It seems like every time I write an article about a new TikTok trend, five others spring up in their place. This week, we're going to look at Destiny Swapping, the idea that people are not only endowed with pre-ordained destinies for their lives, but also that these destinies are not indelibly attached to us.
The hyperloop, one of Elon Musk's grand ideas, was slated back in 2013 as a way to beat traffic in heavily congested areas, with the first planned route being from Los Angeles to San Francisco. This plan was documented in the 2013 document Hyperloop Alpha, which is still available on the Tesla website and was written by Musk and some of the engineers he employed.
Although the chemicals in rocket propulsion have changed over the years, from kerosene and liquid hydrogen, to complex ammonium perchlorate compounds and more recently liquid methane and oxygen, the basic idea of how it all works is the same - following Newton's idea of action and reaction (or conservation of momentum), if you shove stuff out the back of a rocket, it pushes the rocket forward. The more mass you shove out, and the faster it's shoved, the quicker the rocket moves.
We've had a request from longtime member Jan Feike de Bock, who has emailed us with a fascinating offer of a large collection of UFO books.
We're living in strange times, with so much upheaval in the US that it's already having global repercussions.
Sara Passmore, the President of the NZARH (Rationalists & Humanists) and one-time committee member of the NZ Skeptics, recently shared with me a link to an interesting Official Information Act request. The request was sent by Melanie Petrowski to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on August the 22nd this year (2025). Now, Melanie's an interesting character - she's a Christian, and hosts the hour long weekly show “Mel's Magnificent Bible Study” on Radio Hawkes Bay. She's also known in her home town of Hastings as something of an anti-vax protester, and even her own father has had to step in in the past to help the police curb one of her more enthusiastic protests, where she stationed herself outside a supermarket with a megaphone.
TikTok is an interesting social media platform. As a host of short videos that anyone can make these days pretty easily with just a mobile phone, an interface that makes it easy to scroll through hundreds of videos, and an algorithm that attempts to feed you content that will keep you engaged, many kids use Tik Tok as their main social media platform. The platform allows viewers to easily engage through not just their likes, but also through posting their own opinions in response videos.
After finding out a couple of weeks ago that my kids were aware of “mewing” six months before I was, I jokingly berated them and asked them to let me know of any other nonsense they might come across online. This request was instantly met with a barrage of weirdness and nonsense, although one stood out immediately - Aura Points.
A couple of weeks ago I talked with a journalist about psychics, as she was looking into a story that Kelvin Cruickshank appeared to have muscled his way into. As well as giving her some information about how psychics work, and a little about Kelvin, I had also suggested to her that she should visit a psychic to get an idea of how they operate. A day later she let me know that she was planning to visit a psychic fair that weekend, and I suggested that I could meet her there to brief her on what to expect. So, on Saturday morning two weekends ago, Bronwyn and I headed to Upper Hutt and met with Virginia.
Craig wrote a couple of weeks ago about a couple of strange ideas he was introduced to at a Matariki event he attended - the idea that Matariki's brightness can predict the future, and also an idea that the earth has apparently recently shifted on its axis by 20 degrees.
With the encouragement of Mark and Bronwyn from the NZ Skeptics committee, I attended a meeting about Effective Altruism at Rationalist House in Auckland on the evening of 13th March.
Many of you, as skeptics, will have heard mention of 15 minute cities and, in our case, because New Zealand likes to be different, 20 minute cities. The 15 Minute City idea has joined Agenda 21, Agenda 2030 and the Great Reset in the pantheon of recent Big Ideas that actually exist, but have been converted by conspiracy theorists into grotesque versions of themselves where governments are supposedly trying to take away our rights and enslave us all. But, what is the idea of a 15/20 minute city, and how have the conspiracy theorists misrepresented the idea?
OK, so another item related to climate change. I've recently started listening to an entertaining podcast - The Climate Denier's Playbook.
