SKEPTICISM . SCIENCE . SOCIETY

Vol. 36, No 2. June 2016

Guardians Protecting Consumer Rights

+Science, Booze & Goons

Australian Skeptics . www.skeptics.com.au

Skeptic_Cover_JUN16.indd 1 9/06/2016 4:25 pm The Skeptic June 16

Skeptical Groups in Australia

Australian Skeptics Inc – Eran Segev Canberra Skeptics – Lauren Kelly www.skeptics.com.au PO Box 555, Civic Square ACT 2608 PO Box 20, Beecroft, NSW 2119 http://www.canberraskeptics.org.au Tel: 0410 382 306 Tel: 02 8094 1894; Mob: 0432 713 195; Fax: (02) 8088 4735 [email protected] (general inquiries), [email protected] [email protected] (Canberra Skeptics in the Pub). Sydney Skeptics in the Pub – 6pm first Thursday of each A free monthly talk, open to the public, usually takes place month at the Crown Hotel, cnr Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets in on the 1st Saturday of each month at the Lecture Theatre, the city (meeting upstairs) CSIRO Discovery Centre, Clunies Ross Rd (check website for details of the current month’s talk). Skeptics in the Pub gather Dinner meetings are held on a regular basis. at 1pm on the third Sunday of each month at King O’Malleys Pub in Civic. For up-to-date details : www.meetup.com/ SocialSkepticsCanberra/ Hunter Skeptics – John Turner Tel: (02) 4959 6286 [email protected] Meetings are held at the Club Macquarie, Lake Road, Argenton Skeptics SA – Laurie Eddie on the second Thursday of each month, excepting January, 52B Miller St Unley, SA 5061 commencing 7.00pm, with a guest speaker or open discussion Tel: (08) 8272 5881 [email protected] on a given topic. Visitors welcome. Further information from the Thinking and Drinking - Skeptics in the Pub, on the third Friday secretary at: [email protected] of every month. Contact [email protected] www.meetup.com/Thinking-and-Drinking-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/ Australian Skeptics (Vic) Inc – Chris Guest calendar/10205558 or http://tinyurl.com/loqdrt GPO Box 5166, Melbourne VIC 3001 Tel: 1 800 666 996 [email protected] WA Skeptics – Dr Geoffrey Dean Skeptics’ Café – Third Monday of every month, with guest speaker. PO Box 466, Subiaco, WA 6904 La Notte, 140 Lygon St. Meal from 6pm, speaker at 8pm sharp. Tel: 08 9341 4538 [email protected] More details on our web site www.skeptics.com.au/vic 0Details of all our meetings and speakers are on our website at www.undeceivingourselves.org Borderline Skeptics Inc – Laurie Smith RSB 11 Callaghhan’s Creek Boxes, via Tallangatta VIC 3701 Hobart Skeptics – Leyon Parker Tel: (02) 6072 3415 PO Box 84, Battery Point TAS 7004 Tel: 03 6225 3988 BH, 0418 128713 [email protected] Meetings are held quarterly on second Tuesday at Albury/ Wodonga on pre-announced dates and venues. Skeptics in the Pub - 2nd Monday each month, 6.30pm, Ball & Chain restaurant, Salamanca Place

Queensland Skeptics Association Inc – Bob Bruce www.qskeptics.org.au Darwin Skeptics – Michelle Franklin Mob: 0419 778 308 [email protected] PO Box2027 Humpty Doo NT 0836 Tel: 0408 783 145; www.facebook.com/group/darwinskeptics/ Meetings with a guest speaker on the last Monday of the month [email protected] from February to November at the Redbrick Hotel, 81 Annerley Road, South Brisbane. Dinner from 6pm, speaker at 7.30pm. Meetings to be announced - see Facebook page for details Qskeptics eGroup - www.egroups.com/list/qskeptics

Gold Coast Skeptics – Lilian Derrick PO Box 8348, GCMC Bundall, QLD 9726 Tel: (07) 5593 1882 [email protected] Contact Lilian to find out news of more events.

Volume 36 • No 2 June 16 Contents

REPORTS Skeptics Among Believers 10 Richard Saunders 10 Chiropractic saga 13 Tim Mendham 24 FEATURES Action on advertising 15 Tim Mendham Watch dogs 18 Saunders, Maynard, Mendham A Quick Guide to Scams 24 18 Tim Mendham 15 32 ARTICLES The ABC of AA 28 28 Cassandra Perryman

Out of the Dark 32 Tim Harding

The Chosen Ones 36 Colin Groves & Borek Puza

The Need for Speed 44 Brian Dunning

R U Listening? 47 Sharon Hill Go on, be a Goon 48 36 Sir Jim R Wallaby 48

REGULARS Editorial 4 52 Around the Traps 5 Them! 15 The logical place 31 54 Puzzles page 35 What goes around 52 Book reviews 54 Forum 58 Letters 61 EDITORIAL

Someone to watch over you rom its very start in 1980, weight of science behind them. Any FAustralian Skeptics has often been actions we might take toward or on described as a “consumer affairs for behalf of individuals may have negative ideas”. Apart from a lot of shonky consequences for all concerned. products and services, in all of our But in our support of our form of ISSN 0726-9897 various incarnations - national, state consumer protection, we are not alone. Quarterly Journal of or local - we have also dealt with 47 nations currently have Australian Skeptics Inc concepts and philosophies, theories constitutions in force that include some (ABN 90 613 095 379) and assumptions. sort of consumer right. The Australian Editor Is this a correct role for Australian Consumer Law is uniform legislation Tim Mendham Skeptics, and how far do we go? What for consumer protection, applying as a is the role of the Skeptical community law of the Commonwealth of Australia Editorial Board in consumer protection, and what sort and is incorporated into the law of each Steve Roberts of authority does any skeptical group of Australia’s states and territories. Eran Segev have to play in this arena? Beyond that is a gamut of Martin Hadley The answer is, we have various roles. organisation and individuals, from Barry Williams One is to assess and publicise what private campaigners to not-for-profits, Design Services we consider to be unethical, unsound government bodies and industry- Nova Consulting P/L and unscientifically-based claims specific groups. There are ombudsmen’s and products. A second is to pursue offices in both Commonwealth and All correspondence to: practitioners and providers of those state/territory governments out there to Australian Skeptics Inc claims and products, insisting that protect consumers and customers. PO Box 20 they either substantiate themselves or One of the icons of consumer Beecroft NSW 2119 get out. A third is to alert authorities protection and consumer activism is Australia – and especially those authorities with Ralph Nader, whose areas of particular Contact details relevant legislated powers – to act. And concern, apart from consumer Tel: +61 (0)2 8094 1894 then there is a fourth role, which is to protection, include humanitarianism, Mob: +61 (0)432 713 195 follow up and make sure that those environmentalism, and democratic Fax: +61 (0)2 8088 4735 authorities actually do what they say government. He has run for President they can and will do. of the US five times (1992 for the [email protected] What we can’t do is to act as a New Hampshire Democratic primary, www.skeptics.com.au consumer counselling service. This as the Green Party nominee in 1996 writer is regularly contacted by people and 2000, and as an independent The Skeptic is published four times in desperate need of help, either candidate in 2004 and 2008). He has per year by Australian Skeptics Inc. because of their own obsessions or been criticised as taking his consumer Views and opinions expressed in articles those of friends and relatives who, they protection into fanatical territories, and letters in The Skeptic are those of fear, are going off the rails. There are even to the extent of his political the authors, and are not necessarily also those who have their relationships candidature having a major impact on those of Australian Skeptics Inc. with family members impeded or the results of the 2000 US elections. Articles may be reprinted with even destroyed because of their own But there are only few who pursue permission and with due acknowledge- skeptical beliefs versus the strong consumer protection of the mind with ment to The Skeptic. beliefs held by others. Seriously, we a science base as we do. We are made All effort is made to ensure correct are faced with this regularly. While up of volunteers, unpaid, who only acknowledgement of all contributions. we can offer technical information have their own enthusiasm and sense of We are happy to update credit when so based on our past experience with right as payment. But it is a worthwhile informed. pseudoscientific and paranormal issues, role, and one we have pursued for the we are not qualified to offer personal more than 30 years of our existence Editorial submission deadline advice or counselling beyond the And long may we do so. . for the next issue: reassurances that those with skeptical July 31, 2016 beliefs are not alone and have the - Tim Mendham, editor 4 NEWS The Skeptic June 16

