21 July 2025
Thank you to everyone who filled in our recent survey about the possibility of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast hosts coming over to New Zealand next year, and whether this might have an effect on our conference plans for this year and next. We've been discussing your responses as a committee, and will be able to let everyone know fairly soon what our plans are.
7 July 2025
While I remain unconvinced by the premise of cryonics, I've come away with the impression that most cryonics companies currently in operation have protocols that enable the ethical treatment of family members caught unawares by their loved one's unorthodox final wishes. In one Alcor case study, staff were reported as telling one family that the condition of their daughter's body made it hard to justify proceeding with suspension, as the cooling and freezing process would exacerbate the damage to the brain caused by autopsy and transport delays. While this should be a given, I think many skeptics will agree that when it comes to fringe and pseudoscientific enterprises, the bar for decency is all too often on the floor. However, the aftermath of the Chatsworth incident (in which 9 patients thawed out) revealed that such protocols really benefit the companies. It ensures that the majority of their customers are prepared, true believers.
7 July 2025
In the June 9th edition of the newsletter, Mark wrote about the Russian right-wing new religious movement called Anastasianism, or the Ringing Cedars. I won't retread what he and the fairly detailed Wikipedia page cover, but I'm here to report that, despite Mark's hopes, Anastasianism is not isolated to the Wellington suburb of Brooklyn; its adherents and admirers can be found throughout New Zealand.
23 June 2025
After Bronwyn's article in the last newsletter about cryonics, Katrina and I have decided to get in on the action and write our own articles on related topics to accompany the second part of Bronwyn's series. It's been interesting to learn more about longevity and preservation - both the real science, and the pseudoscience. And thankfully there were a couple of fascinating documentaries I was able to watch to help me flesh out my article, so it wasn't all just reading for me.
28 April 2025
I intend this episode to comment on several issues.
3 February 2025
In the first part of this article, I looked at some of the common archaeological misconceptions used to spread doubt about Māori being the first to settle New Zealand. Having spent some time debunking some of the more common ideas floating around on social media, which are supposedly covered up to hide the “truth”, this second part will be devoted to looking at the more widely accepted versions of historical events.
21 January 2025
First published in the NZ Skeptic on November 1, 1996
21 January 2025
I saw a lot of anti-Māori disinformation on social media in the last few months before the 2023 New Zealand general elections. For clarity, disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people with a goal in mind, whereas misinformation is incorrect or misleading information that is spread without specific malicious intent. Such rhetoric can create a voting block large enough for politicians to pander to, and it would be tempting for MPs to then pledge to implement policies to attract these voters. It can also swing voters to vote for parties who are sympathetic to their newly formed views. The anti-Māori disinformation that was being spread on social media at the time largely took on two forms.
25 November 2024
About a week ago (November 16th-17th 2024, for those reading way in the future) we held our annual NZ Skeptics conference, and for the first time the conference was a joint effort with the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH).
30 September 2024
Imagine the honour of being selected as one among the “10 Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs from New Zealand Accelerating the Growth of Economy in 2024” by Apac Entrepreneur, and featured in a Special Edition of their magazine.
24 June 2024
Our Skeptical Calendar, where we attempt to find at least one event of skeptical interest from New Zealand for each of the 366 days of the year, is nearly finished now, with just 20 or so days that we don't have an event for remaining. Here are the events that happened on this day in history for the next two weeks:
24 June 2024
New Zealand had a remarkable number of quacks and fraudsters active in the early 20th Century. They travelled the length and breadth of the country promoting their curative gadgets. The Cotter Collection includes many of these devices, and even a completed phrenology chart. A medicine chest contains pills and potions thought to provide cures for many common complaints. The outright quacks, who invariably came via Australia, once exposed in New Zealand returned to cause further mayhem there.
15 April 2024
Recently there has been a bit of media coverage about the show 'Country House Hunters' New Zealand being faked. It has been proven that at least some of the house hunters were already the owners of the properties they were viewing.
8 January 2024
At the Society for Science Based Healthcare, we spend a lot of time looking at dodgy therapeutic claims. Most of these claims are made by practitioners of alternative therapies. A few months ago Mark Hanna, a colleague of mine at SBH, messaged me with a curious thought:
16 October 2023
2021: A group called Doctors Stand Up For Vaccination releases an open letter to the New Zealand public stressing the importance of vaccination. The letter is signed by 6535 registered doctors.
