SKEPTICISM . SCIENCE . SOCIETY Vol. 34, No 2. June 2014 Pseudoscience ... & the skeptical response +Animals Gallipoli Mencken Knickers Australian Skeptics . www.skeptics.com.au Skeptic_Cover_Jun14.indd 1 2/06/14 10:27 AM The Skeptic June 14 Skeptical Groups in Australia Australian Skeptics Inc – Richard Saunders Gold Coast Skeptics – Lilian Derrick www.skeptics.com.au PO Box 8348, GCMC Bundall, QLD 9726 PO Box 20, Beecroft, NSW 2119 Tel: (07) 5593 1882; Fax: (07) 5593 2776 Tel: 02 8094 1894; Mob: 0432 713 195; Fax: (02) 8088 4735 [email protected] [email protected] Contact Lilian to find out news of more events. Sydney Skeptics in the Pub – 6pm first Thursday of each month at the Crown Hotel, cnr Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets in the city (meeting upstairs) Canberra Skeptics – Lauren Cochrane PO Box 555, Civic Square ACT 2608 Dinner meetings are held on a regular basis. http://www.canberraskeptics.org.au Tel: 0408 430 442 2014 convention - November 28-30. convention.skeptics.com.au [email protected] (general inquiries), [email protected] (Canberra Skeptics in the Pub). A free monthly talk, open to the public, usually takes place Hunter Skeptics – John Turner on the 1st Saturday of each month at the Lecture Theatre, Tel: (02) 4959 6286 [email protected] CSIRO Discovery Centre, Clunies Ross Rd (check website for details of the current month’s talk). Skeptics in the Pub gather Meetings are held upstairs at The Cricketers Arms Hotel, Cooks at 1pm on the third Sunday of each month at King O’Malleys Hill (Newcastle) on the first Monday of each month, excepting Pub in Civic. For up-to-date details : www.meetup.com/ January, commencing 7.00pm, with a guest speaker or open SocialSkepticsCanberra/ discussion on a given topic. Visitors welcome. Further information from the secretary at: [email protected] Skeptics SA – Laurie Eddie 52B Miller St Unley, SA 5061 Australian Skeptics (Vic) Inc – Chris Guest Tel: (08) 8272 5881 [email protected] GPO Box 5166, Melbourne VIC 3001 Tel: 1 800 666 996 [email protected] Thinking and Drinking - Skeptics in the Pub, on the third Friday of every month. Contact [email protected] Skeptics’ Café – Third Monday of every month, with guest www.meetup.com/Thinking-and-Drinking-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/ speaker. La Notte, 140 Lygon St. Meal from 6pm, speaker at calendar/10205558 or http://tinyurl.com/loqdrt 8pm sharp. More details on our web site www.skeptics.com.au/vic WA Skeptics – Dr John Happs PO Box 466, Subiaco, WA 6904 Borderline Skeptics Inc – Laurie Smith Tel: (08) 9448 8458 [email protected] RSB 11 Callaghhan’s Creek Boxes, via Tallangatta VIC 3701 All meetings start at 7:30 pm at Grace Vaughan House, Tel: (02) 6072 3415 227 Stubbs Terrace, Shenton Park Meetings are held quarterly on second Tuesday at Albury/ Further details of all our meetings and speakers are on our Wodonga on pre-announced dates and venues. website at www.undeceivingourselves.org Queensland Skeptics Association Inc – Bob Bruce Australian Skeptics in Tasmania – Leyon Parker PO Box 3480, Norman Park QLD 4170; www.qskeptics.org.au PO Box 84, Battery Point TAS 7004 Tel: (07) 3255 0499 Mob: 0419 778 308 [email protected] Tel: 03 6225 3988 BH, 0418 128713 [email protected] Meetings with a guest speaker on the last Monday of the Skeptics in the Pub - 2nd Monday each month, month from February to November at the Redbrick Hotel, 81 6.30pm, Ball & Chain restaurant, Salamanca Place Annerley Road, South Brisbane. Dinner from 6pm, speaker at 7.30pm. Qskeptics eGroup - www.egroups.com/list/qskeptics Darwin Skeptics – Brian de Kretser Skepticamp Brisbane July 2014 - brisskepticamp.org Tel: (08) 8927 4533 [email protected] Volume 34 • No 2 June 14 Contents REPORTS 10 Skepticism in Latvia 7 Signe Cane Pro-vax in Northern NSW 8 Heidi Robertson 7 Paranormal meet in gaol 10 Richard Saunders 14 FEATURES Pseudoscience battle 14 Martin Bridgstock Pseudoscience reasons 18 18 Nik Bogduk Pseudoscience definition 22 25 Barry Williams Pseudoscience websites 25 Sharon Hill ARTICLES 36 Birth of a Notion 26 Steve Novella, Evan Bernstein Gallipoli water wizard 28 32 Graham Wilson Protective underwear 32 Jo Alabaster 28 Animal welfare myths 36 Tim Harding Mencken the skeptic 40 Colin Keay Skeptical movies 48 Tim Mendham 48 40 REGULARS Editorial 4 54 Around the Traps 5 Them! 12 The logical place 17 Puzzles page 35 49 Book reviews 49 What goes around 54 Forum 56 Letters 61 EDITORIAL From the Editor What to do he skeptical world has become stand against ignorance and superstition. a great deal more activist in He took no prisoners. His criticism was T recent years. Some might call that merciless, hitting hard and fast, though aggressive, but it is in