When cyclone Alfred hit Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the North of New South Wales recently, I was watching the news coverage closely. My sister lives on the Gold Coast and, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, she was going to be in the zone predicted to be hit with the most damaging winds. She was pretty sure this was no big deal for her, and fortunately she was right.
This week I'm announcing our upcoming conference in Dunedin in November. I indulge in some schadenfreude about the demise of a disinformation promotor, and take a look at generative AI for images. Also, Al Blenney blesses us with another item, this time looking at a kiwi blogger who seems right into various QAnon conspiracy theories.
This week's been a busy one for me, with Skeptics in the Pub in Auckland on Tuesday night, recording and editing our podcast on Wednesday night, and various other activities.
This is about my unexpected adventure in skepticism a very long time ago in a galaxy not so far away.
“Jock's a Scotsman, and he doesna' like whusky.”
We've talked about the local body elections over the past couple of months, and now the results are in. Local freedom, anti-vax and conspiracy theory group Voices for Freedom tried to sway the elections by encouraging their members and supporters to stand but hide their affiliations.
Finally this week, I received my local body elections pack. I have the opportunity to vote for candidates for the Mayor of Auckland, and members of the Auckland Council, for a local board, and also a liquor licensing trust (where I live in Auckland, we're a “dry” area - where we can only purchase alcohol from licensing-trust-run businesses).
Last week Stuff Circuit, part of the Stuff media organisation, released their Fire and Fury documentary.
I like to keep an eye on some of the more weird and wacky conspiracy theorists in New Zealand, as well as some of the more dangerous ones - I'm not sure why, but it feels like a disproportionate number of them come from overseas. Whether it be Lee Williams from the UK, who is ironically worried about immigrants coming to this country and the UN's secret agenda, or Damien De Ment from America, who thinks we should overthrow the government, these are some of the most vocal “alternative” voices in New Zealand.
I was interested to read an article about the unexpected death of babies. This used to be called Cot Death, but is now referred to as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). There's also a broader term Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) - which encompasses SIDS but also includes sleeping accidents.
For those of you who listen to our fortnightly NZ Skeptics podcast, Yeah… Nah! (which is based on this newsletter), you'll be aware that I tested positive for COVID recently. It's been a week now since my first day of symptoms, and I'm feeling a lot better than I did a week ago. Craig was kind enough to cover for me on the radio talking with Graeme Hill last week, but thankfully I was feeling good enough to get back in the saddle yesterday afternoon. For those of you who listen to the radio, I highly recommend listening to Graeme's “Hill's Weekend” show on Sunday afternoons - Graeme always manages to line up a set of fascinating people to talk to, and I'm always grateful to be able to talk with him about skepticism and some of the nonsense we find out there in the world.
Another person I've written about in the past is Dr Sam Bailey. To refresh your memory, she's a doctor, previously practising as a GP, based in Christchurch. She appeared on a TVNZ medical show - The Check Up.
This week, long time skeptic Felicity Goodyear-Smith tells us her story...
I'm sure Alex Jones is no stranger to most skeptics. The Info Wars host has an illustrious history of pushing nonsense ideas about the US - from the ridiculous (chemicals in the water supply are turning the frogs gay) to the downright dangerous (restriction of gun rights will cause a second revolution in the US). And somewhere in the midst of all that nonsense, Alex Jones decided to start pushing the ridiculous theory that the Sandy Hook massacre of school children in the US was a false flag operation, secretly organised by the government as a way to push for tighter gun controls.
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.
The controversial conservative US radio host Rush Limbaugh died this week. Although this isn't something that the NZ Skeptics feel is okay to celebrate, we do acknowledge that Limbaugh was responsible for the spreading of many damaging and harmful conspiracy theories, and was very mean spirited to people he saw as the enemies of the US, including those who were black, gay, liberal, female and/or atheist. Unsurprisingly, the work Rush Limbaugh undertook spreading his divisive message was recently rewarded with America's Medal of Freedom. Rather than going into more details of Limbaugh's life, I will leave it to the (hopefully impartial) BBC's obituary if you would like to know more.