11 September 2023
I've got a broad collection of items this week. I start off looking at the recent spat between a couple of prominent alleged psychic mediums and their tours around New Zealand.
31 July 2023
Last Sunday evening, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Ms. Information at the Auckland International Film Festival. OK, that sounds a little more grandiose than it was - we purchased tickets like most other people in the audience.
24 July 2023
On 18 July 2023, a squad of undercover skeptics attended one of Julian Batchelor's “Stop Co-Governance” rallies. The evening proved dramatic. We passed through a gauntlet of counter-protesters to reach the venue. One of us was stopped and questioned by a security guard at the door. When the talk began, protesters in the audience began shouting objections or slogans and disrupting the talk. In one case, there was even a scuffle. Batchelor spent the first half hour asking protesters to leave, declaring that he was “trespassing” them, and waiting for police intervention. The police officers seemed to take their time removing protesters one by one. Audience protest eventually died down, but resumed at the end of the talk, by which point Batchelor's supporters had become short-tempered and shouted insults. Leaving the talk, we then faced another gauntlet of counter-protesters chanting “go home racists.” Somebody even threw a rock at our car as we drove past. In my time with the skeptics, I've never attended an event where emotions ran so high.
27 March 2023
In this week's newsletter, I've published the text from a couple of oral submissions the NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH) recently presented to MPs. One interesting part of this was a question asked of SBH, which allowed Daniel Ryan to detail some of the harms that Natural Health Products have caused in New Zealand. I've included Dan's email, and the short but promising response he received. I've also written about my time after graduation from the Eastern Lightning online fellowship meetings and my entry into the Level 3 group, as well as my brief foray into its leadership.
27 February 2023
If you live in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which most of our readers do, it's time for the 5 yearly census.
27 February 2023
We've written about Liz Gunn before. For a refresher, she's a former lawyer, then broadcaster/presenter on Television New Zealand (Breakfast and Good Morning shows) and Radio New Zealand. She disappeared from view for a long time, but recently popped up as an anti-vax conspiracy theorist.
24 January 2023
In his book, Islands of the Dawn: The story of alternative spiritualities in New Zealand, Robert Ellwood explores why New Zealand is attractive to fringe religious groups/alternative spiritualities, and why early settlers and guru seekers of the 1960s-70s loved those groups right back. However, not all groups caused the same level of headaches for the government like the Ananda Marga and Scientology did, or had the same cultural profile as the sannyasins of Rajneesh movement; Ellwood had a sizable list of secret societies that had gone defunct by the 90s.
16 January 2023
As Mark and I continue to chip away at the NZ Skeptical Calendar project, my search for fringe groups in the Papers Past database introduced me to Ānanda Mārga (The Path of Bliss or officially,Ānanda Mārga Pracāraka Saṃgha). The groups had an absolutely wild time in New Zealand and Australia throughout the 1970s before they disappeared from the archives, resurfacing intermittently when their humanitarian efforts were being promoted. Ānanda Mārga came to New Zealand in 1974 and soon there were groups in each major New Zealand city; they even operated a health food shop in Nelson.
29 August 2022
Work on the NZ Skeptical calendar (our attempt to find a New Zealand skeptical event for every day of the year) continues apace, with 346 individual events recorded and now only 140 days remaining to be filled. This month has been especially busy, with Brian Tamaki and the rest of the anti-mandate, anti-vax pundits making headlines with one debacle or another.
8 August 2022
Highden Manor House (Source)
8 August 2022
New Zealand introduced community water fluoridation (CWF) in the 1950s, expanded its coverage rapidly in the 60s, and has been relatively stable until recently.
1 August 2022
I've been interested in the mention of “12,000m tonnes of water” to be shipped out every day. The figure is clearly ridiculous, but it is interesting to think of the logistics if it was to be true. When assessing a figure spat out by someone, I like to try to put it into some kind of perspective and see if it passes the “sniff test". Below are some figures that might instantly put this one to bed.