32n d AUSTRALIAN Around the traps ... SKEPTICS NATIONAL Trials and tribulations CONVENTION November 25-27 AUSTRALIA: Two legal cases have raised much interest in the skeptical community - one completed but with complaints about the finding, one proposed MELBOURNE with much support. Tickets now available Nurofen’s $1.7 m fine convention.skeptics.com.au SPEAKERS INCLUDE The Australian Competition and Consum- er Commission has appealed the Federal Edzard Ernst, Lawrence Court’s decision ordering Reckitt Benckiser, Krauss, Harriet Hall, manufacturers of Nurofen pain killers, to Michael Marshall, pay penalties of $1.7 million for contra- Katie Mack, Mel Thomson, vening the Australian Consumer Law. ACCC chairman Rod Sims says that Consumer group Choice has Nicholas Johnson $1.7 million in penalties imposed on a welcomed the ACCC’s decision, while company the size of Reckitt Benckiser upping the ante considerably. “does not act as an adequate deterrent and “Choice believes Nurofen should Gibson became a celebrity when she might be viewed as simply a cost of doing have faced fines up to $60 million for claimed to have overcome malignant business”. orchestrating such a significant consumer brain cancer with alternative treatments, The case involves product packaging con over so many years,” said Choice head meditation and herbalism. She chronicled for Nurofen which claimed that various of media Tom Godfrey. her battle with cancer on a blog, The versions of the drug would treat specific “A fine of $1.7 million is laughable to Whole Pantry, which spawned an app and parts of the body, so-called “targeted pain a business as large as Reckitt Benckiser recipe book of the same name. relief”. In fact, each Nurofen Specific which continues to make these dodgy The problem was that she never had Pain product contains exactly the same targeted pain relief claims on packs. cancer, and her thousands of followers had active ingredient, ibuprofen lysine 342mg, The fact that they are yet to remove the been duped. which treats a wide variety of pain targeted pain relief claims from pain pill Doubts about her claims had surfaced conditions and is no more effective at packs on supermarket shelves speaks after she failed to deliver a promised treating the type of pain described on its volumes about how insignificant this $300,000 donation to charity based on her packaging than any of the other Nurofen penalty is. Adding a waiver to the pack’s sales. Specific Pain products. fine print will not take the pain out of Consumer Affairs Victoria director In December 2015, following your hip pocket. Simon Cohen said her publisher Penguin admissions by Reckitt Benckiser, the “We estimate the company turned over had willingly co-operated with a concurrent Court found that the company engaged at least $63 million more than compared investigation that examined whether in misleading or deceptive conduct to a company selling generic branded the company had also contravened the by making such representations on its product,” Godfrey said. consumer law. The company has agreed to website and product packaging. an enforceable undertaking acknowledging The ACCC had submitted to the that it had not required Gibson to Court that a penalty of at least $6 million Legal action substantiate her claims prior to the book’s was appropriate in order to send a strong against Belle Gibson publication. Included in the terms of the deterrence message, taking into account enforceable undertaking is that Penguin the longstanding and widespread nature of Consumer Affairs Victoria is preparing will make a $30,000 donation to the the conduct, and the substantial sales and to take legal action against fake cancer Victorian Consumer Law Fund. profit that was made by selling the product. sufferer Belle Gibson following Penguin must also enhance its compli- “This is particularly the case when the an in-depth investigation into ance, education and training program judge found that Reckitt Benckiser had alleged contraventions of with a specific focus on ensuring all made many millions in profits from sales Australian consumer law. claims about medical conditions are of 5.9 million units of these products at Media reports suggest she substantiated, and that statements around 8500 outlets during the relevant may be subject to fines of about natural therapies are accompanied period,” Sims said. over $1 million. by a prominent warning notice. 5 23 NEWS

Boss of failed stockbroking firm sought business advice from psychic

AUSTRALIA: The Australian (my inner angelic guidance) Financial Review has reported that taught me how to repair, Glenn Rosewall, executive chairman of activate and in some cases the failed stockbroking firm BBY, was further develop the repertoire consulting a psychic and ‘vibrational of Goddess energies, with healer’ for at least 12 months prior to which my clients habitually the firm’s demise, according to sources. operated. At first I did this The AFR says it is understood work ‘manually’, so to speak, that Rosewall was using the services during channeled healings. in effect than many forms of energy of Nevine Rottinger “for counsel on “After having become more adept healings & attunements generally business decisions, including corporate with this type of healing and quite available. deals, hiring and firing decisions, and familiar with a number of Goddess “At Essential Energies we do not employee budgets and forecasts”. energies, Sam asked me to begin believe humans need ‘fixing’ but we BBY collapsed in May 2015 owing channeling the essence (unique energetic notice they often need re-integration millions to clients and St George Bank. pattern) for each Goddess into bottles so (having all their soul structure aspects Rottinger (pictured above with others could access their healing without switched on, re-aligned & recalibrated friend) runs a company called Essential me having to be there. To retain their to function more effectively. Energies, and was previously resident purity, the channelled energies bypass “Though subtle & gentle the resultant psychic on Triple M radio. my personal energetics altogether.” energetic, mental, physical & emotional According to Rottinger’s website, According to Essential Energies’ changes & the evolution which we have her career has “embraced the sciences, website, its “Essences and Elixirs are noted in users of our essences & elixirs business, vibrational healing, radio sourced from the vast, overriding are profound.” psychic and teacher for spirit. Vibrational archetypal energies which operate TheAFR reports that KPMG, the essences have always been an important throughout creation. Archetypes are liquidators of BBY, identified shortfalls part of my Energy Healer’s repertoire. in fact the fundamental technology of in the company’s client accounts that In 1996 I had already been using flower creation. Our products are channelled may indicate it was trading while essences and gem elixirs for a number of vibrational essences & are more insolvent since 2011. At time of going years when, I first clairvoyantly noticed multilayered in effect than flower, shell to press, the AFR was unable to get any Goddess energies in people’s auras. & gem essences in most instances. They comment from Rosewall, Rottinger or “During the next 6 months Sam are also more powerful & long lasting KPMG on the psychic claims.

Conspiracy dating waking up two years ago: “It was the damn chemtrails that shocked us into research”. USA: A dating website for people “Knowing and discussing ‘socially who think President GW Bush was inconvenient conclusions’ distances responsible for the 9/11 terrorist one from most everyone who has yet attacks and other conspiracies is about to engage in their own research,” said matching people who are “awake”, Fidden, who describes these people which COO Jarrod Fidden defined as as suffering from “reality denial “someone who has investigated and syndrome”. come to his or her own conclusions Awake Dating lets you search for on a collection of topics and issues. people by area, sexuality, or interests, And through this research and critical not all of which are particularly fringe thinking, they have ‘woken’ from the – they include watching YouTube’and fantastic false dream carefully crafted “juicing”, but include such areas of for the ‘consumer’.” concern as the Illuminati, “frequency Fidden, originally from Australia, and vibrations”, ancient alien theory, told Pedestrian.TV that the idea anti-GMO, free energy, and Jewish came after he and his wife started mind control. 6 The Skeptic June 16

Sex says yes to vax; no to AVSN SPECIAL OFFER AUSTRALIA: The Australian Sex Sex Party believes that if a parent Party has told the Australian Vaccina- wishes to use our community’s early for Subscribers tion-skeptics Network what it thinks of childhood education and care services, Australian Skeptics is offering anti-vaxers, in no uncertain terms. they should be expected to play their subscribers to the hard copy The following is what it has part in protecting the community from published on its website. preventable diseases. Those who choose edition of The Skeptic an to endanger the health of others by additional digital copy for free. Dear Ms Dorey, not vaccinating their children should Many of our subscribers have I am pleased to respond on behalf not be welcome to do so in an early already taken up this offer. If of the Australian Sex Party, to your childhood care setting. you are not doing so but would request for information on our position The right of Australian citizens to like to get the free digital copy, on vaccination issues. I’d like to request make free and informed health choices then email the editor on that my response be published in full, for their families without financial and unedited, on both your website penalty or discrimination. The [email protected] and social media. Please do share it Australian Sex Party supports the right and we’ll adjust your widely. of Australian citizens (and others) to subscription accordingly. The Australian Sex Party believes in make free and informed health choices Note, this offer is only open individual liberty, and the freedom to for their families. The Party does not, to subscribers to the hard copy make choices regarding your own life. however, believe that going against the (paper) edition and is limited With this freedom, however, comes best scientific information available, to one free digital copy per responsibility. As members of our represents an informed health choice. subscriber. community, and beneficiaries of the The anti-vaccination movement privileges provided by the community, encourages parents to “do your own we have an obligation to ensure that research”, however doing “research” by exercising our freedom does not put reading web-pages is not comparable others at undue risk. to actual research done by scientists and irresponsible. The dangers of No Jab, No Pay. The Federal who work hard to protect us all from complications from vaccines are much Government’s No Jab, No Pay dangerous and debilitating disease. lower than the dangers posed by measures aim to reduce the spread The Australian Sex Party rejects the childhood diseases such as measles. of preventable disease. Knowingly insinuation that expecting all parents The claims of the anti-vaccination and willingly putting one’s own child to participate in preventing diseases is movement have been thoroughly and others at risk of dangerous and a form of discrimination. debunked. Choosing not to vaccinate preventable diseases is irresponsible, The safety and efficacy of your children amounts to medical reckless, and antisocial. The Australian vaccination is not an area of neglect; this is a serious ethical Sex Party does not believe that those scientific controversy. The claim issue. Whilst it can be tempting to who choose not to participate in that governments and scientists imagine that we parents have access our collective enterprise of disease are all conspiring to mislead us for to some special kind of knowledge prevention should be rewarded with some nefarious purpose is absurd that somehow eludes the scientific tax benefits or rebates. In Australia, community, it’s just not so. We at the parents are not forced to vaccinate Australian Sex Party would like to their children. Those who contribute encourage parents who are questioning to the broader community’s health what’s right for their children, to by vaccinating their children (or follow the advice of the scientific and have genuine medical exemptions), medical communities, rather than receive a contribution from the charlatans and conspiracy community in the form of the FTB-A theorists. end-of-year supplement, Child Care Regards, Benefit, and Child Care Rebate Darren Austin payments. The Australian Sex Party Senior Policy Advisor supports this public health measure. Australian Sex Party No Jab, No Play. Victoria’s No sexparty.org.au Jab, No Play laws were introduced to protect public health. The Australian 7 23 NEWS

