Effect, which states that IQ scores are increasing decade by decade. Basically, people are scoring better on IQ tests than they did in the past. This has had the effect of moving the 100 score - which is, by definition, the average IQ score upwards. There is speculation on the reasons for the Flynn effect, but nothing completely conclusive. But it is interesting to ponder.
7 December 2020
It's been a very busy few weeks for me of Birthdays, training, events, and Christmas tree decoration. My irrational rage at people who erect festive trinket dust collectors before December 1st has abated, only to be replaced by incredulity over people who are 'decorating' their routers with faraday cages to protect themselves from 5G.
30 November 2020
I'm sure most people saw the intriguing news that a tall prism shaped metal structure, now known as the Utah Monolith, had been found by conservationists in the desert in the US, sticking out from the rock floor of a canyon. It's been great to see sleuths figure out where the monolith is located, using flight plans and google maps satellite view (in a slot canyon in Lockhart Basin in San Juan County, Utah), approximately when it was placed, using historical satellite photos (between August 2015 and October 2016) and how it was made, with several people visiting the site (it's hollow and made from riveted stainless steel sheets). However, the mystery of who put it there has still not been solved.
9 November 2020
The Luminate festival, held each year outside of Nelson, has always been a little out of touch with science. But, as David Farrier shows, things appear to be getting worse. The festival has been flirting with conspiracy theories and woo peddlers, in a list they published on the Luminate website called the “13 Crystal Seeds of Positive Change”. The list included the names of people who have inspired the festival's organisers. You get one point for each of the following names you recognise:
18 August 2020
Here are some common medical myths that are easy to dispel:
1 May 2020
What an amazing last few months it's been for the world. The world, of course, is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. How individual nations have responded to the pandemic has been quite diverse. We are extremely fortunate that the NZ response has been along the lines of listening to experts and locking down the country to halt the spread of the virus.
1 May 2020
Take this questionnaire if you enjoy critical thinking and have a high tolerance for nonsense.
1 May 2020
Skeptic summary: Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel says people with an Asian background are staying at home to avoid racist comments from people assuming they might be carrying coronavirus (Covid-19). This is the harm of misinformation, and a reminder again that we can't be smug and think New Zealand don't have a racisim problem. It does.
1 May 2020
Lockdown made me think of what it would be like to travel to Mars. Stuck in familiar confines, the same people around every day. The same food. A slowly diminishing blue marble the only vibrant object in a black sky hung with tiny white stars.
1 February 2020
As a society, we generally recognise science as the best source of information about the world we live in and the choices we must make as individuals and societies. And yet, we also find ourselves in a time where, for certain specific claims, scientific evidence is routinely ignored and rejected by certain groups.
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 November 2019
This is a part of a talk Craig presented at the No Barriers Conference at Great Barrier Island in September 2019
1 August 2019
I'm Sheree McNatty, Secretary of NZ Skeptics. I've just been asked by a teen about how Skeptics disprove psychics, paranormal activity and the afterlife. When I was a teen I was interested in finding proof of paranormal and the afterlife. I told enquiring Aunts that I wanted to be a Parapsychologist when I left school. I found the thought of people I had known who have died being somewhere else comforting and I wanted to experience it and prove it. Friends and I had seances, I did Tarot and tea leaf reading and tried mind reading. There had to be something after this left and I wanted it to be real. However, it led me to become a Skeptic as no matter what we tried it wasn't convincing. I also found out there was no point being a Parapsychologist as nobody is going to fund repeated experiments that have failed every time.
1 August 2019
With that odd title out of the way, I want to get to the heart of what our role should be as skeptics, and how to properly do scientific scepticism.
1 August 2019
Skeptic summary: Students took a test to measure their belief in pseudo-scientific ideas before and after a course in critical thinking and a control course. The good news is, the course in critical thinking dramatically reduced participant's belief in pseudoscience! The not so good news is, this course is not currently rolled out at every school in the world, and belief in pseudoscientific ideas seem to be on the rise.
1 May 2019
In late March, representatives from NZ Skeptics attended an evening session of 'Psychic Healing' in Christchurch, as performed by so-called 'psychic-healer', Jeanette Wilson. NZ Skeptics Society was formed in part to examine and counter this sort of ridiculous woo, so we felt it was important to investigate and report on the sort of depths to which woo-sters will go.
1 May 2019
Recently, I was in conversation with a couple of people here in Tutukaka. The topic was the local tourist map which I produce and pay for with a series of small advertisements. I was asking them to advertise their business. One of them said she was not happy to do so since the tourist map was not environmentally friendly. My eyebrows went up, and I pointed out that the map was on card board, which was biodegradable. She agreed, but said her problem was the ink which was full of chemicals. Again, my eyebrows went up, and I suggested that everything was full of chemicals, including the human body. She disagreed vociferously. Only synthetic evil products contained chemicals.
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 February 2019
Yesterday afternoon I met with a group of ex Jehovah's Witnesses.
1 February 2019
How to be a pseudoscience investigator
4 November 2018
There were hundreds of Christians at Parliament on Tuesday calling for the reinstatement of the name of Jesus in parliament's prayer. There were people wearing Make America Great Again hats, bikers in leathers proclaiming the lord, and some pretty horrendous banners - including one calling Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard a "dishonourable Judas".
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.
14 October 2018
Last week a friend let me know that someone in my area was giving away kangen water for free - presumably in an effort to get people to sign up to buy a water filter.
30 September 2018
Yesterday afternoon I met with a group of ex Jehovah's Witnesses.
16 September 2018
This morning I went along to two church services with a visiting academic, Hamed, who is over in New Zealand from Iran. He had never seen a Christian service before, and had been told to ask me about taking him along to a service. I decided to show him two extremes of what church can be. We started at the Cathedral of St Paul, and then went to Arise evangelical church.
16 September 2018
I had a phone call this week from "Spark". I spoke to a couple of Indian gentlemen who explained that my private IP address had been made public, and that this meant that my internet connection was compromised.
19 August 2018
I've spent this weekend at the Jehovah's Witnesses convention, titled "Be Courageous", in Porirua. There were estimated to be 2,000 attendees. I ended up going this year because a couple of local Jehovah's Witnesses, both of which have come to my door over the last few years, made a point of visiting me earlier this week to invite me.
5 August 2018
This weekend was the Humanist Conference in Auckland, with some great international and local speakers.
