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.
After having written in the last issue about the committee's hesitance to let people submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter that include significant AI content, I wasn't totally surprised to receive an email from Peter Harrison, who we've had on our podcast before talking about AI. What did surprise me, though, was the formal tone of his letter - which at first I took to be a little passive-aggressive. However, this and the Americanized spelling still didn't tip me off as to the real author of the email:
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.
On May 10th, New Zealand First MP Tanya Unkovich lodged a proposal for the Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill (https://bills.parliament.nz/v/1/667c1a87-e8f8-4ea7-8ab9-08dc70a23431). This is similar to recent laws put forward both in the UK and across the US, in that it would require separate single sex male only, female only, and unisex toilets in new buildings.
In the last two weeks, since my last newsletter, I've been re-visited by Mormon sisters - who stayed to talk with me for an epic three hours, and have promised to come back again with more congregation members. I've also managed to catch COVID for a second time. Thankfully the second time round, although just as painful for the first few days, doesn't seem to have had the long-lasting after-effects (tiredness, lack of taste) that it did the first time.
Crybully: “A person who engages in intimidation, harassment, or other abusive behaviour while claiming to be a victim” - Wiktionary
For this week's newsletter, I bumped into a news story about Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist who seems to be making a career out of making unfounded claims of having discovered aliens. On the back of the recent David Grusch shenanigans in the US, it's not surprising that the public are hungry for alien stories, and Avi has a great one for them to feast on - it's just sad that it's likely going to end up being found to be nothing more than sloppy science and wild conjecture.
Most kiwis will be aware that it's election year, with the general election only a few months away, scheduled for Saturday 14th October.
We have some fun articles coming up in the next few weeks. Firstly, my time in the Church of Almighty God (Eastern Lightning) has come to an end, and not through my choosing. I'll be writing one final article about the group, as well as publishing a piece from Wellington Skeptics in the Pub member Tim Atkin about how the church managed to spread so widely under strict communist rule in China. Dan Ryan talked with me the other day about some spammy Facebook ads he's been getting recently for a hair analysis service, and as we looked into it at our regular Skeptical Activism meeting, we realised that not only could we have a little fun with this (I have a friend who works for Auckland Zoo who's on board for some interesting testing), but also digging deeper we realised some interesting information about the people running the scam. More on that soon, hopefully!
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.
In just over a month we're having the gathering of the year - this year's in-person skeptics conference - our first since 2019.
Hey, I know that there are some skeptics in Auckland. We're holding our first regular (monthly) Skeptics in the Pub this Tuesday night (4th October, 7pm) at Dice & Fork at Victoria Park Market. We'd love to see you there.
One of the ways that I monitor unskeptical groups is by signing up for their newsletters - at the moment I receive regular emails from Voices for Freedom, Scientology, Eckankar, Freedom Village, Transformation Into The New Paradigm and more. The titles of some of the recent emails I've received include such gems as:
Way back when we first started writing the weekly newsletter, one of our earliest topics was the QAnon movement, and the shocking events of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol in the US. This week, the committee investigating those events held its first public hearings on prime-time TV. I spent a little of my Friday afternoon with the live stream of it playing while I worked. There were some shocking revelations, though I'm guessing that many people already suspected a lot of what was revealed.
I might well be stealing Mark's thunder here, as he has written extensively on NFTs in the past.
I hope everyone is having a great Valentine's day, and that none of you are stuck in a muddy field somewhere dealing with sanitation issues ;)
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has successfully launched!
The government is really pushing the COVID vaccine at the moment, including with this weekend's Super Saturday - where around 130,000 vaccines were administered in a single day.
An anti-vax paper was published recently in the open access Vaccines journal. “The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations - We Should Rethink the Policy”. The paper has now been retracted, though just getting it published is likely to fuel anti-vax misinformation.
A new astronomy paper suggests that the strange object named Oumuamua that passed through our solar system a couple of years ago was probably a thin disc of planetary matter, and not a piece of alien technology.
Rebecca Booth, from Fairlie in the South Island, recently found a seven leaf clover. The Stuff article about this find mentioned that this is not the first clover-related find Rebecca has had. Apparently earlier this year, in January, she found both four and five leaf clovers.
We're written about the Advance NZ political party in the past, and about their conspiracy-theory-driven policies and public statements.