Conflict among Wilyman PhD examiners that the examiner who had “serious concerns” was not asked to look at the revised version. AUSTRALIA: Details have this examiner that they thought the This revised version was approved come to light about the examiners’ study was meticulous. In fact, when by the third examiner. assessments of Judy Wilyman’s asked as a matter of course if they McGivern told Wilyman’s PhD anti-vaccination PhD thesis at the thought the thesis was “outstanding” supervisor, Brian Martin, that this was University of Wollongong, with and recommended for “special “Certainly a welcome result!”, perhaps “serious concerns” and “very critical” commendation”, they answered “no”. indicating relief that the process was comments made about the anti- Considering these stark differences, apparently behind them. vaccination document that claims the University decided to ask a third Wilyman’s PhD was approved by pro-vaccination conspiracies exist on a examiner to review the thesis. the University’s Thesis Examination global scale. Of 32 PhD candidates submitted Committee In November last year. Wilyman has taken a leading to a Thesis But if the anti-vaccination role for some time, Examination University felt that including presentations at anti- Committee on that was the end vaccination rallies and support for the December 3, 2014, of the matter, they Australian [anti]Vaccination-Skeptics Wilyman was one of did not account Network. only three where a for the reaction Now, based on documents recently third examiner was when the PhD was released by the University under required. announced. They a GIPA freedom of information That third suddenly found request, it has been revealed that examiner, also themselves faced one of two unnamed examiners who unnamed, judged with criticism, reviewed the thesis suggested that it that, while the disappointment was definitely not worthy of achieving thesis as assessed and even outrage PhD status, and was more in line with showed Wilyman from academics a Master’s degree level. conducted original both within That examiner expressed “serious research, it did not make a significant the University of Wollongong and concerns about a lack of engagement contribution to knowledge of the elsewhere, concerned members of the with existing literature and the subject, had no indication of a broad public and the media. This criticism lack of an appropriate theoretical understanding of the discipline within continues to this day. framework”. They also felt that which the work was conducted, The University has defended its the thesis showed no evidence and that it was not suitable for decision on the grounds of “academic that Wilyman (pictured above) publication. freedom”, despite serious errors and conducted original research, nor that They recommended that the thesis misrepresentations highlighted in the it demonstrated that she had made be resubmitted, and gave “extensive thesis. It has not released the names “a significant contribution to the and detailed comments on areas that of examiners, citing “longstanding knowledge of the subject”. need to be improved”, sharing the policy and practice” but also that In fact, the only areas where the same concerns as the earlier critical it could have a “detrimental effect examiner felt Wilyman had met examiner. on their physical, psychological or with relevant standards were that it These extensive comments by the emotional wellbeing”. In other words, was presented in a manner and level third examiner have not been released, suggesting that the community appropriate to the field of research but their assessment was described as critical of the PhD may physically and that the literary standard was “very critical” by Patrick McGivern, attack the examiners, which verges on adequate. In other words, it met basic senior lecturer in philosophy and a libellous depiction of members of standards of presentation. Head of Postgraduate Studies, School that community. A second examiner, however, of Humanities and Social Inquiry at The University has not, as yet, “praised the thesis and recommends the University. responded to Australian Skeptics’ awarding a PhD without revision”. A A revised thesis was presented by inquiries as to whether the awarding University summary of the opinions Wilyman, and only one examiner was of a PhD can be reversed. suggests that the second examiner asked for their views. The examiner Wollongong University has been said it represented “meticulous study”. who passed the original thesis nominated for a Bent Spoon award While the correspondence released is without change was regarded as a by a large and growing number of heavily redacted, nowhere in what has given. Presumably the revised version people. been released is there an indication by was sent to the third examiner, and 8 8 The Skeptic June 16

US report: Genetically engineered crops safe are pest resistance and the ability to withstand certain herbicides which allow promoted as an objective overview of farmers to spray fields with herbicide, USA: Genetically-engineered crops current research into the safety and killing weeds while not harming the are safe for humans and animals to eat environmental and social effects of these crops. Drought tolerant traits are newer and have not caused increases in cancer, increasingly popular crops and the foods and also becoming popular. obesity, gastrointestinal illnesses, kidney made from them. To gauge whether foods made from disease, autism or allergies, according to Gregory Jaffe, director of genetically modified crops were safe for a report from the National Academies of biotechnology at the non-profit watchdog human consumption, the committee Science. group Center for Science in the Public compared disease reports from the United Work on the 388-page report began Interest in Washington DC, said the States and Canada, where such crops have two years ago and was conducted by a review was thorough and systemic, been consumed since the mid-1990s, committee of more than 50 scientists, assessing many of the issues that have and those in the United Kingdom and researchers and agricultural and industry been raised about genetically engineered western Europe, where they are not experts convened by the National crops over the years. The Centre was not widely eaten. Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and involved in the report’s creation. No long-term pattern of increase Medicine. It reviewed more than 900 However some anti-GE groups in specific health problems after the studies and data covering the 20 years have criticised the report, saying the introduction of GE foods in the 1990s in since genetically modified crops were National Academies, private non-profit the United States and Canada was found. first introduced. institutions funded by foundations, state There was no correlation between Overall, genetically engineered (GE) governments, the private sector, and obesity or Type II diabetes and the crops saved farmers in the United States philanthropy from individuals, are too consumption of GE foods. Celiac disease, money but didn’t appear to increase close to agriculture industries for the which makes humans intolerant of gluten, crop yields. They have lowered pest report to be seen as unbiased. increased in both populations. Patterns in populations in some areas, especially in Food & Water Watch, a government the increase in autism spectrum disorder the Midwest but increased the number accountability group in Washington DC, in children were similar in both the UK of herbicide-resistant weeds in others. said the committee’s ties to the biotech and the US, the committee reported. There’s also no evidence that GE crops industry and other corporations create Overall the report concluded that there have affected the population of monarch conflicts of interest and raise questions were no differences in terms of a higher butterflies, the report said. about the independence of its work. risk to human health between foods made The report, Genetically Engineered The two most common characteris- from GE crops and those made from Crops: Experiences and Prospects, is tics that are being genetically modified conventionally-bred crops.

NSW government funds water divining under my thumb on one rod, and a halfpenny under the thumb of the other one. If the rod with the silver coin turns, AUSTRALIA: ABC Riverina reports the figure has risen to $60,000. that’s good water. that a water diviner secured grant money Which branch of the NSW “Different [people] have tried to prove from the NSW state government to Government was responsible for funding me wrong, and I’ve been right. And I just test his claim of an underground water is not known. Australian Skeptics know I am right,” he said. source below a struggling lake. approached the NSW Department of Unfortunately, in this case, he was Errol Barton, 78, has been ‘divining’ Primary Industries for a comment, but wrong. . water since he was seven, and maintains to date there has been no response. he can pinpoint both the location and Meanwhile, the drilling project the depth of water sources. failed to find water predicted, despite Locals in the southern New South continuing drilling to depths greater Wales city of Wagga Wagga made a case than Barton had said would produce the for taxpayer funds to test Barton’s claim. 500 megalitres a year the community Wagga Boat Club commodore Mick needs to keep the local Lake Albert full. Henderson ran a campaign for $30,000 Barton says he uses bronze rods when from Wagga City Council, Riverina divining for water – “two to find the Water County Council, and the NSW water, and a long one to test how deep Government. it is”. Later reports, however, indicated that “It sounds bizarre, but I put a shilling 8 9 23 REPORT Paranormal Conference among Skeptics TheBelievers The Skeptic Zone’s Richard Saunders reports on Paracon, a conference for paranormalists and ‘once-were skeptics’.

n 2014 Skeptic Zone reporter I Maynard and I attended a day at a venue for some interesting Paracon, a paranormal conference hauntings, ghouls and ghosts. And Left to Right: Richard Saunders in front held in the old Maitland Gaol, near so it proved. of Katoomba’s spooky and glamorous Newcastle NSW. We were treated well Carrington; the same hotel in early days, and had an interesting day attending SKEPTICS, NON-SKEPTICS AND BIG CATS before there was even much of a Katoomba; talks and interviewing various I was greeted enthusiastically by Alex and the attentive (and texting) attendees at speakers. These interviews can be Cayas, the director of the event whom the Paracon convention. heard by listening to episode #290 of I’d met several times before. the Skeptic Zone (http://tinyurl.com/ There was very little in the way of jaolym2) and by reading my report in formalities and so I soon found myself means) can inflict real scratch marks the pages of The Skeptic (34:2, p10). in the first session of the day, a talk on people! Some months ago I was asked by by the American ghost hunter Brian I was interested, however, to hear the organisers of this year’s event Cano. him criticise those who use dowsing if I would like to give a repeat He told us of ‘paralosophy’, a term and table-tipping to contact the spirits. performance, including a talk, and I he coined as a mash-up of paranormal Until he comes up with good evidence jumped at the chance. and philosophy, but I fear the talk for spirits using his methods, we must The convention was held at the was a little lost on me as it didn’t seem assume that dowsing and table tipping Carrington Hotel in Katoomba in the to have a coherent thread. He is also are as good as any other methods Blue Mountains west of Sydney from one of the many I have met who use that believers use to contact the dead. May 28-29. The hotel was opened that hackneyed phrase “I used to be Nevertheless he was an entertaining in the late 1880s, and despite some a skeptic”. Now he calls himself a speaker. changes in fortunes over the years, “skeptical believer” and I guess that Next up was a talk that seemed the recently restored building an means whatever he wants it to mean. to be trying to be at least somewhat impressive site and a feature of the One of the things it does mean for skeptical, but never really made it main street through Katoomba. As him, at least, is the belief that animal that far: “Getting the living to listen. an old stately building, it looks like spirits or their energy (whatever that Critically exploring mediumship for 10 The Skeptic June 16