9 May 2022
Country of Origin: Michigan, United States
11 April 2022
We're currently putting together a calendar of historical skeptical events relevant to New Zealand - and we're aiming to have at least one event for every day of the year. It's been a lot of fun so far, and we've found a lot of fascinating stories about New Zealand that I'd never heard before, like:
24 January 2022
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
27 December 2021
I think we have cause to celebrate. Despite not knowing what 2022 will bring, Aotearoa/New Zealand has a pretty high rate of vaccination - with over 91% of the eligible population having received two doses, though with Maori still under 80%.
15 November 2021
I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened last week. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit the march on Parliament on Tuesday or experience the “gridlock” in Wellington central on Saturday. There was one thing at Tuesday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition (created by “Apostle” Brian Tamaki), have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.
10 November 2021
I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened yesterday. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit this particular march on Parliament. There was one thing at yesterday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition created by "Apostle" Brian Tamaki, have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.
1 November 2021
Whether I am good at getting epiphanies, I am not sure, but the question is: are the epiphanies sensible or stupid? I shall leave it up to you to decide.
27 September 2021
As I write this on Sunday morning, we've now switched over to New Zealand Daylight Time, putting our clocks forward by one hour until early April next year. The touted benefits are that we can enjoy more time in the evenings outside when it's still light, and the sun isn't rising so early in the morning.
27 September 2021
And speaking of anti-vaxxers, there's another one that's emerged from the woodwork.
13 September 2021
Our annual conference is coming up in November, on the weekend of the 19th - 21. As we've previously publicised, we're holding it in conjunction with the Australian Skeptics. COVID willing, we'll be having an in-person conference in Wellington, and they'll have theirs in Sydney.
19 July 2021
Sticking with the COVID theme, I reported in a previous newsletter about the website set up to allow medical professionals and “concerned citizens” to sign their name to the statement:
30 June 2021
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about lawyer Liz Lambert's effort to claim a small part of New Zealand - the Abel Tasman National Park - as her own property, which she's called New Freeland. Well, it turns out that she's worried about an organisation who have not just claimed Allodial Title over a piece of land, but have claimed sovereignty over the entirety of New Zealand. Liz has been warning anyone who will listen that this rival group, the Crown of the Mauri Nation, have secretly entered into an agreement with the government to hand over the keys to our country.
23 June 2021
Someone called Daryl Trask has recently placed a petition on change.org asking people to sign their support for an overthrow of our government. The petition says:
10 May 2021
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
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.
3 May 2021
I've noticed an interesting, and worrying, shift with some of the more extreme online communities recently. On the one hand it's great to finally, and belatedly, see social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google hold people and organisations to account when they spread nonsense such as COVID vaccine misinformation. For example, just this week Advance NZ's Facebook page has been temporarily removed. Local conspiracy theorists such as Damien DeMent, Lee Williams, Vinny Eastwood and Karen Brewer are currently concerned over suspension of their social media profiles, because they are perpetuating dangerous untruths.
8 March 2021
I've recently read calls for high profile figures in New Zealand to endorse the new COVID vaccines, as a way to reassure the portion of the public who currently feel unsure about the vaccines' safety. It's been suggested that public figures such as Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield and others might want to allow the media to record them being immunised against COVID. Personally I think that, at least for those who are conspiracy minded, watching those who are supposedly a part of the conspiracy be injected is probably not going to be very convincing.
1 March 2021
After some investigation it seems that this magazine (it's a stretch to call it a journal, a title which should be reserved for scientific publications) is being purchased by at least one public library (Titirangi).
9 February 2021
Late last year we were contacted by Sina Nasiri, who had written a heart-felt article about his journey to atheism while growing up in Iran. His article explored the risky business of finding people to trust and confide in, in a society where being an atheist is no trivial thing – where apostacy from Islam is punishable by death.
1 February 2021
Last week I attended, online, the funeral of Ngaire McCarthy, who died just over a week ago from cancer. Ngaire was an outspoken Māori atheist, humanist and rationalist who spoke to the NZ Skeptics at our 2014 conference in Auckland. She told us about how the census shows comparable rates of dis-belief amongst Māori and Pākehā in New Zealand, and how Christianity had imposed itself on Māori culture, merging in a way that makes it hard to pick them apart today.
4 January 2021
As you'll no doubt know, 2020 ended seeing the successful and record-setting development of a range of vaccines for COVID-19 from various companies.