What's the harm in viral conspiracy theories? This bbc.co.uk blog investigated the people who had been affected by and involved in the spread of misinformation in 2020. The piece touches on Covid-19-deniers who ended up contracting the illness, people who became internet sensations and ended up speaking to thousands about their conflicting and nonsensical notions, and the hurt of having newly estranged family members.
What an amazing last few months it's been for the world. The world, of course, is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. How individual nations have responded to the pandemic has been quite diverse. We are extremely fortunate that the NZ response has been along the lines of listening to experts and locking down the country to halt the spread of the virus.
BBC - Newsweek
I've found another fun conspiracy theory - V2K. Weirdly, it stands for "Voice to Skull" and is a technology where voices can be beamed directly to your head. This is another conspiracy theory that until recently was new to me. The idea is based on the fact that microwaves can be used to create a clicking noise inside someone's head. This is known as the microwave auditory effect, and was discovered in World War Two by people who worked near radar devices. The likely mechanism for the clicking is that parts of the inner ear are being rapidly heated up by the radio waves. The microwaves can be varied to create what sounds like a human voice inside someone's head, which is pretty cool.
A while ago I was contacted by an older gentleman, Cedric, who told me over the phone that he'd heard me on the show and wanted to know if I was interested in a theory he has about the origins of the Māori race. Of course I was, I said, and after a while I received a self-published 32 page book about the theory.
Last week I learned about a new conspiracy theory from Weather Wars International, a Facebook group dedicated to spreading nonsense about government control of the weather. A video posted to the group shows a field and trees, along with a light halo and what appears to be a rotating planet in the background.
Shaquille O'Neal gave his support to the flat earth conspiracy movement on a podcast recently. However, although many websites were quick to jump on this, it turns out that Shaq was just joking:
Antonin Scalia, a conservative Supreme Court judge in the US, died this week at age 79. Scalia took some strange legal views in his time, such as this one on evolution:
The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy, by James & Lance Morcan. US$5.62 (Kindle Edition), Amazon. Reviewed by David Riddell.
On a recent visit to New Plymouth I was rather taken aback to see a billboard outside a central city church posing the question: "Evolution? How come we still have apes?" It wasn't so much surprise that someone could know so little about evolutionary theory that they would think this was a persuasive argument - versions of this are often to be seen in the less sophisticated creationist publications - it was more that they should feel the urge to display their ignorance on a busy street corner.
Alison Campbell looks at some words that cause scientific misunderstandings.
Economics has been called the Dismal Science. But to what extent are economics scientific, and economists scientists? This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics 2009 conference in Wellington, 26 September.
In an occasional feature we look back at issues from the early days of NZ Skeptic.
I am a skeptic when it comes to psychics, mediums and anything to do with the 'paranormal'. Over the last couple of years, I have watched perhaps four or five episodes of the popular show Sensing Murder, each time growing more annoyed.
Ian Wishart is one of New Zealand's more prominent creationists. In a recent book he takes on evolutionary biology, a task for which he seems ill-equipped.
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.
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.
In a decision which sets an important precedent for US science education, a court has ruled against the teaching of the theory of 'Intelligent Design' alongside Darwinian evolution (BBC, 20 December). The ruling comes after a group of parents in the Pennsylvania town of Dover had taken the school board to court for demanding biology classes not teach evolution as fact.
The decision by Judge John Jones ruling that the promotion of Intelligent Design (ID) in schools is a violation of the constitutional ban on teaching religion, is at least a temporary victory for scientific integrity (Newsfront, p10). Previous attempts to get creationism into the American classroom have been more ambitious, notably a Louisiana act which would have mandated for biblical literalism to be granted equal time alongside evolutionary theory, finally struck down in a majority Supreme Court decision in 1987. The proposal in Dover, Pennsylvania, was modest by comparison. It required that teachers read a 159-word statement declaring evolution "a theory ... [t]he theory is not a fact", and stating that ID is "an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view." The book, Of Pandas and People, was recommended for students who wished to understand what ID involves.
