Ethics and morality are often regarded as beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. But certain values appear to be shared by all humans as species-typical adaptations. This article is based on a ... (2452 words)

Some fields that claim the authority of science may be in need of an overhaul. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics 2009 conference in Wellington, 26 September. I have always ... (1960 words)

'Pet psychics' get a boost 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 ... (1212 words)

An Auckland University study reveals the costs-financial and emotional-of telephone psychics. There are no published reports estimating how many people use psychic hotlines in New Zealand, but belief ... (1286 words)

Debunking debriefing 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 ... (1122 words)

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 ... (836 words)

Should we trust psychologists and psychiatrists, especially as expert witnesses in court cases? This is an important question because, depending on their opinions, a person can inherit vast sums of ... (412 words)

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 ... (319 words)

PSEUDOSCIENCE AND THE PARANORMAL, by Terrence Hines. 2nd edition, Prometheus. ISBN 1-57392-979-4. This book thoroughly demolishes the pretence that laboratory experiments in ESP have produced ... (607 words)

University days are a great time to explore new directions. But sometimes you may end up a long way from where you thought you were going. Back in 1969 I was a fresh-faced first year student at ... (1118 words)

Damian Thompson argues that a tangle of folklore and urban legend, allied to a particular horror of paedophilia, has blinded many to the scientific facts Ritual satanic abuse is back. In March, a ... (1043 words)

The Psychology of the Psychic, 2nd edition, by David Marks. Prometheus Books. When David Marks and Richard Kammann published the first edition of this book in 1980, it rapidly became a standard ... (517 words)

MBChB, DipAvMed, MRNZCGP, MRAes Warfare has always been stressful for its participants. Before the psychological impacts of the conflict in Afghanistan became apparent, our regular medical columnist ... (2328 words)

Recently returned from a posting in Saudi Arabia and now suffering from a cold and a bleeding nose, John Welch continues his column on medical matters. Dilutions of Grandeur As a Fellow of the Royal ... (910 words)

The following is an abridged version of a paper presented at Skeptics 2000, Dunedin, New Zealand. The author would like to thank NZCSICOP and NZARH for sponsoring this visit to New Zealand. In this ... (4234 words)

Many moons ago I packed into a dimmed lecture theatre along with 400 other keen-eyed stage I psych students to listen to a presentation on psychic ability. The mood was festive - it was almost the ... (466 words)

UFOs & Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery, by Robert E. Bartholomew & George S. Howard; 1998. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, US. ISBN 1-57392-200-5 Readers of NZ Skeptic will have seen ... (768 words)

John Riddell looks at a costly alternative to glue sniffing. This being an election year, we are going to hear a lot more from the Natural Law Party. I don't know if it is the same here, but in the ... (1116 words)

UFOs & ALIEN CONTACT: Two Centuries Of Mystery, Robert Bartholomew and George Howard. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, USA. READERS of NZ Skeptic will have seen R.E. Bartholomew's article "The ... (764 words)

An article by Gordon Hewitt in NZ Skeptic 47 states, "In June 1995...an article appeared in this publication saying counselling was no use. This judgement was based on a single study conducted in ... (567 words)

Chances are, you're worried about all the wrong things. What are the chances of slipping on a banana skin, choking on a fishbone or being struck by a meteorite? These are not the sort of unlucky ... (965 words)

As a counsellor and psychotherapist also trained in science and in scepticism I have been disappointed in the apparent lack of depth to the sceptical analysis of counselling that seems to be present ... (738 words)

A ban on using any method to recover memories of child abuse has been imposed on members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. They face a series of sanctions if they persist in using the ... (444 words)

Some problems cannot be resolved by just "getting it all out of your system", reports Nigel Hawkes. COUNSELLING, the 1990s remedy for life's problems, is ineffective when used on its own to help ... (596 words)

Scientology recently offered $12 million to FACTNet, an Internet library providing information on the dangers of mind control and cults, including information critical of Scientology. FACTNet's ... (109 words)

This article is abridged from a paper prepared for the "Day of Contrition-Revisited Convocation," convened by The Justice Committee, Salem, Massachusetts, January 13-14, 1997. THIS TRICENTENNIAL ... (3753 words)

Folie-a-deux can be defined as a paranoid disorder in which the same delusion is shared by two (or more) persons. The delusion is thought to be transmitted from a dominant but paranoid person to his ... (3800 words)

Sickness and Psychogenic Illness 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 ... (2070 words)

ACC Decisions The recent decision to award compensation to a lawyer who suffered depression because his bank loan was turned down is but one example of increasingly bizarre decisions by the ACC ... (1881 words)

Thanks to a member who was present, we now have a set of audiotapes which record the complete proceedings of the 1994 CSICOP Conference in Seattle, on The Psychology of Belief Topics discussed ... (92 words)

This is a Feynman Commencement Address given by Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1974. This message is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago, especially for those who add their committed "science" to ... (3640 words)

Picking Winners? When the short list for the Booker prize was announced there was much chortling about the fact that Jill Paton Walsh had been unable to find a publisher in Britain for Knowledge of ... (1351 words)

MSG Myth Laid to Rest Another sacred cow from my medical school days has been laid to rest. A letter in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 triggered a rash of anecdotal reports about facial ... (1690 words)

A Menu of Dietary Delusions Neither Nutrasweet nor sugar-rich diets produce any change in children's behaviour. (New England Journal of Medicine 330:301-307, 1994) The subjects were tested in a ... (1871 words)

What can events 100 years ago tell us about a modern disorder? Students often ask me whether multiple personality disorder (MPD) really exists. I usually reply that the symptoms attributed to it are ... (1364 words)

Arthritis and Placebos In Skeptic 30, John Britten outlined the tragic results which can occur when patients fall into the clutches of quacks. In this case, a man with rheumatoid arthritis was not ... (1889 words)

Our intrepid correspondent finds himself suffering from that most fashionable of psychological afflictions, Multiple Personality Disorder! The Jekyll/Hyde character has been used to express duality ... (610 words)

Skin Lighteners 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 ... (1528 words)

It's a mindbending situation, but I guess you'd have to call me a skeptical believer. Like parapsychologist Susan Blackmore, personal experience inclined me towards the idea that supernatural events ... (443 words)