I'm looking forward to the day that someone writes a reasoned critique of the New Zealand Skeptics that we can engage with. We receive quite a few emails from people challenging us, but so far there's been nothing we could get our teeth into - we mainly see bad faith arguments, people's personal bug-bears, and grievances based on misremembered events.
While I've been reviewing the Telepathy Tapes there have also been updates to some of the other stories I've either covered recently (Cryonics [parts 1, 2, and 3] and Annabelle the doll), have ongoing investment in (International School of Temple Arts or ISTA), or haven't been touched in a while (The Campbells)
Last week I received a text supposedly from NZ Post (sent from linsystefanoq@resquar.help as an iMessage, rather than an SMS message):
Recently Facebook has been showing me AI generated fake images in posts from pages that appear to be designed to trick people into thinking the images they post are real. Since I keep interacting with these posts out of skeptical curiosity, I've found that there are now plenty of scammy AI posts in my FB feed. It's clear to me that they are AI-generated, but the worrying part is that many people are being fooled by them.
The last time I wrote about Highden Temple, I noted that Bruce Lyon had been able to escape public and media scrutiny despite Highden's association with the controversial International School of the Temple Arts (ISTA) organisation.
At The Society for Science Based Healthcare we believe that public health measures in New Zealand should have a clear basis in science and evidence, and we work to counter misinformation in New Zealand. Over the years, our complaints had made many a few people unhappy, especially people from alternative medicine organisations. We've had people throw insults at us, rant against us, call us racists, personally target us on social media and threaten us with a lawsuit, all because we asked: "where is the evidence?".
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:
The other day I noticed that the medical misinformation site NZDSOS - where a few anti-vaccine doctors promote their “alternative” COVID ideas - had changed its look. This is an issue for me, as a few months ago I created a spoof site called NZD-SOS which I made to look like the original site. My site pointed out that there are more doctors called Sarah, Michael or Kate, for example, that have signed an open letter in support of COVID vaccination, than there are doctors who have signed the NZDSOS open letter warning against vaccination.
It continues to amaze me the lengths science deniers and anti-vaxxers will go to to try to convince people of vaccine harm. This week, Daniel published some pictures from an anti-vax group on our Facebook page, purporting to show extreme bruising after the COVID vaccine. You can take a look at Daniel's post here but here's a taste of the claimed bruising
I'll preface this by saying that this is a topic I'm certainly not qualified to talk about.
I've written in the past about Sue Grey, the lawyer and past candidate for The Outdoors Party. She's an out and out conspiracy theorist and her Facebook page is a magnet for the most rabid anti-vaxxers.
Using an older algorithm, GPT-2, with a fairly small data set that it had been pre-trained on, I fine tuned this particular piece of software on the entire back catalogue of QAnon posts. Below are 6 QAnon posts - three are the genuine article, and three are fakes created by GPT-2. Can you figure out which is which?
New Zealand's first flat earth conference has just been hosted, last Saturday in Auckland. Around 30 "flat mates" crowded into the Backyard Bar's function room to listen to conversations about how the earth is flat, including live streaming of speakers from overseas.
A friend recently pointed me at a post on healthnutnews (which reads a bit like an offshoot of mercola.com – this, it turns out, is hardly surprising). It's been a while since I've read anything so full of total nonsense – well, a few days, anyway!
While the recent national curriculum review confirmed evolution's place as the central organising theory of modern biology, creationists continue to try and chip away at the edges. Most recently, Focus on the Family, an American-based Christian group, has distributed 400 resource kits to secondary schools throughout New Zealand, containing copies of Guillermo Gonzalez's Intelligent Design (ID) DVD, The Privileged Planet, and an accompanying booklet. The covering letter requests they be made available to science teachers and school libraries.
The disappearance of UFOs and little green men has been reported on once more, this time by the Dominion Post (3 April - see NZ Skeptic 77).
Nessie's an elephant, says a leading British palaeontologist (Dominion Post, 7 March).
Dr Neil McKenzie, better known to music lovers as Dr Jaz, died in May following a long battle against a brain tumour (Bay of Plenty Times, May 15 2003).
Tony Blair and Cherie took part in a 'rebirthing ritual' during a holiday in Mexico, says the Dominion (17 December). They were guided through the ritual while dipping in a Mayan steam bath. At least they were clean.
Pet psychic Carol Schultz of Chicago has been gaining a lot of international attention, with identical reports featured in June editions of the Cairns Post and Evening Post. Journalist Marilynn Marchione seems to have written the piece with eyebrows permanently raised, as Schultz talks of her ability to speak with dogs, cats and horses, even if they're dead. She even reads cats' paws! Yes, it's true! The article goes on to tell of a dog trapped in a cat's body - it didn't help that he was named Duke. Schultz also helps people get in touch with their departed loved ones - one woman who had had two dogs die recently wanted to know why they needed to leave her.
I would've thought the main hazard from mobile phones was the increased risk of accident when using one in the car. No-one seems to worry about this, however, instead many are deeply concerned that a few milliwatts of radio waves are going to fry their brains. This has opened tremendous opportunities for the enterprising.
I wished I'd tried this one when I was at Gisborne Girl's High. An Oklahoma student has been suspended from school for casting a spell against a teacher, reports the Dominion (Monday October 30). The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on behalf of the student and also charged the school with repeatedly violating her rights by seizing notebooks she used to write horror stories and barring her from drawing or wearing signs of the pagan religion Wicca. No mention was made of how the teacher was faring…
Taking a leaf from the UK Skeptic, we're turning our news clippings into a column. Which means I get to read them - never used to before! Many thanks to all those who've sent in material, and please keep it coming.
The failure of clairvoyants to locate the missing Wellington man, Michael Kelly, or to know the manner of his death, will not startle many skeptics. No major missing persons case in the history of New Zealand has been solved with paranormal help, despite the fact that police have been deluged with clairvoyant tips over the years -- from Mona Blades to Kirsa Jensen, Teresa Cormack, Luisa Damodron, Heidi Paakkonen or Michael Kelly.