1 August 2018
I was having a flu jab the other day (because I believe in the amazing power of vaccines to prevent illness and protect vulnerable people in our community from infection) and told the nurse I was the editor of the NZ Skeptics (I know what a bragger!), and guess what, she assumed I didn't believe in vaccines. I soon cleared things up and she seemed genuinely relieved and shook my hand. It made me wonder what type of negative experiences she's had with people when they found out what her job is, and also if the idea of skepticism perhaps needs a bit of positive P.R.
22 July 2018
Sellers of alternative therapies usually say publicly that they always recommend their patients continue normal therapy while they also use acupuncture, herbal remedies, etc for their medical conditions. This is especially important in the case of people who have life threatening medical conditions that can be successfully treated with conventional medicine, such as cancer. However, there are many stories in the news of people who have enough faith in their choice of alternative medicine that they decide not to use conventional therapy, or turn down some proven conventional therapies on offer - and in the worst cases, the alternative therapy practitioners actively dissuade their patients from using modern medicine.
22 July 2018
We talked about a court case a while ago involving Johnson & Johnson, and a claim that asbestos in their talcum powder has been giving people cancer. A new decision in the US has seen a court award damages of nearly NZ$7 billion to 22 people who claim to have been affected by this issue.
8 July 2018
There have been promising results from a recent trial of an HIV vaccine. An effective vaccine would be a useful part of our fight against AIDS related deaths. The new vaccine needs further trials, but in the study showed an 80% immune response, which is much better than previous attempts to create a vaccine. In brief, as I'm sure everyone knows, the HIV virus causes AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome - and it's this compromised immune system that can be fatal.
24 June 2018
In Canada, a man has been selling bottles of medicinal hot dog water for $38. The organic beef hot dogs were boiled before being added to unfiltered water and poured into a vial shaped like a test tube. The seller, Douglas Bevans, said that the water would:
24 June 2018
It seems that every new advance in technology is accompanied by people who are willing to warn the world of made up dangers. Anti-vaccine advocates have been around since the beginning of vaccine use over a hundred years ago. People have warned others about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, GM foods and the LHC - all of which have a very low risk profile, and confer major benefits to society.
10 June 2018
Dr Oz is up to his usual nonsense, promoting an author who claims that astrology can predict your health. Rebecca Gordon believes that the Vitruvian Man may hold the key to how the signs of the zodiac map to parts of our body and indicate health issues, and has a new book: "Your Body and the Stars: The Zodiac As Your Wellness Guide".
10 June 2018
It's always good to see people who aren't known to me in the skeptical community making complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. Dr Holmes complained to the ASA recently about a Sanitarium Weet-Bix advert for their new gluten free product. In the advert a woman says:
27 May 2018
New Zealand's first flat earth conference has just been hosted, last Saturday in Auckland. Around 30 "flat mates" crowded into the Backyard Bar's function room to listen to conversations about how the earth is flat, including live streaming of speakers from overseas.
13 May 2018
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.
29 April 2018
There's been some interesting local research on people with health conditions doing their own research. The Southern Cross Health Society has looked into whether people look up their symptoms on google before visiting their GP. They talked to GPs about their patients, and found out that an increasing number of them are coming into their practices with knowledge taken from the internet of what is wrong with them.
29 April 2018
I was contacted by a journalist for the Sunday Star times a few days ago with some questions about Ken Ring. He's predicting an earthquake for June or July the 13th to 15th.
29 April 2018
I've found another fun conspiracy theory - V2K. Weirdly, it stands for "Voice to Skull" and is a technology where voices can be beamed directly to your head. This is another conspiracy theory that until recently was new to me. The idea is based on the fact that microwaves can be used to create a clicking noise inside someone's head. This is known as the microwave auditory effect, and was discovered in World War Two by people who worked near radar devices. The likely mechanism for the clicking is that parts of the inner ear are being rapidly heated up by the radio waves. The microwaves can be varied to create what sounds like a human voice inside someone's head, which is pretty cool.
15 April 2018
There's a new fad to put mushroom in your coffee. Claims are being made that these powdered mushrooms can help your health and wellbeing.
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 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
Companies in the US are selling "raw" water, which means the water has been untreated. At $50 for 9 litres, it seems pretty expensive for something that's likely to leave you sick.
17 December 2017
In September, a 70 year old man apparently burst into flames in London. It's a sad event, and a horrible way to die. The press have started calling it a case of Spontaneous Human Combustion - the idea that people sometimes just randomly burn.
3 December 2017
In a recent article Cracked dot com has pointed out flaws in several popular conspiracy theories.
5 November 2017
My kids went out trick or treating the other day for halloween, and came back with more than just chocolate and lollies. Religious pamphlets were being handed out at some of the local houses, and my 10 year old daughter knew that I'd be interested to see them.
1 November 2017
As a parent, I know what it's like to worry about whether you are doing the right thing for your child. When my daughter was born, I couldn't quite believe that after just a few days in hospital we'd be going home in sole charge of a small infant. Didn't they realise we were unqualified?!
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.
15 October 2017
Doterra is a successful multinational company which sells innovative medical treatments - or at least that's what they'd have you believe. In reality, it appears to be a Multi Level Marketing scheme, based on Essential Oils, which preys on vulnerable people and makes dangerous untrue claims about their products.
8 October 2017
These days, with modern technology, it only takes a matter of days after most tragic events before conspiracy theorists have converged on an "alternative narrative". For the Sandy Hook massacre, there are people who claim it was a "false flag" operation where no children were actually killed. For missing flight MH370, the aeroplane was apparently re-routed to a secret military base.
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.
6 August 2017
Debbie Merrick bought a doll for £5 and then placed the doll on eBay, after making international news by talking about the doll being haunted. Apparently the doll scratched Debbie's husband, although the doll was not seen causing the scratches - the husband simply woke up with scratches on himself. The determination that the doll caused the scratches came from a psychic friend.
1 August 2017
An exploration of joy and meaning in a world without God
16 July 2017
Women's gifting circles have made the news again this week as they are now officially considered a pyramid scheme by the Commerce Commission.
16 July 2017
The group responsible for bringing Vaxxed, an anti-vaccine movie, to Australia and New Zealand is still causing issues in our country. There are more screenings of Vaxxed coming up, including one in Wellington that I will try to attend:
18 June 2017
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has been handing out cross shaped vials of a "holy oil" which it says have been blessed in Jerusalem and can "activate people's faith" in order to treat medical conditions such as depression, addiction, heart problems and chronic pain.