1 February 2020
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 2020
As I looked out at the Australian smoke filling our normally blue New Zealand skies, it made me angry. Angry to think that where there is smoke, there is fake news holding us back from taking action on the climate crisis. There are still many who don't think we need to change from our current course, and others who think our contribution wouldn't make a difference anyway. Still too often I hear arguments which are nothing more than false balance, the scientific consensus put aside because of some meme picked up on social media. I believe we can't afford to ignore the science and we must act. It's the right thing to do. We need to set an example, even if our contribution is small by individual or national standards.
1 November 2019
A quick word to let you all know that our project to promote herd immunity through vaccination is still in the fund-raising stage. We have been working behind the scenes to secure funding from a large donor, but still need your help.
1 May 2019
The Force Field Film Challenge, aimed at helping kids to learn about the importance of vaccines, is an innovative competition being spearheaded by the New Zealand Skeptics.
1 February 2019
We are proud to mention the honour our regular contributor Siouxsie Wiles received this year.
4 November 2018
SleepDrops is a New Zealand company which sells small vials of liquid drops which are supposed to help you get to sleep and stay asleep. Their ingredients are a mixture of small doses of herbs and very small (homeopathic) doses of herbs. A look at the Scientific Research page on their website shows that there's a dearth of research for any of the ingredients in the SleepDrops products, and absolutely no research on the SleepDrops formulation.
1 November 2018
Air New Zealand has just announced The Impossible Burger is now available to a minuscule number of their customers, a move described as an “existential threat” by New Zealand First's Mark Patterson. So what is all the fuss is about?
28 October 2018
Ireland has had a bit of a rocky history with its blasphemy law, with a complaint made against a local comedian for calling the Catholic communion wafer "haunted bread", and Stephen Fry being threatened with legal action for an interview he gave on Irish TV a few years ago.
1 August 2018
Unorthodox claims about the origin of the Māori go way back. Co-founder of the Polynesian Society and erratic polymath Edward Tregear claimed in 1885 they were “Aryan”, based on such unlikely things as the similarity between waiū (milk: from wai, water and ū, the breast) and whey (Old English hwǣg). What follows is even less persuasive.
24 June 2018
You may ask what blasphemy has to do with skepticism - often I've talked with people about the intersection of skepticism and religious belief. I feel that religion should never be above skeptical scrutiny. A common question asked of the Skeptics Society is whether someone can be both an atheist and a skeptic - I always say that yes, someone can be both, but that I believe it requires the person to avoid shining a skeptical light on their belief. Skeptics usually stand by the idea that nothing is above questioning, and so a skeptic who isn't willing to scrutinise their religious beliefs seems to be a strange case to me. We should have no sacred cows.
1 February 2018
For the article “Don't waste money on superfoods and supplements” published in Stuff, 29th Sept 2017.
1 November 2017
On 27th August the Sunday Star Times published an article by Simon Maude on an unnamed naturopath whose inept attempts at cancer treatment led to the death of an Auckland woman last year: Naturopathy under microscope after cancer sufferers speak from under shadow of death
1 October 2017
The Pharmacy Council recently ran a consultation about a new proposed Code of Ethics, after they tried to weaken their code a couple of years ago to remove the requirement that pharmacists could only sell alternative medicines where there was evidence that they work.
1 October 2017
I recently found out that a movement which is popular in America has reached our shores. The Freeman movement, otherwise known as Sovereign Citizens, consists of people who believe that it is possible to declare yourself no longer beholden to the laws of your country, and not liable to pay taxes. Normally the process involves filling in obscure government forms, opting out of government forms of ID such as driving licenses and passports and writing signed declarations using lots of very big legal sounding words.
4 June 2017
Dave Hansford from Nelson has written a book - called "Protecting Paradise: 1080 and the Fight to Save New Zealand's Wildlife" - about New Zealand's use of the poison 1080. The name appears to be a play on the Graf Boys' documentary Poisoning Paradise, which tried to paint a picture that 1080 is not as safe as the government says it is.
26 March 2017
Mark Hanna of the Society for Science Based Healthcare and I had an exchange over IM a few months ago, where we realised that there are so many bad claims being made for alternative therapies that if you picked a random combination of condition and treatment, chances are high that someone in NZ is making illegal claims that the treatment can successfully treat the condition.