better investigations”. The presenter, video after video of feral cats which, well attended. I should mention I Andrea Kaldy, told us she was herself while not unexpected, was somewhat was suffering a nasty chest infection a medium and the talk was not about disappointing. We also heard an during the conference, so despite how to convince skeptics. A pity, as audio recording made some years ago my presentation being regularly among she claims to have been visited by of a woman whose car was attacked interrupted by coughings and a spirit who told her details about by a … sound effect of a tiger or splutterings, it went well. It’s rare missing people. She did however touch leopard. Maybe I am being unfair, indeed for a skeptic to talk to a room The on some issues skeptics have known but it did sound for all the world like full of believers in the paranormal. The Skeptics Believers for many years, including the feedback a Hollywood sound effect, but then questions after were thoughtful and loop created by believers reinforcing again, I was not there at the time. showed people had gained much from The Skeptic Zone’s Richard Saunders the delusions of those ‘psychics’ Following that what I had to say. I viewed a pilot of Andrea Kaldy asked why we skeptics reports on Paracon, a conference for a hoped for new went after ‘low hanging fruit’ or in paranormalists and ‘once-were skeptics’. Australian TV other words what to her were easy series “PI Uncut” targets and not someone like ‘John which more or less of God’. Again it seemed she was followed ghost referring to the talk by John Horgan. investigations, I replied that if any of the claims we Yowie hunters and tested turned out to be true, it would UFO believers be a revolution to science, but also we in an uncritical are in fact very critical of other claims look at their and claimants, but do they come to us adventures. for testing? Sadly, while the show was very UFOS, ETS AND SECRET BASES well shot and I was joined on Sunday by radio produced, no good evidence for personality and Skeptic Zone reporter and such who really the paranormal was forthcoming, but I Maynard, and together we sat in on a believe in their own powers (also don’t think that was the point. panel discussion that for this seasoned known as ‘shut eyes’). Towards the end It was good in a nostalgic sort of Skeptic was an eye opening experience. of her talk she quoted John Horgan, way to see long time Yowie/Big Cat/ On the stage to give their points of a journalist who recently spoke at the River Monster hunter Rex Gilroy in view were Damien John Nott (UFO NCESS event in New York. Horgan’s attendance. Although I did not hear hunter), Sheryl Gottschall (UFO talk, an attack on the him talk, he was on Research QLD), Mariana Flynn (UFO skeptical movement, One of those using hand in the bookstore Research NSW) and Barry Taylor has been widely “ with many of his (anomaly photographer). criticised (see the that hackneyed phrase, prized collection It’s very hard to sum up the general response by Dr ‘I used to be a skeptic’, of plaster of Paris discussion, but here are some of the Steve Novella at ‘footprints’ allegedly ‘highlights’ of what was said from the http://tinyurl.com/ now calls himself a made by what can stage: zl8ym5o) as it seems ‘skeptical believer’. only be described as • There has been a 70-year truth he simply missed ” very, very, very large embargo by the US government on the point of the Skeptical movement animals including giant birds, cats and, UFO matters. and is one of an endless number of yes, Yowies. Seeing these casts up close • ETs and inter-dimensionals are people who think the skeptics, in the is impressive and not impressive at the visiting Earth. words of David Gorski, “should stop same time. They seem to transcend a • There are new human hybrids on the caring about what you care about and mystical line and cross over into the planet, one is called “Mia”. care about what I care about instead comical. I would bet my next hot • President Obama, as one of his last because it’s so much more important dinner that someone, we are left to acts in office, will disclose the truth than what you care about”. His talk wonder who, had a great time making about UFOs. has given pseudo-ammunition to these prints, one way or another. • President Clinton, as one of her first various groups. acts in office, will disclose the truth Australian big cats... yes, panthers A SKEPTIC TAKES THE STAGE about UFOs. and possibly lions were next on my My talk on the Saturday night, “A • There was a world-wide UFO wave list of talks. Unfortunately what was skeptic’s guide to passing the million in the 1990s. presented was photo after photo and dollar challenge”, was satisfyingly • Some people become born again 11 REPORT Paranormal Conference

Skeptics among the believers Continued...

Christians due to alien contact. • Aliens known as ‘Greys’ (think of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind) are here to make human/alien hybrids but are also vegetarian. • There is a secret base at Pine Gap (well yes that is known...but) at this base “they” are (and forgive me if I didn’t get these details exactly right) creating clone alien robots that can abduct humans. • Friends of one of the speakers had just tried to break into Pine Gap! As the discussion progressed, it not anything) of the evidence put seemed to me that each member of forward by the believers. This evidence Above: Long time cryptozoologist Rex the panel was trying to outdo the consists to a huge degree of stories of Gilroy is a stalwart of paranormal events, others in the grandeur of their claims. the “It happened to me, I know what I always happy to display his casts of Yowie I really wondered how far these claims saw” variety. Also they go out of their feet and other interesting miscellania. could go before someone stood up and way to collect such stories from like- said something critical, but it never minded people who, for one reason or happened. another, claim to have had experiences Skeptic Zone #397 and #398, and then A trope emerged that I’ve heard ranging from sighting UFOs all the we headed back home. many times over the years from groups way to being in contact with aliens. So I’d like to thank Alex Cayas and his who feel they have ‘the truth’ but also when they say they have mountains hard working team for putting feel they are marginalised by the rest of evidence, it seems in reality all they on an interesting event that was, at the of society, such as creationists, 9/11 have are mountains of stories. end of the day, a time for believers in Truthers, homeopaths and so on. It It is clear that these people place the paranormal to gather and discuss goes something like “More and more a great deal on accounts of events their common interest. It was gracious people are realising that our point of and indeed to them the ultimate of them to have me on the bill and I view is true” and “Any day now science evidence, short of a spaceship landing think I may have even helped to open a will acknowledge our point of view”. on the White House lawn, would be a few minds. At least, I can but hope. . This is akin to various religious groups whistle blower from the US military. who use the cry of, “The end time is However, as skeptics know, without near!” to keep the faithful on the hook. extraordinary supporting evidence, it Trouble is, the end time never comes really doesn’t matter who or how high but that doesn’t stop the faithful. up the whistle blower is. The subject of “The Skeptics” was As the panel progressed, the belief brought up but I don’t think for one reinforcement loops in the room were moment it was due to my presence almost visible to the naked eye! I in the audience. I would imagine this lasted as long as I could, my hand was is a common subject and a common tired from furiously scribbling notes, gripe among believers. In a telling but about three quarters of the way moment, Damien John Nott said “The through Maynard suggested we head skeptics can shove it!” but a moment outside. I think he could see my brain later said they need skeptics to keep was about to mutiny. them honest. From their point of After this Maynard took the view, we skeptics are indeed closed- chance to interview some speakers minded as we don’t accept much (if and delegates which you can hear on 12 REPORT Alt Med The Skeptic June 16 The Chiro Saga continues Tim Mendham reports on the widespread criticism and awkward defence of chiropractic.

t hasn’t been a great few years best practice, with some suggesting the for the chiropractic profession in boards of both bodies should be sacked patients under the age of 18 while it IAustralia. Like the on-going criticism [see The Skeptic, 36:1, p5]. investigated his conduct. and debunking of the Australian The CBA responded to a complaint Early in June, it was revealed that the anti-vaccination movement, the by Australian Skeptics Inc that CBA had decided to impose conditions ‘fringe’ chiropractors of Australia “The Board expects practitioners to on Rossborough’s registration. have found themselves under make sure any advertising claims are These included that Rossborough pressure like never before – pressure supported by good quality evidence, must not undertake any chiropractic to substantiate their often ludicrous and that chiropractors must ensure treatment of patients under the age and regularly discredited claims. they do not advertise the health of two years, including assessment, The industry is peppered with benefits of chiropractic care when there undertaking a diagnosis/clinical chiropractors who feel that they are is not sufficient evidence that these impression, formulating and licensed to make any unsubstantiated benefits can be attained. The Board has implementing a management plan, claim they like, in the process drawing consistently stated this and advised the monitoring or reviewing care and on mystical concepts of ‘vitalism’ and profession, but is as equally concerned facilitating coordination or continuity ‘innate intelligence’. The Chiropractic as you are at the extent of possible non of care. Association of Australia (CAA), compliance with this expectation by He must also not undertake any the largest professional body of the members of the profession.” spinal manipulative therapy of the spine industry, houses many chiropractors In April, the Royal Australian on patients between the age of two years who fit the bill of woo-merchants. College of General Practitioners told and over and up to the age of six years. So it is that the CAA, and the body its members not to refer patients to In the event that he undertakes that oversees professional standards, chiropractors. The RACGP’s chair of chiropractic treatment of patients the Chiropractic Board of Australia the expert committee on quality care, between the ages of two and over and (CBA), and the government authority Dr Evan Ackermann, said that “It’s up to the age of 18 years, he must that oversees it, the Australian Health a serious public safety issue and the be supervised by another registered Practitioner Regulation Agency RACGP has to make a stand on it in chiropractor in relation to chiropractic (AHPRA), have found themselves the public interest.” treatment. For the purposes of this under fire and, at least in some cases, At the same time, a YouTube video condition, “supervision” means a have struggled with the increased focus posted by Melbourne chiropractor professional relationship in which a and criticism. Ian Rossborough (pictured above) of skilled registered chiropractor (the Following in-depth investigations by his cracking the spine of a 4-day-old supervisor) reviews the practitioner’s files Prof Ken Harvey and Victorian Skeptic premature baby made headlines. relating to the treatment of the relevant Mal Vickers, hundreds of chiropractors In the video, which has been viewed patients, as chosen by the supervisor. were found to have promoted treat- more than 1 million times since it was The supervision should comprise a ments that were not supported and, in posted in January, Rossborough flexes minimum of weekly sessions with each some cases, criticised if not banned by the baby’s back before pressing firmly session being of a minimum of two the industry’s own professional bodies. on her spine to produce a cracking hours duration. The CBA has been criticised for not sound. The sudden movement causes Health Minister Jill Hennessy stamping down on unsupported claims the baby to cry. called for an urgent crackdown on and practices, and AHPRA has been In response to outrage from medical chiropractors performing “unproven similarly criticised for not performing professionals and the public, the CBA and potentially unsafe” procedures on its proper role as monitor of industry ordered Rossborough not to treat infants. . 13 THEM Readers’ indigestible Tim Mendham looks at those ‘other’ websites, where skepticism is a dirty word ... sometimes.