fact in response I would hesitate to say below the belt. to a more aggressive anti-science His tactic was to use truth and a keen ISSN 0726-9897 pro-pseudoscience movement that has wit and intelligence to cut through the Quarterly Journal of emotion on its side, if not fact (and it obfuscation and deceit often found in Australian Skeptics Inc usually is “not fact”). politics, religion, education, junk science (ABN 90 613 095 379) The days when there was room for and pseudo-medicine. Editor a gentlemanly or womanly discussion For instance: “The way to deal with Tim Mendham on the claim and counter claim of superstition is not to be polite to it, but the proponents of UFOs, Bigfeet and to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, Editorial Board psychic powers are fast disappearing cripple it, and make it forever infamous Steve Roberts into the ether. The psychic area may and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, Eran Segev have had its more turbulent times, but cherished by persons who should know Martin Hadley I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve better? Then their folly should be Barry Williams had a friendly if opposed chat with a brought out into the light of day, and Design Services UFO follower. exhibited there in all its hideousness Nova Consulting P/L Nowadays that playground of ideas until they flee from it, hiding their has become a battlefield. Blood is heads in shame. All correspondence to: spilt, reputations tarnished, emotions “True enough, even a superstitious Australian Skeptics Inc assaulted. Creationism was the man has certain inalienable rights. He PO Box 20 battleground of the 80s, alt med is the has a right to harbour and indulge Beecroft NSW 2119 big one for the 2000s. his imbecilities as long as he pleases, Australia In this issue, Martin Bridgstock provided only he does not try to inflict gives warning of a worrying trend in them upon other men by force.” (The Contact details pseudoscience: increasing influence Baltimore Evening Sun, Sept 14, 1925). Tel: +61 (0)2 8094 1894 and teeth, and a willingness to use He goes on to mention Charles Mob: +61 (0)432 713 195 both: “Dissidents who cannot accept Darrow, the lawyer who defended John Fax: +61 (0)2 8088 4735 scientific findings are no longer Scopes in the famous evolution-based [email protected] confined to tinkering in sheds or ‘monkey trial’ of the 1920s, a trial that www.skeptics.com.au writing self-published books. Instead, Mencken reported on. Darrow himself if they have sufficient backing, they appears in various places in this issue of The Skeptic is published four times can pose as proper scientists and The Skeptic, but his technique is based per year by Australian Skeptics Inc. perhaps acquire real power. It might more on sophistry to turn someone’s Views and opinions expressed in articles even be possible for such movements, argument on its head. and letters in The Skeptic are those of eventually, to overthrow science itself.” But don’t be mistaken. Darrow was the authors, and are not necessarily So how do we deal with this? just as determined as Mencken. those of Australian Skeptics Inc. There’s debate about whether In the month following the Scopes Articles may be reprinted with to “ignore it and it will go away” trial, he wrote to Mencken: “I made permission and with due acknowledge- (the don’t-give-them-oxygen-by- up my mind to show the country ment to The Skeptic. mentioning-them approach) or to go what an ignoramus [Bryan] was, and I All effort is made to ensure correct on the front foot and don’t let them succeeded.” Fightin’ words. acknowledgement of all contributions. take an inch or, if possible, move them And today? You decide the best We are happy to update credit when so backwards. approach. But be warned, as Bridgstock informed. Scattered through this issue are would say – the other side is not shy references to a skeptic of yore who was of hitting first, and hitting hard ... and Editorial submission deadline definitely a ‘front foot’ person. sometimes below the belt. for the next issue: A Baltimore-based journalist, HL August 1, 2014 Mencken took a strong and aggressive - Tim Mendham, editor 4 NEWS The Skeptic June 14 Around the traps ... SYDNEY 2014 AVsN “engenders fear & alarm”... again 30TH SKEPTICS AUSTRALIA: The New South against the Australian Vaccination- NATIONAL Wales Health Care Complaints skeptics Network, Inc. This office and Commission has issued a second the way in which they have carried CONVENTION warning on the recently renamed out their ‘investigation’ are an absolute Australian Vaccination-skeptics disgrace. They have made themselves November 28-30 Network, saying it disseminates into a laughing stock.