Since the recent launch of Liz Gunn's new political party, NZ Loyal, I've been loyally watching all of her new party political videos, where she's been laying out her ideas for how she will run the country when she comes to power. They're extensive and disruptive, and although I'm not an expert I'd wager that they're totally unworkable. Her most recent video was the second of a two part series, where she talked about her idea of a 1% transaction tax that would allow the party to close down the Inland Revenue department. Although this video was full of ideas that deserve skeptical scrutiny, I want to have a brief look at the previous video, part 1 of Liz's economic vision for New Zealand, and a particular idea she has about a supposedly secret group who are, in tandem with others, running the world - the Fabian Society.
No doubt everybody knows about the news of late last week about the indictment of former US president Donald Trump on various federal charges relating to his wilful retention of classified documents, hiding documents, and obstruction of justice. In my opinion, this is a cause for celebration, that they've finally built a case that they can prosecute.
It's 12th February as I write this. Happy Darwin Day! (And, a day before my birthday)
Just over a week ago Bronwyn and I, along with another couple of skeptics, visited parliament for the quarterly Prayers at Parliament event - the fourth now that I've attended. I swear that these events are becoming more partisan over time. Despite the organisers' claims that the meetings are cross-party, it seems that not only are the MPs who attend mostly National MPs (at this event it was just Simeon Brown), but the topics we're being asked to pray about are more overtly political, and there's a strong sense of what you should be praying for for each topic - unsurprisingly it aligns pretty well with the National party platform.
I continue to monitor the emails sent out by the Voices for Freedom crowd. My reaction is usually a combination of disbelief and despair. My impression is that they're struggling to remain relevant. Now that the vaccine mandates have disappeared, they seem to be concentrating on all manner of whacky stances.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my visit to Counterspin's travelling roadshow (maybe circus is a better term?), but I figured that everyone might want some background - and an update on how their tour's going.
Most of us will know Ken Ring both for his claim that he can predict the weather by looking at the moon, and his supposed ability to predict earthquakes. Here's Ken talking about how you can supposedly also use rainbows to predict the weather:
I received an email the other day from Joanne O'Brien, who according to her website is a Professional Organiser, Image Consultant and Health Coach. Now, I'm not going to deny that I am probably in need of all three of these services, but despite that I have no idea why I received this email from her (although I accept that I may well have signed up for a newsletter at some point). The email was advertising the health aspect of Joanne's repertoire, promoting an “amazing treatment” called Rife Therapy. It said:
This evening I attended a meditation session with the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis - an occult group made famous by Aleister Crowley). I'm not sure what I expected, but the session was advertised as a welcoming environment where it was okay to attend but not participate. This sentiment was echoed by the host when myself, Bronwyn Rideout and others arrived at the event. We were walked through several meditation techniques, starting with singing a song accompanied by a live guitar - Kiss the Earth by Ajeet Kaur (you can have a listen at the top of this article).
I've recently been seeing mentions of NESARA and GESARA online, in conspiracy groups, and also on a badly painted sign at at least one local protest. So I did a little bit of reading to find out what it's all about. So, if you've seen these terms being used and, like me, have no idea what they mean, here's a quick description of their real world meaning and what the conspiracy theorists wrongly think they're all about.
Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital made the news last week, with an 89 year old man being charged for his part in the abuse of children who were under the hospital's care in the 1970s. Dr Selwyn Leeks, who was the lead psychiatrist at the centre, has been charged with “wilful ill treatment of a child”, but due to his ill health will not be prosecuted.
So I want to talk about an interesting arrest that happened yesterday, but not the arrest of Brian and Hannah Tamaki.
One of the many effects of climate change is that the oceans are rising. This is going to be an increasing problem for coastal settlements and island nations. But one American political candidate who has worked for Trump in the past, Scott Pio, thinks he's figured out an answer to the problem, and posted his idea on Twitter:
I naively thought that the whole QAnon movement would fall apart after Trump lost his bid for re-election. For those who have somehow not heard about QAnon before, it's a conspiracy that started in the US a few years ago, and is supposed to be the writings of a high-level government insider who leaks secrets via hidden meaning and codes in his messages. However, it's been obvious since the start that QAnon is not an insider, but just a made up persona used to promote right wing ideas and Donald Trump in particular. As Wikipedia says:
Rumours have been circulating in the US that President Biden plans to fix the debt ceiling issue by minting a one trillion dollar coin. Although this sounds patently absurd, there's some logic behind this.