his issue, we take a new look at the wonderful world of woo. But as Twe reached the end of our collection of magazines last issue, we now concentrate on the online manifestation of the paranormal. And this issue, what could be a more appropriate way to kick off the new improved Them than ... here is the news.

Paranormal news

The best websitefor news of the go to … oh my gosh … the believer paranormal used to be Doubtful side of the ledger. News (www.doubtfulnews.com). The most obvious first step would Editor Sharon Hill would post a be the site with the most obvious nonetheless highly recommend the goodly number of stories every name, Paranormal News (www. 17 scary ventriloquist dummies - day, hundreds and hundreds over paranormalnews.com). Unfortunately number 10 is just plain weird. the year - 7745 existing posts over that’s where the simplicity ends. But if you want a really difficult several years, in fact - drawing from It’s a swish looking site, but from site to read, The Anomalist is newspapers and other websites an organisational point of view the your destination of choice (www. where the strangest claims were front page is a bit of a mess. The anomalist.com). This is basically made or retold. She would add her site is a compendium of paranormal one long column of text with own highly informed and amusing stories of all types – a Doubtful hyperlinks scattered throughout. commentary to point out the News without the Doubtful – so The text is broken down by days and inconsistences or idiocies of the finding what you want there is a individual stories mashed together claims and the media. bit of a trial, wading through the in what could best be described as Unfortunately, it became too most recent items on aliens, ghosts, stream of consciousness editing. It much, and the site has gone into conspiracies, psychics, Bigfeet, has, however, been going for more “indefinite hiatus”. Doubtful News etc etc. There is a list of categories than 20 years, which is a pretty still exists as an archive of those on the left hand side – ranging fine achievement in anyone’s digital thousands of stories, and there is from Afterlife to Witchcraft, via book, so there must be a loyal a replacement Facebook page, but Doomsday and Tesla – but it’s still a audience for it. it does not have the same depth or lot of hit and miss to find what may As a plus, it has an interesting breadth of coverage. All power to be of interest. Unless, of course, that list of “recommended sites” which Sharon, however, she did an amazing everything is of interest, in which themselves are quite fun. Or, at job, much loved by many followers. case you could spend days here. least, those that are still in existence So where do you now go for a Where we could spend a lot – there are a number that have well dose of skeptical paranormalising? of time on this site is under the passed their ‘latest story’ dateline, Sadly, nothing compares with Humour and Oddball News which means that in the paranormal Sharon’s efforts. Skeptical sites, like categories. These two bring a much world, just like many other our own, cover current events and needed lightness to the stories of categories, they come and they go. skeptical responses, but to get your conspiracies and other assorted Hopefully Doubtful News may weird and wonderful addiction whatnots. Again, these categories finish its hiatus some time soon. fulfilled, you now probably have to draw on other sites, but we can You’re missed, and you’re needed. .

14 FEATURE Consumer Protection The Skeptic June 16

(though not formally in conjunction) with World Consumer Rights Day 2016 (March 15) and the National Consumer Congress (March 16). Action on The seminar was initiated by Harvey - described by Choice as a “serial complainer” – and organised and supported by Choice, the Foundation for Effective Markets and Governance Advertising (FEMAG), the University of Sydney (Health Law Centre), Monash here are a range of organisations A seminar was therefore organised by University (School of Public Health T that look into the promotion of Prof Ken Harvey and others to “outline and Preventative Medicine); and the medical products to the public and the current concerns that consumer and ACCC. medical professionals. As was discussed health professional organisations have in a feature on industry regulators last with the advertising of therapeutic goods SETTING THE SCENE year [The Skeptic, 35:3, “Face Off”] and services and explore ways in which As Harvey outlined in his preamble these organisations have had mixed the system(s) might be improved”. to the seminar, there are a number of results with mixed views on their Australian Skeptics Inc took part in current policy issues associated with effectiveness from the professionals and that seminar, which was held at Sydney the advertising of therapeutic goods public alike. University on March 17, concurrently and services that warrant debate. “The 2015 Stage 2 Report from the Review of Medicines and Medical Devices recommended that the entire co-regulatory system of handling complaints about advertising therapeutic goods to consumers should be revamped. The Department of Health is currently considering what should be done about this recommendation. “The promotion of therapeutic goods to health professionals is governed by therapeutic goods industry self-regulatory codes. In 2011, a government working party made recommendations for aligning self-regulatory therapeutic goods industry codes and making compliance with them a condition of marketing authorisation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). However, an Implementation Advisory Group set up by the former government has not been progressed by the current government and this initiative appears to have lapsed. A seminar on the advertising of therapeutic “The 2015 Independent Review of the National Registration and goods raised serious issues of falsehoods Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) for Health Professions noted significant and misrepresentations in the alt med field. achievements in the five years since it Tim Mendham summarises the issues raised had been established. However, it also highlighted the need for the Australian and suggested actions. Health Practitioner Regulation Agency 15 FEATURE Consumer Protection

for these health workers has been stressed the need to champion Action on devised and endorsed by the COAG an appropriate scientific culture Health Council. However, it remains (transparency, review etc). Alan Advertising for State and Territory jurisdictions Kirkland, CEO of Choice, said that Continued... to progress legislative changes to a starting point had to be ensuring give effect to the National Code. In that the therapeutics under review are addition, a lead jurisdiction is still to genuine: “Don’t lie to consumers and be determined to administer a national don’t do things that the public think (AHPRA) to respond more effectively register of prohibition orders; develop are morally wrong.” to complaints about registered and maintain explanatory materials “We need to decide what’s wrong health professionals. The latter issue and establish a common framework and we need to take action, make has attracted considerable media for data collection and performance sanctions and make it public!” he attention of late because of concern reporting.” added. that AHPRA and the Chiropractic We need to decide Looking specifically Board of Australia (CBA) have failed SEMINAR THOUGHTS “ at the AHPRA/ to protect the public from unlawful It was obvious from the what’s wrong, chiropractor case advertising by chiropractors. [See outset that there was take action, make study, Harvey said separate report this issue.] general frustration with there was a need for a “Advertising claims of unregistered the way the system of sanctions, and make regulatory system “with health care practitioners, such as regulating advertising it public.” teeth (and blood!)” to homeopaths and naturopaths, have was implemented and publicise, prosecute, also attracted attention. Over the processed. and discipline. last five years, a National Code of Prof John Dwyer, chair of the Helen Townley, national director Conduct (and complaint procedures) Friends of Science in Medicine, of policy and accreditation, AHPRA, responded with the organisation’s require- ments for national advertising by thera-peutic goods providers, that it must not: • mislead and deceive; • offer a gift etc unless terms and conditions are clearly stated; • use testimonials; • create unsupported expectations; • encourage indiscriminate and unnecessary use of health services. Managing advertising complaints required: • applying the law; • asking for compliance ASAP; • asking the advertiser to change advertisements; • disciplinary action; • referral to another regulator, eg TGA, ACCC. Rodney Bonello, national president of Chiropractic Australia (one of the smaller industry bodies) described actions re advertising in the chiro industry: • In some cases, no great problem so no action required; • Breach due to innocent error – correction required; • Breach due to misinformed practitioner who should know better – possible disciplinary action; 16 The Skeptic June 16

TGA – T h e r a p e u t i c G o o d s A d v e r t i s i n g C o d e

he TGA’s own code of practice for advertising, implemented exempted from (ii) if the claims made in the advertisement Tlast November, covers a range of topics, including the are consistent with current public health messages. following: (f) encourage, or be likely to encourage, inappropriate or excessive use; An advertisement for therapeutic goods must not: (g) contain any claim, statement or implication that it is infallible, (a) be likely to arouse unwarranted and unrealistic expectations unfailing, magical, miraculous, or that it is a certain, of product effectiveness; guaranteed or sure cure; (b) be likely to lead to consumers self-diagnosing or (h) contain any claim, statement or implication that it is effective inappropriately treating potentially serious diseases; in all cases of a condition; (c) mislead, or be likely to mislead, directly or by implication or (i) contain any claim, statement or implication that the goods are through emphasis, comparisons, contrasts or omissions; safe or that their use cannot cause harm or that they have (d) abuse the trust or exploit the lack of knowledge of consumers no side-effects; or or contain language which could bring about fear or distress; (j) be directed to minors, except for specific therapeutic (e) contain any matter which is likely to lead persons to believe: goods listed in an appendix. (i) that they are suffering from a serious ailment; or (ii) that harmful consequences may result from the A full copy of the code can be found therapeutic good not being used. Sunscreen preparations are at www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2015L01787.