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
Robert Bigelow is convinced that aliens are not only real, but they have visited earth and are living on our planet. He believes that his grandparents were visited by an alien craft, and says that he has spent millions gathering evidence that aliens are among us. People have pointed out that his company Bigelow Aerospace's logo looks a lot like the head of a "gray" - the most popular depiction of an alien, with big almond shaped eyes and a teardrop face.
23 April 2017
Last Sunday I went to church - not once, but twice. Arise is a large evangelical church that started in Wellington about 15 years ago, and has grown and spread to several other cities.
23 April 2017
Kelvin Cruickshank has made the news because he's promoting a new book - "Surrounded by Spirit". In the book he claims he talked with the spirit of Jonah Lomu at a show last year, apparently unaware that Jonah's brother John was in the audience:
9 April 2017
We talked about Te Kiri Gold last year, when Sir Colin Meads was in the news endorsing it as a treatment for cancer. Although it wasn't on sale back then, and Vernon had been promising to run proper scientific trials of the product before putting it on the market, this seems to have now been forgotten.
26 March 2017
The NZ Census asks a question of respondents about Religious Affiliation. Historically, the only response available for non-believers has been "No Religion". NZ Stats have now added several categories in time for the next Census in 2018.
26 March 2017
Shaquille O'Neal gave his support to the flat earth conspiracy movement on a podcast recently. However, although many websites were quick to jump on this, it turns out that Shaq was just joking:
5 February 2017
I was messaged this week by someone who works near the new Scientology centre in Auckland. They told me that there are lots of Scientologists out on the streets at the moment, including outside the nearby hospital, trying to bring people into the church. The way they do this is quite disingenuous, normally starting with offering a free personality test - the Oxford Capacity Analysis test (nothing to do with Oxford University)
22 January 2017
Scientology are pushing to open new "Ideal Orgs" around the world, and Auckland's old Whitecliffe Art school building has been converted to a new Org. It was purchased in 2007 with a $10 million loan from Scientology central, but recently local Scientologists borrowed a further $6 million to restore and modernise the building.
18 December 2016
The Society for Science Based Healthcare were asked about Applied Kinesiology this week and I helped to write this response to questions:
18 December 2016
I was contacted by a journalist about a local cancer "cure", Te Kiri Gold, and sent a response (with a little help from ex-chair of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde):
18 December 2016
Nigel Antony Gray, who "predicted" last month's earthquake on Facebook, has recently shown just how daft, and dangerous, he is.
27 November 2016
After last Sunday's show, when I talked about Bioptron at the Go Green Expo, a Bioptron rep called up RadioLive and asked for me to contact them. I called, and was then contacted the next day by a Division Manager for Bioptron - David.
27 November 2016
We have some great speakers for this year's Skeptics Conference, including Susan Gerbic who runs the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project. Her team put a lot of work into adding a skeptical angle to Wikipedia pages and fleshing out pages of interest to skeptics, such as those of famous scientists.
13 November 2016
Obviously people around the world are painfully aware of the many crazy beliefs held by president-elect Donald Trump. However, what's less well known is the range of nonsense that Mike Pence, America's future Vice President, believes.
21 August 2016
After a recent second campylobacter issue in Havelock North, it turns out that the Hastings water supply is not treated with chlorine to kill bacteria.
17 July 2016
FYI is a great website for making Official Information Act requests. You can submit a request to a government department through the site and all correspondence is made public on the site.
17 July 2016
Pokemon Go is a new game where people have to use their phones and walk around their neighbourhood catching Pokemon (little animals) and visiting pokestops. Many churches are pokestops, as places of worship have been registered.
10 July 2016
I was asked for my thoughts about the most recent Sensing Murder re-run last week, and an article was published on Monday talking about the program. I talked with journalist Carly Gooch about how there are only around 60 unsolved murders from the last 100 years, and that it wouldn't take much for a "psychic" to memorise some of the details of each of these cases. I also managed to find an article online from 5 years before the program was filmed which detailed most or all of the facts that the psychics were able to produce.
10 July 2016
This weekend's lottery Powerball jackpot was worth $40 million, with 3 winners. The NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB reported on Richard Lustig, a US man who has won several prizes and written a book explaining how to win the lottery.
26 June 2016
A petition on change.org has been signed by 1,000 vets asking for the UK to blacklist homeopathy as a treatment that vets can prescribe for animals. Over 2,500 people have signed it in all.
26 June 2016
Tom DeLonge, the guitarist of a rock band in the US which was popular in the early 2000s has denied rumours that he's quit the band to focus on research into UFOs and aliens.
19 June 2016
A young woman died this week, while she was trying to raise $70k to fund and alternative cancer treatment at the Brio Clinic in Thailand. Amanda Ferreira also died last month from cancer. She had been to the Brio clinic once, and had been raising money to have further treatment there. Common treatments are heat therapy, ultrasound and pH transformation (probably alkaline).
12 June 2016
Maureen is the newest member of parliament, a National Party MP who seems to have a few pseudoscientific beliefs.
5 June 2016
Family first have confused correlation and causation in a recent report, and stated that unmarried couples are a major cause of child poverty.
5 June 2016
Rush Limbaugh, US radio talk show host, has used a conversation about Harambe the gorilla to argue that evolution does not work.
13 March 2016
The Mandela Effect is where people have false memories of past events, and decide that there's been a jump to an alternative universe where history is different.
28 February 2016
Submissions are closing next week for the Natural Health and Supplementary Products bill, which seeks to regulate alternative medicine. Although there are several issues, such as the use of "historical evidence" being allowed, the bill in general is positive. People are encouraged to read the bill and make a submission.
7 February 2016
Research is coming to light that antioxidants in food and drinks are not useful to aid health, and may actually be damaging to us.
1 February 2016
The alternative to the New Zealand flag is “bad feng shui” and could bring bad luck, instability and even a stock market crash, a New Zealand feng shui consultant says.
1 February 2016
How the standards of skeptical thinking can be used to reject ineffective charities in favour of effective charities.
1 November 2015
From the NZ Skeptics Conference November 2015...
1 November 2015
With its scenic miniature railway, the National Rugby Museum and the country's second-largest ball of string, Palmerston North is often wrongly described as “the Armpit of New Zealand”.
27 September 2015
Matthew Dawson-Clarke, 24, from Auckland was in Peru and took part in a cleansing ceremony.
20 September 2015
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people laugh, and then think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.