During lockdown, the Wellington Skeptics in the Pub group have been meeting online every week. It's been great to be able to continue our social meetings, but I also think it's a good way to keep us all sane! That connection of being able to chat and have a fun social time with others seems to be really good at helping with the feelings of isolation and worry that lockdown can bring to some of us.
One idea I've been given is to find a large set of Deepak Chopra quotes, and use that to train an algorithm to create nonsense quotes talking about quantum realities and the collapse of the wave function. All I need to do now is find a bunch of quotes in a format I can feed to the algorithm.
Mahin Khatami looks at first blush to be a respectable scientist - she has a long history as a scientist spanning decades, she used to work for the NIH (National Institutes for Health) in the US as a program director, and has not only been published in respectable peer reviewed journals, but has also been a journal editor.
I recently learned about the absolutely fun conspiracy that is “birds aren't real”. According to the theory, the CIA in the 1950s were trying to solve two hard problems. Firstly, they wanted to be able to secretly spy on the entire population of the United States. Secondly, they needed to stop birds pooping on their cars in the CIA headquarters car park. These two seemingly disconnected problems gave birth to the genius idea to replace all the birds in America with flying camera drones that look just like birds. As the Birds Aren't Real twitter account states:
Now that I've found out about Rebel Wisdom, I'm hooked. I usually have to go hunting for my nonsense, but the Rebel Wisdom website has everything in one place: Rupert Sheldrake (who has silly ideas about supernatural mental powers), Alan Watts (who has silly ideas about religion and philosophy) and Jordan Peterson (who has silly ideas about all sorts of things) are all featured.
US Senator Louie Gohmert, from Texas, has recently asked the country's Forestry Service if they can look into a thought he's had about how to combat climate change:
As promised, myself and another couple of skeptics recently visited the Theosophical Society's building in Wellington to hear their National President, John Vorstermans, give a talk titled “_The Ageless Wisdom_”. The Society has a great little building on Marion Street, with a comfortable library of esoteric mystical books at the front, and a large main room with lots of wood and painted mystical symbols. It has a particularly Masonic feel to it.
We should be worried about the consequences of far-right conspiracy theories. In Belgium, Professor Marc Van Ranst has been the public face of science related to the COVID pandemic and the Belgian government's response.
Over the next couple of months I'm hoping to visit a few interesting religious groups, to get a feel for them - what they believe, how they act, who attends their events. So, all being well, after this week's report into Christian Science you can expect to hear about the Theosophical Society, Druids, and maybe more!
There's a website in New Zealand promoting "Vortex Water". The front page of the site starts by saying:
I wish I was making this news story up - partially because it's getting a little bit tiresome writing about US politics. However, the recently elected Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who likes to ride on the QAnon conspiracy carriage of the Trump Train, has been put through the wringer in the last week. Journalists have been poring over her social media history and documenting her words, shares and likes - some of which are so weird and wonderful it doesn't take much to debunk them.
Renowned Otago researcher, Jim Flynn has died, aged 86. He discovered a very interesting effect - now named after him - the Flynn Effect, which states that IQ scores are increasing decade by decade. Basically, people are scoring better on IQ tests than they did in the past. This has had the effect of moving the 100 score - which is, by definition, the average IQ score upwards. There is speculation on the reasons for the Flynn effect, but nothing completely conclusive. But it is interesting to ponder.
The above title is my paraphrasing of a recent paper published in an Elsevier-owned scientific journal, Science of The Total Environment. The paper's actual title is:
Here are some common medical myths that are easy to dispel:
I was having a flu jab the other day (because I believe in the amazing power of vaccines to prevent illness and protect vulnerable people in our community from infection) and told the nurse I was the editor of the NZ Skeptics (I know what a bragger!), and guess what, she assumed I didn't believe in vaccines. I soon cleared things up and she seemed genuinely relieved and shook my hand. It made me wonder what type of negative experiences she's had with people when they found out what her job is, and also if the idea of skepticism perhaps needs a bit of positive P.R.