19 February 2017
Anti-vaccination advocates in New Zealand have raised enough money to bring a screening of Vaxxed, a movie created by disgraced ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield and promoted by Robert de Niro, to New Zealand. The movie is an attempt to sow doubt about vaccines, and makes extensive use of secret audio recordings of CDC employee and "whistleblower" William Thompson.
12 June 2016
Chris Savage, an ex police officer from Australia, has a long history of being outright dangerous. He's anti-vaccine, and claims to be able to treat autism and cancer with magnesium (chloride) and DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) infusions. He's currently in New Zealand, and has been treating people while claiming he's a doctor.
5 June 2016
Valerie Todd, an osteopath, has been found guilty by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal of performing acupuncture on three patients in Nelson in 2014 without the required qualifications, and will likely be fined $1,500 and a portion of the trial costs.
1 November 2015
This issue we have a Guest Editorial piece by Lisa Taylor. Lisa is a proofreader and writer for NZ Skeptic, and is an active member of Wellington's Science-Based Healthcare Activism and the NZ Skeptics Committee.
16 August 2015
He is a nuclear physicist, whose PhD focussed on nuclear decay. He worked in electronics for the military for nearly 40 years, and argues that the earth is only 6,000 years old.
1 August 2015
Living with a ghost hellbent on messing with neatly hung pictures has become a daily chore for the Stony River Hotel proprietors.
1 May 2015
For some time, those of us studying the problem of misinformation in US politics – and especially scientific misinformation – have wondered whether Google could come along and solve the problem in one fell swoop. After all, if Web content were rated such that it came up in searches based on its actual accuracy – rather than based on its link-based popularity – then quite a lot of misleading stuff might get buried. And maybe, just maybe, fewer parents would stumble on dangerous anti-vaccine misinformation (to list one highly pertinent example).
1 February 2015
Recently released United States Air Force files have confirmed that a suspected UFO photographed in the skies above Auckland more than 60 years ago was actually just a cloud.
1 February 2015
I found out what a skeptic is when I was living in London. My husband Mark listened to a weekly podcast called The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe hosted by a bunch of brothers and their friends. After Mark finally persuaded me to arrive at the 21st century and purchase myself an iPod, the first thing he did was subscribe me to the podcast.
1 November 2014
A new group advocating a strong basis in rigorous science for the provision of safe and effective healthcare has been established in New Zealand. Mark Hanna explains.
1 May 2014
1 November 2013
Each year the New Zealand Skeptics bestows the Bent Spoon Award for the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue.
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 November 2010
Concerns over animal welfare issues on farms have seen Rural Women New Zealand and Fonterra rapped with the Bent Spoon, the annual recognition of gullibility and a lack of critical thinking awarded by the NZ Skeptics.
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 November 2007
The teaching of evolution in New Zealand schools may seem secure, but it has faced many challenges, and these appear to be on the increase. This article is based on a presentation at the Evolution 2007 Conference, Christchurch.
1 August 2007
The Letters to the Editor columns have been spilling over with irate readers concerned about yet another attack on New Zealand's sovereignty. The cause of all the anger is the proposed Therapeutic Goods Act, which would see a trans-Tasman agency take over the regulation of therapeutic products-a term which includes not only medicines and medical devices, but also complementary medicines and dietary supplements. No one seems too concerned that the new Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Authority will be regulating medicines; the fuss is all about what this move will do to the alternative health industry.
1 May 2007
A visit to the birthplace of science prompts some thoughts on spatial and temporal patterns in alternative medicine.
1 May 2007
Four Papua New Guinea women, believed by fellow villagers to have used sorcery to cause a fatal road crash, were tortured with hot metal rods to confess, then murdered and buried standing up in a pit (Stuff, 25 January).
1 February 2007
Claims about pre-Maori colonisation of New Zealand refuse to go away.
1 February 2007
Garfield was right-there's nothing like a piping hot lasagne on a winter's night. Especially when eaten with good wine and fine people.
1 November 2006
A Listener article on Brazilian medium and 'miracle-worker' Joao de Deus has taken the annual Bent Spoon Award from the New Zealand Skeptics.
1 August 2006
Warwick Don celebrated the 21st annual NZ Skeptics conference by presenting a potted history of the society.