1 May 2015
Midsummer New Zealand. Driving to Jen and Camilo's house I pass two missionaries. On a hot and humid February afternoon in Palmerston North, the two handsome young Mormons dressed in immaculate white shirts breeze along on bikes. Their flawless presentation and purposeful demeanour is a contrast to the dusty, lethargic city around them. Pondering them as I drive by, I formulate another question for the people I am going to meet.
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
The spread of new technologies has caused an upheaval in the world of the media, but gives skeptics many causes for optimism. This article is based on a presentation to the 2013 NZ Skeptics Conference in Wellington.
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 August 2014
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 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
Matthew Willey finds Skeptics in the Pub hasn't been as much fun lately
1 February 2014
"Alkaline and hydrogen-rich" water is being touted as the latest cure-all.
1 November 2013
Alison Campbell reviews_ Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam, _by Pope Brock. Three Rivers Press, New York.
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 November 2012
… then there's little hope for the world, says Alison Campbell, who attends far too many meetings. Fortunately however, that may not be the case.
1 November 2012
Government plans to establish charter schools look like providing a way for creationists to get their teachings into New Zealand's classrooms (Dominion Post, 19 August).
1 November 2012
If the beliefs of a sizeable number of people turn out to be correct, this will be the final issue of the NZ Skeptic. According to a survey of 16,262 people in 21 countries conducted by market research company Ipsos for Reuters News, two percent of respondents strongly agree, and eight percent somewhat agree, with the proposition that 21 December 2012, the end of the current cycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar, marks the end of the world. Perhaps surprisingly agreement is highest in China (20 percent), while the Germans and Indonesians (four percent) are relatively dubious. One could perhaps question the representativeness of the sample (comprised of people who have agreed to take part in online surveys), but there must be a lot of people out there who are really worried about this.
1 August 2012
Darcy Cowan takes another look at a subject that just won't go away.
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 May 2012
How should a skeptic relate to those who have other belief systems?
1 May 2012
Adam van Langenberg gives practical suggestions on how to run a high school skeptical society, based on his own successful experience.
1 February 2012
Michael Edmonds' article in the latest issue (NZ Skeptic 101) was very interesting, especially laying out the groundwork for non-chemists. If I still had science classes, I would have them all read it and may pass it on to some friends to use.
1 February 2012
The NZ Herald (10-14 January) must have been having trouble filling its pages during the silly season, looking at its recent series on alternative therapies.
1 November 2011
After almost 15 years of intermittently tagging along with her parents, Iris Riddell reports on her first official attendance at a NZ Skeptics Conference.
1 August 2011
The paranormal field contains both con artists and the well-intentioned. It's often impossible to tell one from the other, but in the end it makes little difference. This article is based on a presentation to the University of the Third Age.
1 May 2011
Englishwoman Doris Stokes was a medium - by which I don't mean her dress size was between small and large. She claimed she spoke to people "on the other side," to use the euphemistic jargon of the darkened drawing room. She was a sort of cosmic Telecom operator, only I suspect her charges were a good deal higher than 99c a minute plus GST.
1 May 2011
Alison Campbell reviews a study of why so many struggle with scientific concepts.
1 February 2011
We've lost another light against the darkness, with the death of Denis Dutton. Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World, gave us the image of the guttering candle, but I think Denis would be the first to cite another comment from that work: "It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
1 February 2011
Research at Victoria University of Wellington is shedding light on the often irrational processes by which people assess new information. This article is based on presentations to the 2010 NZ Skeptics conference.
1 November 2010
His name is Gold, he describes himself as a post- goth Discordian web developer, and one day soon he hopes to be homeless. He' s also the new chair entity of NZ Skeptics. Annette Taylor finds out more.
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 November 2010
After 17 years as chair-entity of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde has stepped down. Annette Taylor talks to her about life, the universe and taniwhas.
1 August 2010
Gold looks back at the first year of Skeptics in the Pub.
1 August 2010
Eyewitness testimony is commonly regarded as very high quality evidence. But recent research has shown there are many ways memories of events can become contaminated. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics conference in Wellington, 27 September 2009.
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 May 2010
At last year's NZ Skeptics conference Bob Brockie reflected on his career as a newspaper columnist and explained why he has no future with the Mormon Church.
1 May 2010
Claire and I have taken a year off to teach English in the Czech Republic. These two photos are our friend Lada indicating the site where Agatha Toott was burned to death 400 years ago.
1 November 2009
Vicki Hyde hands out this year's Bent Spoon and Bravo Awards
1 May 2009
Linley Boniface is to be congratulated for her humorous take on the prevailing hysteria around alleged "white-tail spider bites" (Dominion Post 9 March).
1 May 2009
The flourishing pet psychic industry has received free publicity from an Australian article reprinted in the NZ Herald (23 January). I guess it was the silly season, that time of year when papers are scratching to fill their pages.
1 May 2009
When the Sunday Star-Times decided to survey the nation on how superstitious New Zealanders are and about what, Vicki Hyde got used as a guinea pig. Part One of her responses was published in the last issue of the NZ Skeptic. This is Part Two.
1 February 2009
February 12 is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, and the old guy, or at least his ideas, are still in pretty good shape. While evolutionary theory has been broadened and elaborated extensively in the 150 years since The Origin of Species was published in 1859, Darwin's fundamental concept of natural selection remains central to our understanding of life's diversity.
1 February 2009
A company making pills which falsely claimed to enhance women's breast size has been fined $100,000 for breaching the Fair Trading Act (National Business Review, 16 December).
1 November 2008
If students are to pursue careers in science, they need to be able to see themselves in that role. One way to encourage this may be through the telling of stories. This article is based on a presentation to the 2008 NZ Skeptics Conference in Hamilton.
1 November 2008
Modern skepticism owes a huge debt to ancient Greece. This article is based on a presentation to the 2008 NZ Skeptics Conference
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 February 2008
The death of Wainuiomata woman Janet Moses during an attempt to lift a Maori curse, or makutu, was very widely reported (eg NZ Herald, November 12). Now six women and three men have been charged with her manslaughter (Dominion Post, 12 December). One of the accused women and another man are also charged with cruelty to a child after a 14-year-old was injured in the same ceremony and was treated in hospital for an eye injury.
1 August 2007
Cranial osteopathy is based on the notion that the bones of the skull can be manipulated. Even doctors have been taken in by this nonsense. The following account is by a registered medical practitioner, Dr Putative (not his real name).
1 August 2007
An article in the Listener makes much ado about very little.
1 May 2007
Given that we're called the NZ Skeptics in virtually all instances-our website, journal, the flyers, the publicity posters etc-do we need to go through a formal change to the incorporated society's constitution to implement it?
