2 September 2024
I realise this is pretty old news now, and I apologise for that, but just in case some of you missed it when it happened, or you didn't feel it was attention-worthy, I wanted to discuss this thing that happened a month ago.
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!)
3 May 2021
A.C.E., or Accelerated Christian Education, is a Christian based curriculum used in New Zealand - both in some Christian schools, and by parents who homeschool their children. The curriculum boasts that it covers from kindergarten to year 13, and that it is recognised by New Zealand universities.
1 February 2019
For the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue
1 February 2019
On the 12th May, 2009, so-called psychic Kelvin Cruickshank of 'Sensing Murder' fame came to Wanaka to wow the locals with a one night show in the local town hall. It sounded like an interesting educational night out for my wife - Coleen and me, so we booked a couple of tickets.
24 June 2018
The NZ Herald has published a story about a woman whose terminal cancer was cured after she took cannabis oil. Of course, there's more to this story - isn't there always. In this case, the woman used both cannabis oil and chemotherapy to fight her cancer - no prizes for guessing which of those two will have helped her more. It also turns out that cancer was only "terminal" if the woman had not received any treatment. This is not what is normally considered to be a diagnosis of terminal cancer - terminal usually means that the cancer is not treatable with medicine, not that the cancer is not treatable without medicine.
21 May 2017
A claim has been made by Noel Hilliam that European settlers beat Maori to settling NZ, and that reconstruction of skulls from a woman and man have shown that they originated in Wales and the Mediterranean, respectively. The woman had blue eyes and blonde hair, and the
17 April 2016
An Australian woman with a newborn has passed whooping cough onto her daughter, and now wishes she'd taken the vaccine she was offered:
27 September 2015
The Dalai Lama has spoken about his successor, and suggested that if it's a woman, they would have to be attractive.
1 November 2009
Yet another_ Sensing Murder _veteran struts her stuff.
1 August 2009
Stuart Landsborough has an interesting night out with one of the Sensing Murder mediums.
1 August 2007
An Auckland University study reveals the costs-financial and emotional-of telephone psychics.
1 November 2000
Despite being clairvoyant Angel Destiny admits she was taken by surprise when her 1920s house collapsed around her as she soaked in the bath.
1 May 1989
A HAMILTON woman claims the predictions of a computerised horoscope she subscribed to were so accurate that she had a nervous breakdown.
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 May 1987
I wedged the car between two others. We'd found a park at Jast. It was an orderly suburb. Street lights flickered to life. A boy swished past on a skateboard.