• Frank charlatanism – “throw the Dwyer feared that those brought to medicines, medicals devices and food. book at them”. account have “imperfect contrition”. Greater coordination between regu- Bonello said that charlatans are a If there is no co-ordination between lators was a must, with complaints and major concern but are “probably few regulatory groups, then there were cases passed easily between those in number and easily identifiable”. many gaps (cracks?) where perpetrators regulators with relevant expertise and Matthew Fisher, CEO of the of misleading promotion could slip power. Chiropractors Association of Australia through. A master complaints register (CAA), was present at the seminar, and should also be maintained by CRP: asked why there was so much emphasis RECOMMENDATIONS All complaints submitted would be on chiropractors when they only The seminar had stressed the need logged, tracked and, if upheld, their represented one per cent of the medical for an action list to be developed compliance status and final outcome community. Harvey responded that by the end of the seminar. This was published, regardless of whether this the highest number of complaints were difficult, as there were many issues to was “negotiated” or enforced. against chiros. Australian Skeptics also cover and, frankly, some motherhood The next action step, obviously, is pointed out that, when the 2013 Bent statements that muddied the waters to implement some sort of system, Spoon was awarded jointly to the CBA with suggestions that had been raised whether based on the seminar’s and the CAA, there were members time and again. recommendations or others, that of the CAA’s own board who were Nonetheless, after the seminar, a list would be effective and definitive. ignoring the association’s directives of recommendations was developed As Kirkland said, if the system on advertising. “These weren’t rogue in consultation with key players at the doesn’t protect consumers, then it is elements, they were board members.” seminar. broken. While one speaker at the seminar These cover the promotion of And it is time to fix it. . described self-regulation of the therapeutic goods to consumers and complementary and alternative health professionals, and promotion medicine industry as “a damp squib”, by registered and unregistered few members of a final panel said the professionals. system was “broken” (though one said Several of these revolved around it was “Not broken but cracked, with giving the TGA and the Therapeutic About the author: the issue being who has ownership of Goods Advertising Complaint Tim Mendham the cracks”). Resolution Panel (CRP) more teeth is executive officer and Kirkland said the ultimate aim and resources, and broadening their editor with Australian was to protect consumers, and charter to cover all consumer products – Skeptics Inc. 17 ARTICLE Consumer Protection

Skeptic Zone reporters talk with Choice about consumer safety, exploding washing machines, pain killers, banks, wristbands, social media and WatchDogs the need to call out shonkiness wherever it is found.

he Australian Consumers’ TAssociation and its more modern incarnation as Choice have been active in Australia approaching 60 years. It began with Ruby Hutchison, the first woman to be elected to the Western Australian upper house, who had been receiving complaints from her constituents about the quality of goods and their value for money. She knew of consumer organisations in the US and Among the winners in that launch UK so she found out how they worked with a view to creating something similar in year were $80 magnetic laundry balls Australia. which clean no better than water, In 1959 Hutchison travelled to Sydney to discuss her idea with a group of oxygen you drink rather than breathe, like-minded people, including Roland Thorp, Professor of Pharmacology at the and a gin and tonic pre-mixed drink University of Sydney. Discussions culminated in a public meeting in September containing no gin and no tonic. Over 1959 at the Sydney Town Hall with the establishment of the Australasian the years, other noteworthy recipients Consumers’ Association (renamed the Australian Consumers’ Association in 1963). have included the Reegen Micro-Plug, Its primary aim was to produce a magazine that would inform consumers about a product which claimed to reduce their rights and about products, their value and safety. energy consumption by up to 30 per The first issue of the magazine, titled Choice, was launched in April 1960 and cent and which, it had turned out, had distributed to 500 subscribers. Within a year, the magazine had 10,000 subscribers been ‘scientifically’ tested in the Rich and by the end of the decade, more than 100,000. Rich fried chicken shop in downtown From the early days, Choice reviewed everyday items like aspirin, detergents and Seoul. That was in 2009. Others instant coffee, but also major purchases like cars and washing machines. In response include the Power Balance wristband to consumers’ hunger for more and more information about products, it built its and Nurofen’s targeted pain relief own testing laboratory, where it would “bend, break and burn them out in the (both 2010); the Sensaslim weight loss name of research”. product (2011); Nature’s Way Kids In the 1970s, ACA/Choice played an important role in the drafting of the Trade Smart ‘natural’ homeopathic medicines Practices Act, Australia’s first national consumer protection law, and almost 40 (2012 - “an affront to public health years later it campaigned for the introduction of the Australian Consumer Law. and medical science”); and yet more It launched its annual Shonky Awards in 2006 which ‘recognise’ products and laundry balls in 2015, only these ones services that fit the definition of the slang term: “unreliable, unsound, dishonest, actually worked worse than water. poor or of dubious quality, shoddy”. As Choice proudly says, “We’ve 18 The Skeptic June 16

taken on some of Australia’s biggest Tom Godfrey: It’s the essence of Business continues to push the businesses, and put a lot of noses out what we do. Because whether we’re envelope and time and time again it of joint. We’ve been bullied, threatened looking at a fridge or the latest bit of is often the biggest companies in the and even sued, but never successfully.” tech or a claim on some packaging market, big global multibillion dollar Australian Skeptics what it’s about is brands that are trying to deceive and has dealt with many trying to get to the dupe consumers. of these and similar “ There are lessons in heart of the issue products – Choice Choice’s activities and because what we Maynard: In the Shonkies last year was first alerted to tend to find is that Samsung washing machines were the Power Balance its victories that are manufacturers and mentioned as a potential fire hazard. by Richard Saunders’ relevant for Skeptics. big brands push the What happened with that? tests on TV. And ” envelope in a bid while not all areas to get you to pay a TG: This was an absolute disgrace. are shared equally between the two price premium. And at the heart of it Samsung, a big global brand operating WatchDogs groups – the Skeptics don’t often test that price premium shouldn’t really be in many different markets, put out a exploding washing machines – there there. washing machine – 144,500 of these are lessons in Choice’s activities and were faulty. So what would you do? its victories that are very relevant for TM: Do you find this is very If you put a faulty machine on the Skeptics. Not least is the use of social prevalent, say in a range of products, market, what would you do? Obviously media to spread the word and garner do you find it happens a lot? you’d get it off. They had a really nasty massive support. habit of catching fire; in fact there’s Skeptic Zone producer Richard TG: It’s booming. Obviously been more than 250 incidents of fires Saunders and reporter Maynard, along Choice has been around since 1959, in Australia. But Samsung refuse to with The Skepticeditor Tim Mendham, consumerism was big and bigger now talked with Tom Godfrey, Choice’s than ever before, and the markets are head of media, on what makes the global, so it’s not only the Australian organisation tick. Read on … market place but a lot of goods are coming in from overseas and a lot Tim Mendham: Choice and the of these are very complex – digital, Australian Consumers Association maybe they’re streaming services. have been around a long time and So as consumers and as a consumer have always had the image about being organisation we have to be very comparing products, appliances and vigilant and cast our net quite widely. services and working out which one was best value for money. But also you do deal with shonky technology, products and services – the subject of your Shonky awards – how much do you think that represents of what Choice does?

Right: Tom Godfrey interviewed Maynard: “Time and time again it is often the biggest companies in the market that are trying to deceive and dupe consumers.” 19 ARTICLE Consumer Protection

TG: There is no doubt that these WatchDogs companies look at the penalties and say, Continued... well, we’re happy to pay the penalty, happy to issue the customer with a non-disclosure agreement or a gag order and make them fight for their let people know. We’ve asked them refund. You have a right in Australia repeatedly, go on TV, and spend as under Australian Consumer Law that much money as you do promoting came into effect in 2011 for repair, new products to get this old dodgy replacement or refund if there’s a major product off the market. But the reason failure. Now what we see all too often they refuse is because they are trying is that these big brands bully consumers to protect their brand, which is cold into signing non- comfort for those consumers across the disclosure agreements country who have lost their homes, and gag orders before and are still now dealing with Samsung they’re giving them trying to get compensation. My firm those basic rights. It’s advice to anyone with a Samsung top a disgrace. I think, The covers loader washing machine caught up in always, if you get into of Choice this recall is to get it out of your home a problem, if a product magazine over and get your money back and go and fails, don’t stay quiet. the decades buy another brand. Come to Choice, go to - changing the regulator. priorities and M: But surely wouldn’t Samsung lose The other thing to changing art money from these legal cases, and by remember is that these styles. that damage their brand? companies have a mandatory reporting TG: This is bizarre. Samsung is basically provision. If you’ve putting themselves in a ridiculous been to see a doctor position with the community. They’ve and if a product has breached trust with the community, caused harm, then there are Facebook groups emerging these companies need around them, all putting counterpoints to report to the ACCC that there’s to what the company is saying. And been a problem. But they’re so keen you’ve got Choice. We went to great on protecting their brands, they’re so lengths last year to raise awareness nervous about social media and any around this. We took one of the negative coverage they might get online. washing machines out to a wreckers and we crushed it for the cameras, because M: Is there an argument over the what we wanted to show is that this wording of major defects? message needs to be on TV, it is a mass message. It shouldn’t be buried in a TG: Often it can be a little bit grey. neatly manicured corporate ad detailing But if your product has failed and your a recall in a newspaper that no-one’s house has burnt down then it’s pretty going to read. It needs to be front and obvious there’s a defect. centre, on the evening news, and they need to be spending money to get the Richard Saunders: Let’s get on to a message home to people that these subject that’s come up recently, and it’s machines are a real risk. an ongoing story, and this is the decision to fine the people behind the Nurofen TG: Targeted pain relief is a con, TM: Not saying this is the case with pain killers a $1.7 million fine, which to plain and simple. We first blew the Samsung, but would it ever be the them probably isn’t that much. Nurofen whistle on this in 2010 when we gave situation that some companies believe were marketing the same pill to target Nurofen a Shonky award. We all know that the compensation payment to pain in different parts of the body. I that these pain relievers, whether it’s people is less than the recall costs? know Choice has been on this case for a ibuprofen or paracetamol, are systemic. long time. It’s purely for profit, these companies 20 The Skeptic June 16