1 May 2007
I recently spent several weeks motorcycling around southern India and was on the lookout for interesting examples of folk remedies and frauds. Ayurvedic medicine is popular because the remedies are cheap and have a long history of acceptance by ignorant and poor Indians. Middle-class Indians tend to be dismissive of 'Godmen' and Fakirs who can be found near every temple or religious institution but gullible western tourists provide rich pickings. An Austrian woman paid 34,000 Euros for Ayurvedic treatment of her memory loss. It transpired that she suffered from bipolar disorder and after an altercation in a temple she was sent home to Austria and subsequently sued over her unsuccessful treatment. The New Sunday Express Kochi 4 Feb 2007
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 May 2007
Judith Goodyear became the youngest ever presenter at the 2006 New Zealand Skeptics conference with this exploration of the chain letters of the average teen.
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
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
In the 21st century, there are still people who believe the Earth is flat.
1 November 2006
It has become a cliché that whenever something bad happens, a horde of counsellors descend on the survivors to make their lives a misery. It's true. Counselling does make you more sick compared to doing nothing.
1 November 2006
Louette McInnes found a talk by Richard Wiseman at Canterbury University well worth braving the winter cold for. Professor Wiseman holds the Chair of Public Understanding of Psychology at Hertfordshire University.
1 August 2006
One of New Zealand's most senior journalists, and a long-standing member of the NZ Skeptics, has announced his retirement (Dominion Post, 2 December, Sunday Star Times, 3 December). Frank Haden has been best known in recent years for his columns in the Sunday Star Times, but his 50 year career in journalism has included time as editor of the Sunday Times and assistant editor of the Dominion.
1 August 2006
There is little doubt there are criminals who are prepared to drug women in order to sexually assault them. History records the commonest drug used was chloral hydrate in an alcoholic drink (Mickey Finn). The modern equivalent is rohypnol, a drug discontinued in New Zealand owing to its abuse potential. However, as Ogden Nash observed "liquor is quicker" and alcohol remains the most likely cause of incapacity leading to unwanted sexual activity.
1 August 2006
Some people are skeptical about UFOs and alien abductions-but for all the wrong reasons.
1 February 2006
For those of us who learnt of the tragedy through the media, the anguish and grief of the family who lost their two youngest children in the icy depths of Lake Wakatipu is painful even to imagine. We know their lives will never be the same again. So it was comforting to read that the people of Glenorchy are doing what close-knit communities always do in times of adversity.
1 November 2005
In retrospect, it was a cunning move to give us each a Hopi ear candle. Wrapped in pretty cellophane, the little beeswax treats - if used correctly - would ensure people would be in prime mental health. This is essential if you're attending the NZ Skeptics annual conference, as we were. The candles are an amazing elimination technique which improve mental clarity, energy and wellbeing. By inserting them - lit - into the ear canal, they allow glucose and oxygen to enter the brain, restoring neural functions. Of course, expecting a bunch of skeptics to follow instructions was perhaps asking too much. They put them on the ends of their noses. They twirled them and flung them. Anywhere but lit and inserted in the ear.
1 November 2005
Surfing on the massive wave kicked up by the craze for things paranormal is Dunedin's spookiest entrepreneur, Andrew Smith - host of Dunedin's Hair Raiser Ghost Walk. Is it all nonsense, or is there something mysterious afoot?
1 November 2005
What a great Skeptic the winter edition is, thorough forethought all around, with even a hint of hope about the clairvoyant decision. Which is good because although I enjoy reading the magazine it's often quite depressing.
1 November 2005
Could it be that visitations from flying saucers, which have been so frequent over the last 60 years, are now on the wane? Or is something more sinister going on? British UFO-watching clubs, it seems, may have to close because of a lack of sightings, and dwindling interest (The Guardian, 11 August).
1 August 2005
Occasionally, the Skeptics get correspondence from the general public. Chair-entity Vicki Hyde responds to two such inquiries.
1 August 2005
The product Body Enhancer, marketed by the Zenith Corporation, costs $95 per bottle and is "claimed to assist fat burning, muscle growth and liver detoxification." A judge, however, found that the product offered 'bogus benefits' although the couple behind the company remained defiant and claimed that they were "scapegoats for the natural remedy industry."
1 August 2005
The ACC-sponsored conference Many Faces of Abuse (Auckland, 10-12 August 2005) features a plenary speaker, Anne McDonald from Melbourne, who cannot talk, walk or feed herself. Her minder, Rosemary Crossley, is the inventor of Facilitated Communication - a technique whereby a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a severely disabled person and thereby enables that person point to letters of the alphabet. This technique gives severely disabled people the miraculous ability to spell out words, sentences and even whole paragraphs of astonishing, unlikely and often wildly pornographic prose. As a result of Facilitated Communication, hundreds of families and caregivers worldwide have had their lives and careers destroyed by devastating and subsequently-discredited allegations of sexual abuse. Among responsible organisations and individuals concerned with mental and physical disability there is now widespread agreement that Facilitated Communication is nothing more than a powertrip for manipulative therapists who prey on the vulnerability and dependence of the severely disabled.
1 May 2005
The idea that low self-esteem is the cause of violent behaviour has been current for some time. Many years ago I attended numerous education meetings where I heard that certain (male) individuals "lacked self-esteem" when it seemed patently obvious that this was not true. I argued that these individuals greatly esteemed many of their own behaviours - it was just that these behaviours were those the counsellors thought should be deplored.
1 February 2005
The small Pennsylvania town of Dover has become the latest battleground in the creation/evolution war. If it survives a legal test, this school district of 2800 children could become the first in the US to require that high school science teachers at least mention "intelligent design" (ID) theory (Dominion Post, 31 December). In October, the board passed this motion: "Students will be made aware of gaps and problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design. Note: Origins of Life is not taught."
1 February 2005
The battle between the Enlightenment and Romantic traditions is far from over, though it has taken on new forms. This article is abridged from a presentation to the NZ Skeptics Conference, 2004.
1 November 2004
Don't judge them by their demeanour. The vast majority of people in this business are sincere, well-meaning individuals, and they are very hard to distinguish from the con artists. They might well be honest, but this doesn't mean they can do what they think they are doing
1 November 2004
In connection with David Riddell's article about "Ancient Celtic New Zealand" (Skeptic, Winter 2004) your readers may be interested in my more detailed examination of the twaddle in Martin Doutré's book in two articles published in the Auckland Astronomical Society Journal last year.