Companies in the US are selling "raw" water, which means the water has been untreated. At $50 for 9 litres, it seems pretty expensive for something that's likely to leave you sick.
This story starts back in 2002. The winner of the NZ Skeptics' Bent Spoon award that year was Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons. She won the award for supporting the idea of using Possum Peppering to rid NZ of possums.
Scientology has been trying to get the public to buy into its anti-psychiatry ideas in NZ recently. The religion's branch called the Citizens' Commission for Human Rights has been visiting shopping malls around Auckland and setting up displays that seek to teach people that psychiatry is evil.
I'm in Nelson on holiday at the moment, and at a market today I saw a lot of nonsense - many bad medical claims being made about honey, jewellery, etc.
Reviewed by Jessica Macfarlane, Editor
Vinny Eastwood has suggested that the new head of the Labour Party is in league with the Freemasons:
After the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster successfully applied for the ability to register marriage celebrants last year, their first celebrant has now been approved. Karen Martyn is willing to travel to anywhere in the country to perform a pastafarian wedding ceremony.
Hang bags of water around to keep flies away. Coins or bits of tin foil can be used inside the bags.
It's not a hopeless cause to engage with proponents of the irrational - but some ways of doing this are more effective than others. This article is based on a presentation to the 2010 NZ Skeptics conference.
Alison Campbell reviews a study of why so many struggle with scientific concepts.
February 12 is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, and the old guy, or at least his ideas, are still in pretty good shape. While evolutionary theory has been broadened and elaborated extensively in the 150 years since The Origin of Species was published in 1859, Darwin's fundamental concept of natural selection remains central to our understanding of life's diversity.
If students are to pursue careers in science, they need to be able to see themselves in that role. One way to encourage this may be through the telling of stories. This article is based on a presentation to the 2008 NZ Skeptics Conference in Hamilton.
Attacks on Darwinian evolutionary theory have come from within the scientific community as well as from creationists. Much of this is the normal process of scientific scrutiny, but some bear all the hallmarks of pseudoscience.
The idea that low self-esteem is the cause of violent behaviour has been current for some time. Many years ago I attended numerous education meetings where I heard that certain (male) individuals "lacked self-esteem" when it seemed patently obvious that this was not true. I argued that these individuals greatly esteemed many of their own behaviours - it was just that these behaviours were those the counsellors thought should be deplored.
I'm pleased to welcome you officially to the 21st century, which I suspect will need Skeptics every bit as much as the last century, judging by the general level of activity over the past year.
IT'S A funny old world, I was thinking to myself on the way home from coffee with a friend. Except, it wasn't coffee, it was decaff, and, to add insult, instant. During which she'd helped me to a generous serving of the state of the universe as she saw it.
One of the interesting things about the Skeptics is the wide range of opinions that can be found in our group -- not to mention the ever-readiness to express them. So I was interested to read Frank Haden's column on the conference and how he found it.
Malcolm Carr, from Waikato University's Centre For Science, Mathematics & Technology Education Research, talks to Annette Taylor about the nature of science education and the new science curriculum following his address at this years' conference.
Postmodern thinkers claim to have broken the fetters of logic that have characterised rational discourse since the enlightenment. They claim to have ushered in a new age of freedom of communication, that rationality is no longer the only, or even the major, "communicative virtue" and that social, psychological, political and historical considerations must all take precedence over logic and reason.
It's a mindbending situation, but I guess you'd have to call me a skeptical believer. Like parapsychologist Susan Blackmore, personal experience inclined me towards the idea that supernatural events really happen.
In the arguments for and against being definitively skeptical, the social climate and moral responsibilities of skepticism are often overlooked. This is an abridged version of the after-dinner speech given at this year's NZCSICOP Conference.