1 August 2006
Over the last few years, there have been frequent suggestions that the Skeptics organisation in New Zealand should have a new name. At present, our formal name is the New Zealand Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal Inc. Originally, this was an adaptation of the name of our sister organisation in the US, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. The American organisation has recently changed its formal name to Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. This has been a prompt for our committee to re-open the issue here. The reasons put forward for change, both here and in the US, can be summarised as:
1 February 2006
Checking facts should be part and parcel of academic life, but too often it isn't done.
1 August 2004
Few events have so captured the local imagination as the search for a thermal bore near Methven. Word of the search spread after a drilling rig appeared in a paddock. Nothing unusual in rigs -- they dot Mid-Canterbury in the eternal quest for reliable sources of irrigation water. This rig, though, was not after cold water, but hot.
1 August 2004
Did the ancestors of the Celts sail to New Zealand and establish a network of megalithic survey points and astronomical sight lines? Some think so
1 February 2004
I've just witnessed a miracle. Probably. On January 2 I took part in a trip to the outer Hauraki Gulf to search for a bird that until recently had not been seen since the nineteenth century. Three specimens of the bird, the New Zealand Storm Petrel, sitting in museums in Paris and London, were believed to be the only representatives of yet another of this country's extinct species.
1 November 2003
The Eugenics movement in New Zealand had legislative successes greater than anywhere in the world outside the USA and Nazi Germany
1 August 2003
Had an email the other day from someone we hadn't heard from in a while. Among other things, he took the opportunity to ask why we heard so little from the Skeptics in the media, and made unfavourable comparisons with the Consumer's Institute. Given the breadth of that organisation's support base and consequent level of funding, that hardly seemed fair.
1 May 2003
Zheng He is not a name that is well known in the west. However, his seven voyages from China, through the Indian Ocean to Africa between 1405 and 1435 would place him among the world's great explorers. Yet retired submarine captain Gavin Menzies is convinced Zheng He's feats were even greater. He believes a massive Chinese fleet conducted four simultaneous circumnavigations of the world between 1421 and 1423, during which they discovered the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, even Antarctica. But while they were away, the Chinese emperor turned his back on the outside world and, when the ships returned, had all mention of them erased. Why the records of Zheng He's other expeditions were kept, Menzies does not explain.
1 November 2002
Proceedings on Saturday were meant to be opened with a talk from Elric Hooper, but we were denied the opportunity to hear that leader of New Zealand theatre. In order to keep appointments in the USA in the following week, he had been forced to fly out on 11 September, the only day on which seats were available.
1 May 2000
That was never six months just then -- it felt much longer. Banised to the depths of New Zealand, in Tuatapere (almost as far south west as you can get in the South Island), life took on a gentler pace. Momentous things did happen -- the stoat population declined by 300 around where we were, and the yellowheads had a successful breeding season.
1 May 2000
At last year's conference, John Scott spoke on the problems of mixing misinformation and medicine.
1 February 2000
Sceptics have put up $100,000 in a bid to make a controversial Australian spiritualist eat her words over claims she does not need food.
1 May 1999
I START with another example of chemists' lack of ethics and the gullibility of the public. In November 28 issue of the Listener, the ever suspicious Pamela Stirling did a good expose on Cellasine, the new herbal cellulite "remedy", which sold out in a few days when it came here.
1 February 1999
Founding member Bernard Howard reminisces on the Skeptics' history in this guest editorial.
1 November 1997
IN THE United States, creationists have long waged a strong political campaign to have their ideas recognised by the courts and the educational authorities. But in this part of the world, it seems, their strategy is rather different. The Creation Science Foundation, the largest Australasian creationist organisation, regards the "top down" approach of their American counterparts as unproductive: it is more effective, says CSF's Carl Wieland, to work first on developing a broad base of popular support. In an article titled "Linking and Feeding," Wieland outlines their strategy of making contact with people ("linking") through subscription to their magazine Creation, and then providing them with ongoing creationist material ("feeding"). This material is then read by the recipients' friends and family
1 May 1997
NEW ZEALAND MYSTERIES, by Robyn Gosset; Bush Press, 1996; 208 pages; $29.95
1 February 1997
The social vision associated with the name Walter Nash, or for present purposes Jack Marshall, has crumbled. The most secure and decent high culture, which flowered for some decades, is now on almost every measure except GNP in rapid decline2.