1 November 2004
A WHANGAREI computer programmer is spearheading an expedition to prove Noah's Ark exists, and that it lies about 2000 metres above sea level in Turkey (NZPA, 17 August). Ross Patterson is convinced that a mound of earth about 12km from Mt Ararat in Turkey contains the remains of the Ark, and says there is strong evidence that the events depicted in the Bible occurred. He had twice visited the site, almost 2000m above sea level and said a need to prove the theory and the associated religious implications had taken over his life.
1 November 2004
One of our members (who was supposed to be teaching carbon chemistry at the time and wishes to remain nameless!) used Jeanette Wilson's TV performances as a resource for teaching critical thinking to her year ten class. The results were encouraging, and very educational.
1 August 2004
On Saturday, July 10, Cynthia Shakespeare died in a car accident on the way to a tramping trip. With her death we have lost a wonderfully enthusiastic and energetic member of the Skeptics.
1 August 2004
Bob Brockie thinks he can explain why the Skeptic editor gets woken up at 2am every Saturday morning
1 February 2004
An anonymous contributor to the website, http://mostembarrassingmoment.com, shares her experiences as a professional tarot card reader.
1 November 2003
Environmental issues have played an increasing role in skeptical subject matter over recent years, ranging from calls for biodynamic possum peppering earning Jeanette Fitzsimons the Bent Spoon last year, to skepticism about global warming, from pooh-poohing of environmental impacts on taniwha habitat to wondering just how much paranoia and hypochondria is at the root of the health issues of moth-ridden Aucklanders in the infamous spray zone.
1 November 2003
Level-headed Virgos everywhere will not be surprised, but a 40-year study of astrology has found it doesn't work (Dominion Post, August 19).
1 August 2003
I am always astonished that famous mystical persons, such as the Virgin Mary (who was transubstantiated into an Australian fencepost in February) reveal themselves to us mere mortals. I once had an experience like that.
1 August 2003
Fear of litigation is a powerful stimulus to over-investigation and over treatment. In an atmosphere of litigation phobia, the only bad test is the test you didn't think of ordering.
1 August 2003
A Waikato University lecturer has been named on a website for Latter-Day Saints as anti-mormon.
1 May 2003
A British man considers himself unlucky because the week he won the lottery, another person did too. So he had to share the £8 million ($NZ23 million) winnings instead of taking home all the money himself.
1 May 2003
Estimates of world poverty are grossly exaggerated
1 May 2003
Some doctors see a problem and look for an answer. Others merely see a problem. The diffident doctor may do nothing from sense of despair. This, of course, may be better than doing something merely because it hurts the doctor's pride to do nothing.
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
What name do you give to a quirky bunch of people who are scientifically literate, who question fads, and who want their beliefs to rest on evidence from the material world -- the sort of evidence that does not require one to ignore or reject all the laws of physics and other knowledge we have and that we rely on daily when flying, taking antibiotics or using the computer?
1 November 2002
A Hamilton doctor is facing two charges of professional misconduct and one of disgraceful conduct after one of his patients was left looking "like something out of a horror movie". The Marlborough Express (August 21) reports Yvonne Short had gone to Dr Richard Gorringe in 1998 looking for a cure for her skin problems.
1 August 2002
Whether or not you believe in the paranormal may depend entirely on your brain chemistry. People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none.
1 February 2002
John Riddell reckons he's a sensible bloke. But then, doesn't everybody?
1 November 2001
A documentary on faith healing that promised to scrutinise the practice demonstrated short-sightedness and has won for TopShelf Productions the 2001 Bent Spoon Award from the New Zealand Skeptics.
1 August 2001
In which John Riddell reminisces about happy childhood days and reflects on the stories we tell to grown-ups
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
Even in a secular age, it's hard to surrender the religious habits of old
1 February 2001
I wished I'd tried this one when I was at Gisborne Girl's High. An Oklahoma student has been suspended from school for casting a spell against a teacher, reports the Dominion (Monday October 30). The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on behalf of the student and also charged the school with repeatedly violating her rights by seizing notebooks she used to write horror stories and barring her from drawing or wearing signs of the pagan religion Wicca. No mention was made of how the teacher was faring…
1 February 2001
Another year, another millennium. We saw the old century out in a very quiet manner, watching Stanley Kubrick's 2001 with friends in Auckland. A few fireworks exploded from the top of the Sky Tower -- and then it was bed time. Given that this was the day when the old century really ticked over, there was far less hooplah this time -- the cockroaches were especially quiet.
1 August 2000
Christian fundamentalists usually come to the notice of the Skeptics when they make pronouncements on scientific matters, as with creationism. But, as Ross Miller indicates, fundamentalism results in junk religion, not just junk science.
1 August 2000
What red-blooded skeptic could turn up an invitation to stay in a haunted house and meet the inhabitants -- certainly not your intrepid chair-entity....
1 February 2000
In which John Riddell continues his pub night discussions.
1 February 2000
It's my right as a parent to decide what is best for my child. After all, I'm a caring parent who dearly loves her children and would do only what is best for them.
1 November 1999
There are three types of people in this country. Those that can count and those that can't. It is common to blame the education system for this.
1 November 1999
TVNZ's Holmes show has taken this year's Bent Spoon Award from the New Zealand Skeptics for promoting extraordinary and untested claims regarding cancer treatments.
1 August 1999
John Riddell looks at a costly alternative to glue sniffing.
1 August 1999
Winter is here, and it's time for all good skeptics to heed the call and flock to Auckland for the annual conference, where illuminating conversation and inspired addresses await. And then the same good skeptics can generate battle strategies to cope with all the fuss about the Millennium and the imminent end of the world. In the meantime, here's a copy of the Skeptic to read while making these important plans.
1 May 1999
IT'S A funny old world, I was thinking to myself on the way home from coffee with a friend. Except, it wasn't coffee, it was decaff, and, to add insult, instant. During which she'd helped me to a generous serving of the state of the universe as she saw it.
1 February 1999
A lucrative new career option!
1 November 1998
SKEPTICS conferences are always a bag of allsorts. Having piped up at last year's AGM and suggested the next conference should be in Wellington, I was landed with organising it. Thankfully, I had the Wellington Cabal to help: Cynthia Shakespeare, Tony Vignaux, Richard Sadleir, Mike Clear, Bob Brockie and Wayne Hennessey.
1 August 1998
Chances are, you're worried about all the wrong things.
