After our recent 40th anniversary celebrations, David and Liz wrote to say that they were unable to make it to our most recent AGM, held at our conference, but that they did make it to the first one! They sent me a picture of the program for the first conference, including the AGM at lunch time on the Sunday, as well as a picture of the book they purchased from speaker David Marks.
It was announced this week that RFK Jr. has hired David Geier as an analyst on a new study into the links between Autism and vaccines. A link that was debunked years ago, which even its most profitable holdout, American charity Autism Speaks, disavowed about a decade ago. This decision is just another in a series of attacks the White House has made against the disabled, and against science in general.
The goings on of the late “Bishop” Douglas Metcalf and the Full Gospel Mission/God Squad/Camp David have been on my list to profile for awhile. When I'm able to steer the conversation to my special interest (MLMs, Cults, New Religious Movements etc.,) it is truly touch-and-go whether my unsuspecting audience has even heard of this group. It isn't as if the shenanigans of The God Squad were ever under the radar or have fully faded from public consciousness; Christchurch newspaper The Press has always kept their finger on that pulse and publish updates on former members while ex-followers Serafina Tané and Rosina Claxton/Ngapaki Rose have made their stories available for Australasian news outlets in recent decades. Metcalf's group also draws comparison to a far better known Branch Davidian's and, albeit less frequently, is a topic for American podcasts.
There's a website in New Zealand promoting "Vortex Water". The front page of the site starts by saying:
The Luminate festival, held each year outside of Nelson, has always been a little out of touch with science. But, as David Farrier shows, things appear to be getting worse. The festival has been flirting with conspiracy theories and woo peddlers, in a list they published on the Luminate website called the “13 Crystal Seeds of Positive Change”. The list included the names of people who have inspired the festival's organisers. You get one point for each of the following names you recognise:
The field of Artificial Intelligence is blooming at the moment, with companies like Google and Alexa delivering small, inexpensive devices to your living room for $75 that can listen to you talk and tell you the weather, order pizza and turn your TV on.
The conspiracy theorists are out in force already after the recent school shooting tragedy. One of the survivors, 17 year old David Hogg, has gone on national TV in the US to publicly state that he's not a "crisis actor".
David Meade, who I spoke about last month as predicting the end of the world around the 20th of September, has given us all a reprieve. Obviously the world didn't end, but he now says that October the 21st is the real end of the world.
After last Sunday's show, when I talked about Bioptron at the Go Green Expo, a Bioptron rep called up RadioLive and asked for me to contact them. I called, and was then contacted the next day by a Division Manager for Bioptron - David.
He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate's sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.
Warwick Don celebrated the 21st annual NZ Skeptics conference by presenting a potted history of the society.
Wherein intrepid ace reporter Vicki Hyde spills the beans on what Skeptics get up to at their annual meetings…
Many moons ago I packed into a dimmed lecture theatre along with 400 other keen-eyed stage I psych students to listen to a presentation on psychic ability.
Hedgehogs do not impale fruit with their prickles and run away with it, nor do they steal the milk from slow-witted cows. These are just two of the unsubstantiated rumours and misconceptions that were exploded at the recent Skeptics' conference in Auckland.
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.
David gave an account of three psychics he has studied, Kreskin, Geller and Colin Emery. It has taught him a great deal about human nature.