1 February 1997
Names have been concealed to protect them from the international legume conspiracy.
1 November 1996
The media love to manufacture a mystery, and the Kaimanawa Wall is a great example of this. Watch closely, as a perfectly natural rock formation becomes a megalithic structure...
1 February 1996
Australian creationist Peter Sparrow toured New Zealand recently.
1 November 1995
This year's Bent Spoon Award has ruffled a few feathers. In a controversial decision, what the Skeptics described as an "alarmist" Justice Department report on domestic violence in New Zealand has received the award.
1 February 1995
Karekare beach is surrounded by high cliffs which shield my house from television transmissions so that I gain most of my media information from radio and print.
1 November 1994
I am writing in the hope that your readers may be able to help me in a little research I am doing, in my position of Publicity Officer for the Wairarapa Archive.
1 May 1994
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 most sublimely awful hours of television ever to be broadcast in Godzone -- silly, irresponsible and sleazy. A middle-aged woman led a camera crew around the North Island to the sites where as a child she claims to have been sexually abused in the late 1940s and 1950s by her mum and dad, the parish priest, town dignitaries, and no doubt the local dog catcher and all the dogs.
1 May 1993
Our everyday "cuppa" comes from the plant Camellia sinensis and it, together with a number of other common drinks including coffee, cocoa, guarana and maté contain small quantities (10-100 mg per cup) of caffeine, a mildly stimulatory alkaloid. In addition many people enjoy hot and cold beverages made from a wide variety of other herbs such as chamomile and dried raspberry leaves.
1 February 1993
The New Zealand Skeptics lost one of its founders with the recent death of Dr Jim Woolnough, aged 77.
1 May 1992
Simon Upton, the Minister of Health, recalls a childhood and adolescence without television, and warmly welcomes the "Great New Zealand Television Turn-Off"
1 February 1992
Gentlemen attending the most recent Christchurch meeting of NZCSICOP unselfishly agreed to give of their all for their country. They have member Lawrence Livingstone to thank for the suggestion.
1 February 1992
In a memorable encounter, National
1 November 1991
Television New Zealand says it will axe an Earth Care advertisement claiming that burnt possum testes can keep possums at bay, if the biodynamic technique turns out to be no more than quackery.
1 November 1991
by Charles Berlitz; Grafton Books, 208 pp; $14.95 (paperback)
1 August 1991
Zealand Publishing House, Tauranga
1 November 1990
The New Truth articles on the "Disappearing Regiment" were examined in New Zealand Skeptic No. 15. A curious sequel to these stories, headed "Mystery clouds hold secret to rail horror!", appeared in New Truth's issue of 20 October 1989. After reading the "Disappearing Regiment" articles (25 August and 1 September 1989), Mr Jack Bramley, a wood carver now living in Whitianga, told New Truth of three clouds he had seen from Taupo and which had remained in the same position near Mt Ruapehu for the three days before Christmas 1953. In the article the clouds were linked to the disaster which occurred when the Wellington-Auckland express was plunged into the Whangaehu River shortly before 10.30 pm on 24 December 1953.
1 August 1990
The above is a suggested logo for NZCSICOP. It was designed by a Wellington Skeptic, Hugh Young. Hugh has provided the following commentary:
1 August 1990
The Skeptics have been saddened by the deaths of two of our most lively and engaged members.
1 August 1990
A recent leading article in The New Zealand Medical Journal looked at Diet and Behaviour. Food intolerance was strongly associated with the mother's level of education. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing? As regards the putative link between sugar and problem behaviours the article says "'...it is just as likely that restless or aggressive children seek out more sugar as that sugar causes the inappropriate behaviour." The authors conclude "...it should be recognized that modification of a particular child's diet is almost always accompanied by changes in management."
1 May 1990
The 1989 Annual General Meeting of NZCSICOP was held at the Science Lecture Theatre, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, on 3 September 1989.
1 May 1990
At the Annual Dinner on 2 September media excellence awards were made to the following:
1 May 1990
Warwick Don was elected at the AGM to succeed Prof. Tony Vignaux as Chairman of the New Zealand Skeptics. Mr Don, a senior lecturer in Zoology at the University of Otago, was a founding member of the society. However his experience as an advocate for science and the scientific approach goes back much further. My personal collection of clippings contains two articles he had published in Otago University's student newspaper in 1966 and 1967 responding to attempts to recast evolution in a religious mould. He is also a formidable debater against creationism—as was evident from the letters in The Nelson Evening Mail (27/5/87 to 30/7/87) in which he and Jim Ring presented the skeptical viewpoint. Mr Don's special concern at the moment is the draft Form I-V science syllabus—in particular its inclusion of non-scientific elements.