1 February 1998
Some problems cannot be resolved by just "getting it all out of your system", reports Nigel Hawkes.
1 February 1998
Another "I've seen the light" American quack whizzed through New Zealand recently, spreading his own magical brew of antioxidants, lacto-vegetarian diets, bioFlavonoid herbs, and, wait for it, Maharishi Ayurveda compounds. Hari Sharma, Professor Emeritus at the Ohio State University, says that physicians are becoming pathogens, they are creating diseases. Like most saviours of the human race before him, he mixes scientific half truths and anecdotal stories to rubbish hundreds of years of painstakingly researched evidence-based medicine (GP Weekly, October 1997)
1 November 1997
WE WERE_ skeptical. We demanded you respond to our clarion call for pithy pieces -- but only a few of you pithed on us. For this we are grateful and we have sent suitable telepathic gifts to all of you, for which you should be grateful. _But seriously, a couple of readers have queried our policy on the format of submissions which they've interpreted as meaning we don't accept handwritten copy. Wrong. Our eyesight is sometimes challenged by the individualistic handwriting styles we sometimes see, so we prefer typed or disc-supplied copy because we can then guarantee accuracy. But above all, we encourage you enthusiastically to send interesting forum pieces in whatever format you have available. The only criteria we use in selecting pieces for the forum is their value and interest to readers. The writer of the best piece published in the next issue will receive the definitive volume on proven homeopathic remedies.
1 November 1996
It often seems as if home schooling is the domain of hard-line Christians. In fact, they're not the only people who feel that their children are better taught at home than in school.
1 February 1996
Skeptics can take an active stance in their daily lives, according to this abridged version of the Chair-entity's after-dinner speech from the Conference.
1 November 1995
The Canterbury ME (chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS) are up in arms over proposed tighter controls on patients receiving both invalid and sickness benefits. CFS patients want funding for "residential detoxification services and "subsidies on natural remedies". CFS is a classical psychogenic illness and as such it is quite improper for any affected patient to be on any long-term benefit on their own terms. Because of self-denial these patients resist any sensible suggestions on treatment and end up chronically unwell in a fulfilment of Abraham Lincoln's statement that "most folks are as happy as they make up their mind to be."
1 November 1995
The Skeptics began in simpler times. Some of us recall when the burning issues of Skeptical enquiry were whether Uri Geller bent spoons, whether Russians were using telepaths to communicate with submarines and whether Lyall Watson had stumbled on a Philosopher's Stone called Supernature. He certainly seemed to be turning something into gold.
1 August 1995
In the last issue I warned of the dangers of a medical ghetto developing on the Auckland North Shore. Fifty new doctors set up practice in Auckland last year and even more overseas doctors are pouring into New Zealand. There has not been a corresponding drop in consultation fees in a local aberration of the law of supply and demand. Fortunately, the Northern Region Health Authority has moved to cap any further increases in doctor numbers which have already cost an extra $20 million in subsidy claims. (Christchurch Press 24/4/95)
1 August 1995
National Radio has scored a first by becoming the first public, non-commercial radio service in the English-speaking world to feature regular astrological advice. Every Monday evening around 8:40 pm Wayne Mowat and Linda Rose make fools of themselves by asking an astrologer earnest questions about listeners' fate for the coming week.
1 February 1995
An editorial in the Christchurch Press (23 Nov 94) was critical of the Universities who are seeking approval from the NZQA and argued that they should continue to set their own high standards.
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 February 1994
Award-winning author and long-time Skeptic Margaret Mahy delivered the after-dinner speech at the 1993 Skeptics Conference. This is an abridged version of her talk.
1 February 1994
A detective with long experience in tracing missing persons gave the 1993 Skeptics Conference the word on how useful psychics are in police work.
1 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 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
The pop star Michael Jackson has denied that he uses chemicals to lighten his skin and claimed to be suffering from a disorder called "vitiligo," which is a spontaneous loss of skin pigment. Jackson said "There is no such thing as skin bleaching. I've never seen it. I don't know what it is." (GP Weekly 24 Feb, 1993)
1 February 1993
Sometimes feeling better isn't a good sign at all... Carl Wyant recalls an occasion when faith healing showed itself better at handling symptoms than causes.
1 August 1992
There is much upheaval among the stars this month. Jupitor moves into the house of Aquarius. Aquarius goes to stay in Gemini's house for the weekend. Meanwhile Saturn moves into the house of Aries for a nominal rent while the builders damp-proof his rings. (They should be out by Thursday).
1 August 1992
Creationists are winning hands-down in the publicity stakes, despite, one presumes, no real assistance in the form of Divine Guidance.
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
Exaggerated claims and scaremongering of such "crises" as global warming, toxic wastes and endangered animals may mean a loss of credibility for environmentalists.
1 February 1992
The debate over how "dry" a skeptic should be in promoting skepticism does not appear to take into account the dangers of ridicule in hardening the very views we are attempting to counter. This is particularly so in schools, where both teachers and pupils have things to learn.
1 February 1992
In the arguments for and against being definitively skeptical, the social climate and moral responsibilities of skepticism are often overlooked. This is an abridged version of the after-dinner speech given at this year's NZCSICOP Conference.
1 November 1991
Armed with rope and stick, Matt Ridley went out at night on his Northumberland farm and within minutes came up with an answer to a recurring summer puzzle.
1 August 1991
Is a high-fibre, cholesterol-free, non-dairy diet the answer to one's health problems? It may be for some, but for others it can pose a downright danger.
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 August 1991
A couple have had five girls in a row. What is their next baby likely to be? (a) boy, (b) girl, (c) either equally likely.
1 May 1991
Englishwoman Doris Stokes was a medium — by which I don't mean that her dress size was between small and large. She claimed she spoke to people "on the other side," to use the euphemistic jargon of the darkened drawing-room. She was a sort of cosmic Telecom operator, only I suspect her charges were a good deal higher than 99c a minute plus GST.
1 May 1991
The Crusader Radulph of Caen expressed doubts about the discovery of the Holy Lance of Antioch during the First Crusade. The drawing at left shows Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, carrying the Lance in battle outside the gates of Antioch.
1 February 1991
by John Allen Paulos. Vintage Books, 1990. 180pp. $23.95
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
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 November 1990
(From the London Sunday Times Supplement)
1 August 1990
A talk given to the 1989 NZCSICOP Conference, Christchurch
1 August 1990
There were some strange responses to New Zealand's first big earthquake prediction.
