Sandra Goudie is the Thames Coromandel Mayor who has been in the news for refusing the Pfizer vaccine, saying she will wait until she can receive the Novavax vaccine. Goudie is quoted in the NZ Herald as saying she “believes it is "absolutely wrong" that some people should be mandated to have the vaccine…”
This past week has seen an appeal of the Peter Ellis child sex abuse case being heard in the Supreme Court.
When talking with people about skepticism, I've often used a convenient classification to separate what I see as two main camps of skeptics. In my oversimplified model there are a) those who are skeptical because they consider themselves to have read enough to be experts themselves on a wide range of topics, and b) those who defer to people who are the experts on any given topic - people who have relevant qualifications, decades of experience, and the respect of their peers and the wider academic community.
Yet another sea monster has been found, this time in Swansea, NSW, Australia. Ethan Tipper posted the photo on Facebook, asking "What the f*** is this?".
Should we trust psychologists and psychiatrists, especially as expert witnesses in court cases?