want to convince you that they work as breaches of other parts of the law it isn’t. That can be disproved pretty differently and that they’re targeting where it can be up to $10 million. But quickly. But business will continually particular types of pain, whether it’s whatever is decided we need much try it on and our role here is to keep neck, or back or period pain. It’s purely bigger penalties. Rod Sims [chair of business honest. We’ve been doing it just a play for profit, it’s a total con, the ACCC] said this at the Consumers since 1959 and we’re getting stronger and what’s even more concerning Congress this year that the bigger fines and stronger every year. is that this company was found to act as a much bigger deterrent – it One of the emerging areas for have been misleading consumers and gets bigger headlines, it creates more us is campaigning - we’ve now got they only got a $1.7 million fine. It press, it creates greater awareness. The 90,000 campaign supporters – and is completely insignificant compared reality is, though, that even if it is $60 most recently we’ve were out there with how much money this company million for these global brands it’s still campaigning about free range eggs is making each year from putting these more advantageous because that’s dodgy claims onto the market. It’s not for them to deceive another dodgy just profit and ripping consumers off, you and mislead you “ The bigger fines act as credence claim. you’d be far better buying a generic that and rip you off than a much bigger deterrent We’ve seen genuine didn’t have the dodgy targeted pain it is to actually do the free range farmers relief message. But it’s also dangerous, right thing. - bigger headlines and who are producing because there is a real risk that people greater awareness. free range eggs in could interpret it as, I’ve got pain in TM: OK, presumably ” accordance with two different areas, I’ve got a headache Nurofen kills pain, the model code – and a back pain, and take double the even if it doesn’t do it in the way they 1500 hens per hectare – and the hens dose. It’s irresponsible. say it does. But what about those actually go outside, and consumers It’s not just Nurofen, it’s Panadol as products that don’t do what they say are rewarding them with a premium. well, and they should just stop it. they can do, those that are truly shonky. But the big industrialised producers What we’ like to see is that $1.7 and the supermarkets decided, “This million fine bulked up. The fine needs TG: Yeah, there are plenty of those out is great; we can slap ‘free range’ on our to fit the crime and it just doesn’t at the there. Each year we have our annual barn-raised eggs and get double the moment for breaches of consumer law. name-and-shame-athon where we put price of caged.” The only problem is forward a lot of those shonky products, that the hens don’t go outside, so how TM: Obviously with a fine like that we put a call out to the community. on earth can they be free range. They’ve and all the bad publicity they pulled And you see them coming through all got very big stocking densities, up to the product. the time, whether it’s a phone cover 10,000 hens per hectare. And that’s a that says it’s waterproof and of course real con and it’s been going on all the TG: You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no, of course they haven’t. They’ve put a little waiver on the pack but it’s still out there duping consumers. Part of this is awareness and we’ll continue to make people aware that this product is an absolute joke and a complete waste of money.

M: Is the $1.7 million there because there’s a cap on it, because there’s legislation that says it has to be that much or has the judge just pulled that figure out of the air? How is that worked out?

TG: It’s interesting. The judge had a difficult time working out the profit attributed to the targeted pain relief claim. There were also caps on how much can be charged. I think it’s $1.1 million per breach of this part of consumer law, which is not as much 21 ARTICLE Consumer Protection

claims and the supposed science behind TG: I think that’s a really interesting WatchDogs the products. If you spend any time it point. A lot of people don’t realise Continued... can be pretty easy to disprove. that health insurance is actually two things. There’s hospital cover, and RS: Speaking of tips, here’s one from it’s good to have that. You want top the sort of New Age magazines that we level cover with an excess or co- time and you just need to scratch the regularly look at to get our tips from. payment. Unfortunately people are surface in the supermarkets and you’ll I’ll draw your attention to a device being downgraded into junk policies see examples of really dodgy stuff. that you plug into your wall or put there. But the kind of things you’re on the back of your mobile phone and talking about tends to fall into extras RS: How many products that you all your radiation problems are swept cover, and what we find is that extras investigate would be to do with medical away. cover is generally pretty shocking issues as opposed to washing machines value. The average payout rates are and the like? TG: Yeah, good luck with that. It’s around $370 a year, but people are amazing what people will try. paying a great deal more than that TG: It’s a good question. We have in premiums. You multiple teams looking at health TM: The ABC TV need to get yourself insurance, and others looking at food, program The Checkout With a lot of these an annual claims products, finance … so I wouldn’t looks into areas like “ statement. If you’re really put a percentage on it. It’s often homeopathy. Are those insurance products paying that type tip-led so a tip will come in and we’ll areas that you look into you’d be far better of insurance find devote resources around that particular as well? off just putting your out whether or area. not you’re actually TG: We do. A lot of money aside. getting more in TM: You tend to work that way, fairly what we do is research- ” benefits than you reactive to what people come and tell based, so we’re looking are paying out in you? at the size of markets, and the level of premiums. And if you’re not, a pretty consumer detriment. That’s not to say simple equation – get rid of it and TG: There are multiple paths. We that we won’t touch at those sorts of save a bit of money for the dentist. obviously have a test cycle; we’re in the things from time to time but what we product business so we’re looking at do focus on is the big ones. M: Do you have to ask for that sort of what’s happening in terms of consumer We’re out there at the moment statement? trends. For instance, we might look looking at private health insurance, at hoverboards because that’s looking looking at 38,000 policies out of the TG: When you do, the rep on the like it will be a trend. What we’re 48,000 on the market. What we’ve seen phone is horrified. They didn’t think trying to do is, if a consumer product is what we term junk insurance policies that many people realise these things is booming, we want to be able to where consumers are paying up to exist. But they do. help consumers navigate through $2000 a year for hospital insurance that Unlike hospital insurance, you can that market and cut through all the then excludes them from nearly 5000 drop your extras cover without any tax marketing nonsense so they don’t get treatments. It’s pretty hopeless. It’s just penalties. You won’t be feeling better if ripped off. a marketing tool for the funds to keep you keep paying those big bills. you in their network and to help you There are lots of very strange TM: One of the areas that the Skeptics avoid a bit of taxes and surcharges on insurance products. Funeral insurance get into is not just the marketing, the way through. is one of them. Every time we look at which is what a lot of your problems it, it’s pretty appalling value. The base are about, but also the supposed TM: We did some investigation lesson with a lot of these insurance scientific evidence. Things like the ourselves into health funds a while products – like pet insurance – is that Power Balance wristband that Richard ago, to see what they do support, and you’d be far better off just putting was very much debunking and that’s there are a lot of very pseudoscientific some money aside and covering the now off the market and that also won areas, like iridology and homeopathy costs yourselves. a Shonky. Do you get involved in and chiropractic and naturopathy. Ignore the nonsense that a lot of pseudoscience very much? The health funds are subsidised the companies are telling you because by the government, so our concern they’re just there to make money. TG: Very much so, It’s at the heart was taxpayer money going towards of what we do in the product testing supporting health funds payouts for TM: You often deal with a lot of business, especially, looking at the things that simply don’t work. regulators. How effective are they? 22 The Skeptic June 16