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A Waikato University website on evolution has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers, says biological sciences lecturer Alison Campbell.
Bill Taylor explains some of the thinking behind the Time-Line installation, "Genesis Aotearoa", at Victoria University (See also Page 13)
A critique of "Walking with Beasts", by Ian Wishart, Investigate Magazine, June 2002
This article is drawn from interviews with Allan Coukell on the NZ National Radio science programme "Eureka!" in 2001.
LET us be clear. We think skeptics are the most witty, pithy and intelligent of people. The type who can get their profound insights across in 300 lively, well-chosen words. We insist you prove us right by flooding us with splendid examples of the genre. The author of the best contribution in each issue will receive a suitable telepathic gift. The worst example will earn an unsuitable telepathic gift. Here are the rules
NZCSIOP does not take a stand against religious belief, per se, and many Christians are committed Skeptics. While Mr van der Lingen's essay may appear to contradict this stance, he is not arguing that religious belief is incompatible with being a Skeptic; he is only challenging some claims and methodologies adopted by those who take a particular set of positions regarding the relationship between evolutionary science and contemporary Christian belief.
DARK NATURE -- A NATURAL HISTORY OF EVIL, by Lyall Watson; Hodder & Stoughton, 1995; $19.95
This article originally appeared in the excellent US magazine Skeptic_, edited by Shermer, (Vol 2 No 3) and also forms Chapter 4 of Shermer's book_ Hope Springs Eternal: How Pseudoscience Works and Why People Believe in It_. It's a thought-provoking piece which should be handy reference for any skeptic's library. This is part one of three._
Richard Milton has written this book as a "hang on a minute" reservation about Darwinism and its apparent unquestioned acceptance by mainstream science from geology through to biology (and in one chapter political science) in the manner of the small boy who questioned the reality of the Emperor's new clothes -- "Look Mummy, all those university professors, all those Nobel Prize winners, have got no actual proof to cover their hypotheses with".
On open access computer bulletin boards, any entity with a theory can expound on it at length. Many do -- usually to a very unappreciative audience. A seemingly-large proportion of such expositions are surprisingly similar in style. The following scale (tentatively attributed to John Baez of Usenet sci.physics) will help readers establish just how crackpotted something is...
In reference to Ruth Walker's article "Absurdities of Creationism" [Skeptic 22], I would like to remind fellow Skeptics that it is not only "fundamentalist" Christian schools that teach creationism.
Is there a scientific explanation for the near-death 'tunnel' experience? This article was first published in the British & Irish Skeptic and is reprinted with the kind permission of Dr Blackmore.
A recent best-seller illustrates the history of the triumph of intellectual theory over ignorant pragmatism or reactionary ideology.
I have just got around to reading the article "Science vs Religion" in Skeptic No. 11, and am still wondering why it was written for such a journal (or was it?).
Reprinted from the British and Irish Skeptic.
The Creationists' tactics in getting their ideas accepted are not to promote their own (the biblical) version of creation but to attack the "orthodox" scientific view. A constant barrage of criticism of evolutionary theory and of geological theories on age and origin of the earth (and universe) is levelled with the aim of discrediting the theory or theories. Then, with a nimble leap sideways, it is concluded that "The Alternative" explanation is just as likely to be true, "the alternative" being of course the Genesis account. This ploy cleverly presents the biblical account as a viable alternative to an existing scientific theory thereby conferring upon the account the status of an "alternative scientific theory" and obscuring its real nature—that of a religious notion. This constant attack forces scientists into a defensive position—defending their theories by rebutting the creationist arguments.
Pseudoscience in its various manifestations is now enjoying enormous popularity, is increasingly well organised and politically powerful. We can not identify pseudoscience by its errors. Seven hundred years ago Astrology was as wrong as now but was not pseudoscience, we might call it protoscience. The discovery of Polywater and the rush of confirming experiments was not pseudoscience. We know now that it was due to contaminated apparatus and wishful thinking and no one now has any evidence for it, so eventually its errors became known,