1 August 1990
While critical thinking is an essential part of the defence against pseudo-science, general knowledge also has an important role. The more knowledge you have about more things, the better equipped you are to detect the propagation of nonsense. However, the authorities may not be so concerned.
1 February 1990
This will be the last editorial that I write as in September, my wife and I will leave for Thailand, where we shall be doing voluntary work. The first issue of the Newsletter went to 80 members, the last one went to 180 (with another 55 going in bulk to the U.S.A.). Such growth in just over 3 years is very gratifying and the credit for that belongs to our members who have so faithfully sent in articles and cuttings. (Especial thanks to Malcolm McCleary who has just sent me more material on the infamous Time Life series of loony books. $35 a throw). I am not naturally efficient, and if I have failed to use your contribution, I apologise. It was my policy to use everything sent to me and if I failed in this it was not intentionally. Thanks are also due to Mark Davies and his gang at Vic who, apart from the first few issues, typed out the material, duplicated it and stapled it together. If you look back over the past issues, you can immediately tell when Mark took over by the startling improvement in the layout and appearance of the newsletter.
1 August 1989
Otago Daily Times, 18 October 1988
1 May 1989
Many thanks to all members who have sent me material recently. Most of it is too voluminous to be used and some of it will be well known to us all. It was nice to have sent on Irene F. Hughes' Golden Numbers form letter and to know that "It is always a strange feeling—opening letters from people whose desire is so clearly intense. At this very moment, your desire is priority #1. It is now '11:33' and your case has just been completed. As always, it gives me a warm feeling to see that once again the numbers reveal their hidden meanings so willingly to someone who asks from the heart." Incidentally my Golden Lucky Number is 11 and so my lucky times are 11 a.m. or 2 p.m.
1 February 1989
Extract From Act of God by F. Tennyson Jesse, a novel published in the 1930's.
1 February 1989
The recent revelations that the United States President's wife consults astrologers in scheduling important presidential events have embarrassed the U.S. Yet this startling discovery reveals only the tip of the iceberg. Throughout the world people make investments, change jobs, select their mates, and seek medical treatment on the basis of astrological forecasts. Virtually everyone knows the "sun sign" under which he or she was born. Yet very few people understand the origins and tenets of this ancient practice. Especially disturbing is the fact that according to a 1986 Gallup poll, 52 percent of teenagers polled accept astrology as true.
1 February 1989
Astrological betting systems which claim to win on Lotto are bunkum, according to a group which investigates the unexplained.
1 February 1989
For most individuals the result of a consultation with a psychic is a good laugh. But some get hurt.
1 November 1988
When the local paper carried a new advertisement, for 'Esoteric Astrology,' I had to reply to the number given. 'Esoteric,' of course, means 'intelligible only to the initiated' and the account given by its exponent laid her open to prosecution under the trades description act since it was clear that she, at least, had no idea what she was talking about. She said that her kind of astrology made no attempt to foretell the future, but that she used the predictions obtained to counsel people who were worried and perplexed. When I asked her what was the connection between the movement of the planets and the personal problems of people in New Plymouth, she replied in the pitying tones of a teacher talking to a backward five year old, "Well, you know that the moon is responsible for the tides." The following dialogue then ensued.
1 November 1988
In your November 1987 issue, Dennis Dutton (page 3) asks whether it matters that sick people, especially cancer sufferers, are not discouraged from using "alternative" or "complementary" treatments, The answer of course is the one that he himself has given: it does and it doesn't.
1 November 1988
Doris Stokes, the medium superstar, was a fraud, says a British author, Ian Wilson, in his book, "The After Death Experience."
1 August 1988
"Critical thinking" is the name given to a way of reasoning, in everyday language, which is a great benefit to everybody who uses it. It is a tool which can be used to improve our understanding of other people's arguments, to improve our own reasoning, to improve decision making, and to aid communication. It is especially useful for skeptics and debunkers. It is also a new idea, since in the past people have never been taught how to reason properly using everyday language, which is how most of us reason most of the time. Most of us could improve our thinking considerably by using critical thinking methods. I would like to see the Skeptics involved in the promotion of this subject.
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
The Dominion Sunday Times, 4 October 1987
1 August 1988
Acommon failure of the imagination and of intellectual rigour is the belief that these two qualities cannot co-exist. In fact one is indispensable to the other if art and intelligence are not to be separated and trivialised.
1 May 1988
With a magician-like sleight-of-hand, British faith healer Melvin Banks delivered joyful smiles and apparent cures to many who queued for his healing at Hamilton's Assembly of God Church last night.
1 November 1987
No two American faith healers are exactly alike since they are competing in a crowded market place, but they do have enough features in common to make a general survey possible. This account of how 'big name' healers work is put together from reports by skeptics who have attended their meetings.
1 November 1987
Ruben Romany is an artist and to support his artwork he also practises astrology and palmistry. Presently visiting Dunedin from Christchurch to practise his craft, Ruben is quick to admit that he is one of the ''biggest sceptics out"'.
1 August 1987
Faith healing, like the fundamentalism it is often associated with, is a generic term, rather than a specific one. The New Guinea tribesman consulting a witch doctor for a potent spell to cure him, the quiet prayer meeting for a friend in hospital, the Indian girl who immerses herself in the waters of the Ganges to aid her infertility are all exercising faith healing. The oft- reported efficacy of placebos on people suffering from chronic pain serves as a reminder that the power of faith may sometimes outdo rational, modern medicine.
1 August 1987
When I entered medicine more than fifty years ago, few maladies could be effectively treated. Lobar pneumonia, diabetes, pernicious anaemia, malaria and a few others. Patients with other disorders received careful medical attention while the illness ran its natural course,' unless the doctor made it worse. A warm relationship with the doctor eased the burden of serious illness for the patient and his family. Relentless killers which raged then have now vanished; poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, syphilis and smallpox. Childbirth was hazardous to mother and baby. There was no specific treatment for psychotic illness. Psychiatric research related mainly to taxonomy. A quarter of asylum inmates had general paresis, which killed them in a few years; today, thanks to penicillin, it is rare. 50 years ago, surgeons could treat many life-endangering conditions. They thought that physicians were pretentious tinkerers whose professional high spot was a brilliant diagnosis confirmed by a brilliant post-mortem.
1 May 1987
Enlightenment or deception? Illusion or delusion? HOWARD WARNER paid $25 for 30 minutes to find out.
1 November 1986
To investigate scientifically and with an open mind, claims and events of an apparently paranormal nature.