Bronwyn suggested I do a bit of psychology myth-busting. So here goes. There are so many I could write a book, so I've picked five. You will notice I haven't included any that relate to actual mental health disorders, I will leave that to the professionals.
This week, long time skeptic Felicity Goodyear-Smith tells us her story...
NDEs were in the media this week. Radio New Zealand did an interview with Professor Bruce Greyson who has a book out After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.
Reviewed by Jessica Macfarlane, Editor
The Mandela Effect is where people have false memories of past events, and decide that there's been a jump to an alternative universe where history is different.
George Gwaze was first cleared of the murder of his adopted daughter Charlene Makaza on 21 May 2008. At the time I wrote in NZ Skeptic 88's Newsfront that it had taken since the first week of 2007 for him to be acquitted of a non-existent crime: Charlene had died from a massive Aids:related infection. Little did I realise the Crown would retry the case - the only time a Not Guilty verdict has been overturned in a New Zealand court - and Gwaze would have to face another four years to clear his name.
Eyewitness testimony is commonly regarded as very high quality evidence. But recent research has shown there are many ways memories of events can become contaminated. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics conference in Wellington, 27 September 2009.
Claire and I have taken a year off to teach English in the Czech Republic. These two photos are our friend Lada indicating the site where Agatha Toott was burned to death 400 years ago.
Estimates of world poverty are grossly exaggerated - Globalisation has been the golden age of development - Poverty in developing countries declined from 37 per cent to 13 per cent of the population between 1985 and 2000 with the biggest advances in India and China - Inequality of income is at its lowest level in 50 years
An organisation founded in 1994 to help fathers accused of sexually abusing their children is winding down, saying the "epidemic" of allegations has ended thanks to its work.
Research is revealing how people can develop memories of things that never really happened.
Chair-entity Vicki Hyde responds to a letter from a member who resigned from the society over the Skeptics' donation to the Peter Ellis Defence Fund. We reprint her letter as a clear statement of the Society's position on a controversial issue.
A ban on using any method to recover memories of child abuse has been imposed on members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. They face a series of sanctions if they persist in using the controversial techniques to treat their patients.
This article is abridged from a paper prepared for the "Day of Contrition-Revisited Convocation," convened by The Justice Committee, Salem, Massachusetts, January 13-14, 1997.
In a landmark case on September 30, a 59-year-old man, Bill1, was acquitted by a jury in the Auckland High Court on charges of sexually abusing three of his daughters about 20 years ago. The complainants alleged sodomy and rape, and indecent acts such as the insertion of a coat hanger in the vagina causing bleeding and loss of consciousness. The women claimed they had suppressed the memories which had only resurfaced in later life. All three daughters had attended therapy and made claims for damages from the ACC before they laid the criminal charges against their father. Two of the daughters reported memories of events happening in their cots when aged one year old or less. Bill was defended by Mr Peter Williams, QC, who dismissed evidence based on "recovered memories" as dangerous and fallacious.
In the years since the Skeptics' beginnings in 1985 we've seen paranormal and pseudoscientific fads come and go. The Shroud of Turin was big back then, till carbon dating did it in (except in the minds of the hard-core Shroud Crowd, who now claim that rising from the dead involves an emission of neutrons which increases the atomic weight of the carbon in your winding cloth). Uri Geller is more feeble than ever, UFO sightings are in decline, and Bigfoot has made himself even scarcer than usual. But quackery in the name of "alternative" medicine still flourishes, and cold readers (such as the lamentable James Byrne) periodically meander on stage.
Do you ever feel dirty or ashamed? Do you have no sense of your interests or goals? Do you sometimes feel powerless, like a victim, have phobias, arthritis, or wear baggy clothes? According to two recent books, The Courage to Heal, (over 500,000 copies sold) and Secret Survivors, if your answer to any of these questions is yes, you may well be a victim of incest.