1 May 1990
The following article appeared in The New Zealand Herald of 6 September 1989. It was the most comprehensive coverage of the 1989 Conference to appear in the national press.
1 May 1990
One of the highlights of the 1989 Conference was an entertaining history of the paranormal and pseudo-science in New Zealand. Part of Dr McGeorge's talk follows, beginning with his account of an attempt early this century to control quackery by legislative means.
1 February 1990
With this issue we farewell our editor Keith Lockett, who has served us so well in the nurturing and development of the New Zealand Skeptic. We have all seen how, from modest beginnings, the Newsletter has grown in stature and contents to a periodical that can hold its head among like journals internationally. Even the bleak patches when Keith was desperate for contributions proved temporary and recent editions demonstrate that we have a lively and informative journal that we will be proud to place in libraries in New Zealand and exchange with groups overseas.
1 February 1989
The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1987-1988. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at the University of Auckland, August 20-21.
1 August 1988
A front page report of a self-proclaimed psychic's prediction that Louisa Damodran's body would be found "on a beach" has earned the "New Zealand Truth" an award for gullibility from the country's Skeptics.
1 August 1988
Shortly after our Wellington convention, Radio New Zealand presented a superb Insight documentary on NZCSICOP. This half-hour programme was broadcast on a Sunday morning on National Radio and rebroadcast the following evening. The producer was Colin Feslia, who will be remembered for having patiently taped the whole of our Wellington meeting. We have to admire the way he assembled the material into a coherent, interesting half hour of radio. It is an excellent introduction to the Skeptics.
1 May 1988
In his predictably naughty way, Brian Edwards did a bit of stirring when he was the after-dinner speaker at the annual conference of the New Zealand Skeptics Society during the weekend. Skeptics, he needled, should have at least something to believe in. Members counter-stirred. At their annual meeting the next day, they passed a resolution "endorsing the existence of Santa Claus, but still expressing doubts about the tooth fairy."
1 February 1988
A flying competition with a difference will be held in Auckland at the weekend.
1 February 1988
The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1986-1987. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at Victoria University in Wellington, August 29-30.
1 August 1987
SIR, M L Lester (Post, Sept 26) says "The New Zealand Skeptics Society has repeatedly claimed that there is a widespread (nationwide) problem here in New Zealand with fake psychics, mediums, charlatans, magicians and so on".
1 August 1987
The Evening Post, Thursday, October 2, 1986
1 May 1987
You have as much to gain by showing that someone has paranormal powers. David [Marks] and I would win a Nobel Prize if we could prove that. We've nothing to gain by just refuting another case.
1 May 1987
Former Star news editor Josh Easby has collected . an award for journalistic excellence for his "psychic duel" with an Auckland clairvoyant.
1 May 1987
In the after glow of our first annual convention, NZCSICOP members will have to feel pleased by the progress of our organisation. The meeting itself attracted considerable media attention, all of it favourable, and discussion of our aims and purposes continues to reverberate in letters weeks later. Our membership now stands at just short of a hundred and it is still growing. And well it must, for a group such as ours has much work to accomplish. Unless we have enough people scattered nationwide who are willing to take an active part in our projects we cannot flourish.
1 May 1987
Any medium who demonstrates communication with spirits under controlled conditions will be able to collect $232,000, Dr David Marks, the chairman of New Zealand Skeptics said yesterday.
1 May 1987
A group called New Zealand Skeptics has called on newspapers and magazines in New Zealand to carry a disclaimer with their astrology columns.
1 February 1987
I was a teacher of Biology and Science at a State High School in North Queensland throughout 1983 and 1984. In this article I wish to briefly present the successful creationist campaign there as 1 personally saw it, and to point out trends and other factors which were conducive to this success, with comparative references to the New Zealand education system.
1 February 1987
Health quackery flourishes in New Zealand because we are less critical of fraud, less critical of what, in the United States' would be labelled as criminal deception.