NZ Skeptics Articles

Articles tagged with "societies"

You get a cult... you get a cult... everybody gets a cult

24 April 2023

The NZ Skeptics held an SGM (Special General Meeting) on the weekend to go over our proposed new constitution and vote on its adoption. We're doing this because there's an upcoming change in the law that will require Societies' constitutions to be aligned with the new law's requirements. Thankfully we have an active committee, and several members were willing to give up several hours in their weekends to go through the new constitution recommended by Companies Office (who administer Societies) and integrate the key parts of our old constitution with the new one. We also injected a few skeptically-themed easter eggs into our new constitution, so that it's not an entirely boring read. Thanks to everyone who turned up to our SGM and voted to accept our new constitution, and to those who suggested changes.

Why are we crying into our beer?

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.

Forum

1 February 2004

Although I have been receiving free email alerts for a long time, I am a (very) new member. Among the goodies which I received a couple of days ago was the Spring, 2003 newsletter, number 69. Obviously, free speech is the first requisite of such an organ, but I was rather taken aback by contribution in Forum from Lance Kennedy of Tantec, an organisation in the biocide industry, on the subject of global warming. Its content is highly selective, and it contravenes all the principles outlined in the Skeptics Guide to Critical Thinking. He writes of a "sound and healthy reluctance to subscribe to anthropogenic greenhouse... warming". He says that the Scientific American is committed to "greenie (a pejorative term which has no place in a serious discussion) nonsense".