Lance Kennedy's article from a couple of weeks ago seems to have put the cat among the pigeons. I messaged Bronwyn and Katrina the day before I sent out the last newsletter, saying about Lance's article on UV exposure “_Lance's might be a little pseudoscientific but we'll let our readers figure that out and respond_”. It turns out I could be “kind of psychic”, as we've received responses from not one but three readers.
While researching for the articles I write for the NZ Skeptics newsletter, I often find myself staring at the Google AI response that shows up ahead of search results, trying to come to terms with just how uncritical our current slate of AIs have been trained to be. If I type in the name of a crank scientist, all I see is positive words about the groundbreaking, unconventional work they've done. A quack therapy is painted by Google AI as a miracle cure. A fringe conspiracy theory sounds like a legitimate political viewpoint.
Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow (2013) is a good starting point for thinking about the strengths and limitations of human thinking processes. There is no good substitute for the use of “educating gossip”, as Kahneman describes it, for training in effective judgement and in decision making.
We recently had a member decide not to renew their membership, because of concerns about our submission to the Therapeutic Products Bill. They told us:
The Thames-Coromandel's mayor, Len Salt, was in the media recently for a response he sent to one of his ratepayers that was, to put it politely, less than cordial. When asked, the mayor confirmed to the media that he stood by his words, which were:
We've reported previously on Liz Gunn, the former TV presenter, now turned conspiracy theorist, who was the leader of the NZ Loyal political party. Her party received just 1.2% of the party vote, therefore denying their representation in parliament.
Back in November last year, I wrote a critique of a Safe ICT questionnaire I picked up at the Go Green expo. We recently received a copy of Safe ICT's most recent newsletter where they responded to my criticisms. I'm not going to rebut their rebuttal, as this kind of to and fro rarely ends up being productive, but suffice it to say that Safe ICT's overly cautious advice for people using technology is not in alignment with our understanding of the science, and is not based on any scientific evidence of harm.
In the good news department, Billy Te Kahika and Vinny Eastwood, professional conspiracy theory grifters, who organised protests during the Covid lockdowns in August last year, have now been found guilty of intentionally failing to comply with the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act.
It cannot have escaped anybody's notice that this week there was yet another mass shooting at a school in the USA - this time in Uvalde, Texas.
I've written about Liz Gunn before. She used to be a respected broadcaster on TVNZ's One News, but has now gone well down the rabbit hole. Last year she claimed that an earthquake was Mother Nature's response to Jacinda Adern's Covid-19 response . She announced her FreeNZ movement, which appears to have political aspirations.
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
Back to COVID seriousness now. It's been a frustrating week where we've seen the Delta variant now escape Auckland and head out to other parts of the country.
As mentioned in the Mary Hobbs response above, there's now a group of doctors in NZ standing up for vaccinations, mostly it would seem in response to the handful of those who are against them.
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics newsletter.
Highlights and reflections on Mark Fletcher's Survey: “The Critical Thinking Skills of Curriculum Level 8 Students” By Editor
In November Wellington's Dominion Post newspaper ran a piece (in my opinion...) of misleading propaganda they passed off as a cartoon which can be summed up as naturopathy vs science.
Since the call for responses to the awarding of the Bent Spoon to the Justice Department's Hitting Home report, we've received responses from 16 people, some of which of which have been published in this and the previous Skeptic. Others were in the form of private commentaries or conversations. One member contacted the authors of the report directly for clarification and further comment, and passed on the correspondence that ensued.