The Scope of Skepticism: Interviews, Essays and Observations from the Token Skeptic Podcast, by Kylie Sturgess. Podblack Books, 2012. 151pp. About $NZ18, or NZ$6.40 for Kindle. Visit tokenskeptic.org ... (485 words)

George Gwaze was first cleared of the murder of his adopted daughter Charlene Makaza on 21 May 2008. At the time I wrote in NZ Skeptic 88's Newsfront that it had taken since the first week of 2007 ... (454 words)

Sex abuse article missing content? I've just been reading my Summer 2012 edition of New Zealand Skeptic, but I think there is a piece missing from my version. On page 15-17 there is an article by ... (519 words)

ACC's best-practice guidelines for identifying cases of sexual abuse are not credible. Twenty years ago, New Zealand had a mere handful of people who claimed to be 'counsellors'. Now they number in ... (1301 words)

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 ... (283 words)

Vitamin B12-the new placebo? A drug company has been perplexed at a shortage of Vitamin B12 created by a surge in use. A spokesman for the company said "doctors had so far failed to come up with a ... (1155 words)

Your Future is not in the Stars 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). More than 2000 people, ... (1369 words)

Nervousness based medicine 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 ... (1181 words)

Justice at Last Two recent items in the overseas press show that NZ is lagging behind in recognising that the child sex abuse panic has been greatly overblown. In a case which closely paralleled the ... (723 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)

Get in Now While the Getting's Good John Welch finds that the sexual abuse industry rolls on unabated. Sexual Abuse Rort ACC (aka "Aggrieved Clamouring Claimants") has thrown the doors wide open for ... (1132 words)

It was sad to see - two shelves of Lynley Hood's A City Possessed, heavily discounted at Whitcoulls. Released only last October it hasn't taken long for the book to hit the bargain bin. Perhaps it ... (373 words)

This is an abridged version of Professor Hill's presentation to the 1998 Skeptics' Conference. During the witch-hunts of the Early Modern period, a regular pattern emerged. Volumes would be written ... (3183 words)

Chair-entity Vicki Hyde responds to a letter from a member who resigned from the society over the Skeptics' donation to the Peter Ellis Defence Fund. We reprint her letter as a clear statement of the ... (876 words)

Some police are still guilty of scepticism, but retraining is on its way At the recent DSAC conference on rape (DSAC Inter-disciplinary Conference: "Rape: 10 years' progress?", Wellington 27-30 ... (299 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)

Did you catch TV3's Inside New Zealand documentary programme a few weeks ago on "Satanic Ritual Abuse"? If so, you won't have forgotten it, try as you might to "repress" the memory. It was one of the ... (616 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)

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 ... (605 words)

There is a worldwide epidemic of satanic child abuse allegations. Are they true? Has satanic child abuse happened here in New Zealand? The most extensive child sex abuse case to be heard in a New ... (1616 words)