7 December 2020
Scoop.co.nz published a survey looking at New Zealanders perceptions of misinformation. One finding was “The majority of New Zealanders surveyed agree that disinformation has the ability to greatly influence someone's opinion (91 percent), but far less (53 percent) acknowledge that disinformation could influence them.” This hubris is something we need to work on. That belief that it can't happen to you is the very reason wrong ideas may be lurking untouched and untested in your belief system.
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 2014
I note the raft of letters in the last magazine on anthropogenic climate change (ACC). While I, on the committee, am perfectly happy with the position statement and scientific consensus. (ie, Mankind is generating large quantities of CO2, - this entraps solar radiation and causes temperature to increase) I don't understand the massive spread and uncertantity of this increase: 1 to 5 degrees. Hundreds of percent? In fact you can easily find other scientists that say 0.7 to 8 degrees, and even a couple more that claim these figures are half what they should be! They all claim they have good data. Who to believe? Can't climate science please do a little better?
1 August 2013
It took Hamilton City Councillors about one hour to banish fluoride from the city's water supply on 5 June, a move Waikato Medical Officer of Health Dr Felicity Dumble said discounted the mainstream opinion of the vast majority of dentists and doctors in Hamilton and in New Zealand.
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 May 2012
A drug awareness programme run by the Church of Scientology has received government funding to spread its views through schools and community groups (Sunday Star Times, 19 February(.
1 February 2012
A recent UMR Research poll has provided a snapshot of what New Zealanders believe about a range of paranormal subjects. More than half accept that some people have psychic powers; on the other hand, only 24 percent think astrology can be used to predict people's futures and two thirds do not believe aliens have visited the Earth.
1 November 2011
As someone currently enduring a bout of shingles I have a few comments to make on the excellent article on the bad science behind the vaccine scare (NZ Skeptic 100). Further to benefits of vaccination mentioned in the article I think the point should be made that viruses can actually be eradicated from humanity which is ironic since they cannot, unlike bacteria, be killed as they are not living entities. Bacteriological diseases on the other hand are treatable and curable but the infectious agents cannot be eradicated.
1 November 2010
Many people lost a lot of money investing in non-existent data compression software because well:established principles of information theory were ignored. This article is based on a presentation to the 2010 NZ Skeptics conference.
1 May 2009
Although formal religion is continuing to decline in this country, belief in the supernatural remains high. That seems to be the main conclusion to be drawn from a recent survey of New Zealand religious affiliations and attitudes carried out by Massey University as part of the International Social Survey Programme.
1 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 November 2008
Readers of the NZ Skeptic may find this a bit hard to believe, but New Zealanders seem to be a fairly sceptical bunch overall (Sunday Star-Times, 11 September).
1 May 2007
This is a transcript of a talk given at the Skeptics conference in Auckland last year. Parts of it were also presented at the inaugral lecture for Bruce Arroll on being appointed to a personal chair last October. The title of that talk was Highways Through Uncertainty and will be published in the NZ Family Physician in early 2007. This paper can be found on the internet at www.rnzcgp.org.nz