HRV has had to pay out $400k for bad claims it made about its water filters. The interesting thing about this case, in my opinion, is that the fine was given because it was shown that HRV didn't have the evidence for its claims when it made them.
A seller of magic charms in Nigeria has been killed this week while demonstrating a bullet repelling charm. The sale of charms and potions is commonplace in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, and the charms are very popular.
Family first have confused correlation and causation in a recent report, and stated that unmarried couples are a major cause of child poverty.
Hang bags of water around to keep flies away. Coins or bits of tin foil can be used inside the bags.
The Wellington Astrology centre, a drop-in office in central Wellington, is struggling to make ends meet and has turned to Pledge Me to raise funds. It's been running since 2011, but now needs $3,000 to cover the next 3 months of bills.
Luke Oldfield discusses the art of engaging with a 'Non-Opinion'
After almost 15 years of intermittently tagging along with her parents, Iris Riddell reports on her first official attendance at a NZ Skeptics Conference.
THE 2009 annual NZ Skeptics Conference in Wellington was its usual mix of good times and thought-provoking material, though with some unique touches. The Kingsgate Hotel was a rather more luxurious venue than we're used to; the few problems that arose were mostly due to the high number of late enrolments, making this one of the largest gatherings in recent years.
Gold gives the inside story of the beginnings of Skeptics in the Pub meetings in New Zealand.
When the Sunday Star-Times decided to survey the nation on how superstitious New Zealanders are and about what, Vicki Hyde got used as a guinea pig. Part One of her responses was published in the last issue of the NZ Skeptic. This is Part Two.
Modern skepticism owes a huge debt to ancient Greece. This article is based on a presentation to the 2008 NZ Skeptics Conference
Jim Ring takes another look at Bishop Ussher's famous date for the creation.
Warwick Don celebrated the 21st annual NZ Skeptics conference by presenting a potted history of the society.
Research scientist Hamish Campbell spoke of his experiences as Te Papa's museum geologist at the 2005 NZ Skeptics conference.
All life has a common ancestor. Or to put it another way, every creature alive today, including ourselves, has an unbroken chain of ancestors going back almost four billion years. At certain points along the path from then to now, lineages have split, and split again, to give rise to the millions of species alive today.
A Feng Shui practitioner who died while on a life mastery course in Fiji was ready to leave his body, his widow believes. Stephanie Challis, pictured in the Nelson Mail (11 December 2002) smiling happily with her three children, told how her 41 year old husband Will had undergone a course of body cleansing which involved colonic hydrotherapy and drinking quantities of good quality water.
University days are a great time to explore new directions. But sometimes you may end up a long way from where you thought you were going.
The Psychology of the Psychic, 2nd edition, by David Marks. Prometheus Books.
THROUGH various articles, books, radio and TV programs, most New Zealanders will be familiar with the name Richard Pearse. Many are convinced that Pearse flew before the first official flight in history, made by the Wright brothers on 17th Dec 1903. Some are indignant that Pearse has not received the recognition that he deserved. The best book on the subject is The Riddle of Richard Pearse by Gordon Ogilvie first published in 1973 and revised in 1994. Ogilvie provides an objective account and he personally discovered some of the most important evidence in this case. Nevertheless he draws some strange conclusions at times.
Founding member Bernard Howard reminisces on the Skeptics' history in this guest editorial.
IT'S BEEN a busy year on many fronts for the Skeptics, with a number of major firsts:
NEW ZEALAND MYSTERIES, by Robyn Gosset; Bush Press, 1996; 208 pages; $29.95
The Geller case has ended -- the "psychic" is to begin a court-ordered payment of up to $120,000 to CSICOP USA.
Congratulations on featuring the superb contribution from Peter Münz in Skeptic 31. It seems to concur with a passage from Antony Flew I have just been reading. He says that to know something is "to believe what is in fact true, and to be rationally justified in that belief". Like most people shivering in the postmodernist shadow, my first reaction was to draw back, thinking that all seemed a bit too definite. Surely it's not still allowed to be definite about something?
"Three Kiwi soldiers' shock claim 'ALIENS TOOK GALLIPOLI REGIMENT". So declared the front page of New Truth's 25 August 1989 issue.
Sometimes a programme really makes one think about how television defines what is important for us to know about.
The first two NZCSICOP conferences enjoyed such success that they are difficult acts to follow ... but our third conference may prove the most lively of all.
The Spectator, 20 September 1986