TG: They can be very effective and is required, whether we look at the These people who truly in their heart- what we’ve seen recently is some ACCC or ASIC they need resources. of-hearts believe this stuff works, increased funding to the ACCC, which And sadly, at the moment, with whereas with some of the other dodgy is really good. I think that’s what ASIC, when it’s taking on some of the products we’ve dealt with, the people biggest and most profitable financial behind it knew full well it was a dodgy institutions in the world, it seems a product from the beginning. little bit under-gunned. We certainly would support greater TG: That’s right, and that’s why Choice funding for ACCC and ASIC to take will always exist. Whether or not on what has been a shocking display people are doing it with pure intent recently in the financial sector, whether to deceive you or they’re just doing it it’s the biggest banks in the country unknowingly there’s always a role for trying to lobby to remove consumer someone to keep them honest. protections and then on the same hand they’re presiding over some of the TM: Is that a lonely role? There’s worst financial planning disasters going Checkout on the ABC, but there’s not around. a lot of others doing it and there quite I just think the regulators need to be a few promoters on the other side. strong and well-funded so that these businesses are called to account. M: In the legal profession it’s not a very sexy area to be in consumer law on TM: The ACCC took a the consumer’s side. There’s not a lot case against Homeopathy of money in it and there’s not a lot of Plus, which is hardly glamour. at the big end of town, and they won because TG: Now that social media has Homeopathy Plus was taken off we’re getting a lot of people claiming that homeopathic wanting to get engaged and what’s vaccinations for whooping fascinating about that is you get cough were better than support from really interesting places anything else. They were in the community. You can see it live outrageous statements, and people arguing the case for you. and the ACCC asked them So if you get the message right and you take these statements down empower the community they often from their website and will take that consumer affairs message they refused. Homeopathy for you into the market. Plus fought it and lost. What’s been interesting recently From Homeopathy Plus’s when we launched the free range egg point of view the payouts boycott of nineteen brands that we would have been crippling believed were just ridiculous with their but from ACCC’s point of free range claims, people embraced it. view is whether you’re recouping your We were getting 10,000 scans on egg costs. I know that’s done almost as an cartons every day, basically showing ethical issue by the ACCC. people how they are being misled and deceived. It’s just been embraced by the TG: The ACCC does a great job. community and shared. So if you get it They’ve got a very big remit. And cases right, it can go viral like that, and have like that send a very clear message to a huge impact long and far beyond others, that might not directly be in these doors. . that space but are pushing boundaries, that there are some big fines and they will get crippled. Note: Further information on Choice can be found at choice.com.au. For RS: That’s an interesting case because details of the chequered history of Shonky with Homeopathy Plus you’re dealing award winners go to http://classic.choice. with people who are true believers. com.au/shonkyaward.aspx. 23 ARTICLE Consumer Protection

quick guide A to Tim MendhamScams looks at the range of support available to those dealing with scams – the organisations that fight them, the forms that promote them and what you can do about them.

cams run the gamut from dodgy videos, and other online resources Sproducts, services and financial to assist consumers, small businesses cons to those areas more familiar to and industry in understanding and Skeptics – psychics, miracle cures, preventing harm from scams. etc. Each state government has some • Scam statistics – Data on the latest form or another of facility for dealing scams using Scamwatch’s interactive with scams, and the Commonwealth tool, which shows how many reports Government’s Scamwatch, run by have been received, the amount of the ACCC, is the umbrella and go-to money lost, as well as the age, gender organisation for all of them. and location of people reporting Most of what they deal with are the scams. straight financial rip-offs, Nigerian • Australasian Consumer Fraud money laundering being a classic. Taskforce - The ACFT is made up But occasionally they do stray into of government regulatory agencies the paranormal and pseudoscientific, and departments in Australia and which are just as much cons as the less New Zealand that work alongside woo-ish versions, with similar if not private sector, community and greater impacts on the financial and non-government partners to prevent personal well-being of victims. fraud. This collection of information on Further information is available on the scams and the bodies fighting them Scamwatch’s website, scamwatch.gov.au is an overview of what is available in terms of information and action. TYPES OF SCAMS Scamwatch lists the general range of SCAMWATCH forms that scams can take, as well as Scamwatch is the premier organisation advice on how to deal with them. in Australia to monitor a wide range of scams. Run by the Australian • Unexpected money - Scammers Competition and Consumer invent convincing and seemingly Commission (ACCC), it provides legitimate reasons to give you false information to consumers and small hope about offers of money. There businesses about how to recognise, are no get-rich-quick schemes, so avoid and report scams. always think twice before handing The following are the types of over your details or dollars. information it provides: • Unexpected winnings - Don’t • Tools & resources - Publications, be lured by a surprise win. These 24 The Skeptic June 16

scams try to trick you into giving approach you by post, email, money upfront or your personal telephone or even face-to- information in order to receive a face to foreshadow a positive prize from a lottery or competition upcoming event or claiming that you never entered. that you are in some sort • Fake charities - Scammers of trouble and offering a impersonate genuine charities and solution. quick guide ask for donations or contact you This solution could be claiming to collect money for relief winning lottery numbers, a efforts after natural disasters. lucky charm, the removal of • Dating & romance - Scammers a curse or jinx, or ongoing A to take advantage of people looking protection. The scammer will Scams for romantic partners, often via tell you that they will help dating websites, apps or social media you in return for a fee. If you by pretending to be prospective refuse to pay, some scammers companions. They play on emotional will threaten to invoke a curse triggers to get you to provide money, or bad luck charm on you. gifts or personal details. Scammers may try and • Buying or selling - Scammers prey talk you into buying a lucky on consumers and businesses that charm or secret of wealth, are buying or selling products and and once you have paid, will services. Not every transaction is send you a worthless item or legitimate. nothing at all. Alternatively, • Jobs & investment - If you are the scammer may warn you looking for a fast way to make of a false future event and money, watch out. Scammers have then promise to protect you invented all sorts of fake money- from that event in return for ongoing this themselves or give you the name making opportunities to prey on payments. of someone else who can do so. your enthusiasm and get hold of These kinds of scams can also lead • You may be offered a good luck your cash. to your name and contact details being charm, the secret to enormous • Attempts to gain your personal put onto a ‘victim list’ which will wealth, magic potions or winning information - Scammers use all kinds result in you receiving further scam lottery numbers for a fee. of sneaky approaches to steal your approaches, for example unexpected personal details. Once obtained, prize or lottery scams or inheritance Protect yourself they can use your identity to commit scams. • If you are approached by a psychic fraudulent activities such as using Remember, the psychic or or clairvoyant and they tell you that your credit card or opening a bank clairvoyant may try to convince you you are in danger, have bad luck or account. that their insights are genuine by are cursed, be very cautious – their • Threats & extortion - Scammers will telling you something about yourself. solution is likely to be a scam. use any means possible to steal your Ask yourself if they are telling you • Never send any money, credit card identity or your money, including something that is general and could or other personal details to these threatening your life or ‘hijacking’ be true about anyone. They may also scammers, and never by email. your computer. tell you something about yourself that Responding for any reason only Most of these categories are you mentioned previously or that they indicates you’re interested and you broken down into sub-groups on the gathered from another source, such as could end up with many more Scamwatch website, scamwatch.gov.au/ personal details you posted on a social potential scam letters and emails in types-of-scams networking website. the future. • If you want to engage the services SCAMWATCH: PSYCHIC AND Warning signs of a psychic or clairvoyant, ensure CLAIRVOYANT SCAMS • You receive an email or letter out of you know the total cost of anything Psychic and clairvoyant scams are the blue from somebody claiming you order and exactly what you designed to trick you into giving away to be a psychic or clairvoyant. This will receive. Ask if there are any your money, usually offering ‘help’ in person claims to have some sort of conditions and ongoing or hidden exchange for a fee. special insight into your life. costs. How this scam works • They may claim you have been • Never call a telephone number that Psychic and clairvoyant scammers cursed or jinxed and offer to remove you see in a scam email. 25 ARTICLE Consumer Protection

a questionnaire (often on the In 2010, a crackdown on sham A Guide internet). healers was proposed by the Victorian • The product is promoted as government and won national approval to Scams including a certain ingredient that and a budget for further development Continued... is claimed to have amazing mystical at a Health Ministers’ Conference in properties or the approval of some Melbourne. guru figure. Under the scheme, unregistered • The product is promoted with health practitioners – those who do not SCAMWATCH: MIRACLE CURE SCAMS anonymous testimonials, for fall under registration schemes such as Miracle cure scams make promises example ‘Luke, from Melbourne …’. those for doctors, nurses or pharmacists about a range of ‘cure-all’ products and – would have to abide by a code of services that can appear to be legitimate Protect yourself conduct or face restrictions, bans or treatments for many different medical • Be careful about offers for even jail for repeat offenders. conditions. medicines, supplements or other A report at the time said that treatments: always seek independent “Charlatan healers who exploit How this scam works medical advice from your doctor vulnerable sick people by selling fake Miracle cure scams usually promise or other qualified health care balms and rituals will face stiff penalties quick and easy remedies for serious professional about the product to under new national laws. The laws may medical conditions. They exploit the find out if it is safe and suitable for also compel some alternative health emotional vulnerability of people you. practitioners to admit they cannot who are suffering from serious health • A medical diagnosis cannot be made prove that their ‘treatment’ will make a problems. by someone who is not difference to a patient’s health.” These scams cover a range of products qualified or has not seen The national scheme would have and services which can appear to be you. Do not rely solely prevented shonky practitioners from legitimate alternative medicine. They on information you find being struck off in one state only to can take the form of health treatments on the internet. start up in another, but the scheme for medical conditions such as cancer, • Find out if there are any stalled two years later AIDS, arthritis or the common cold. published medical or because of a dispute Some products even claim to be a ‘cure- research papers to back between the states and all’ for diseases and specific symptoms. up the claims of the the Commonwealth Miracle cure scams are usually product. Make sure over who would pay promoted by people with no medical you know the for it. qualifications who will tell you all sorts full cost of the Following the proposed of stories to explain why their products product or service, national scheme that Victoria are not supported by conventional and if there is a suggested in 2009, the Victorian doctors. For example, they might talk genuine money back government announced this about secret ancient techniques that guarantee. year that it is in the process of challenge modern practices or medical • Trust your judgment: if you think giving greater powers to its own industry conspiracies that aim to silence it’s possible a medical treatment is a health complaints watchdog to them. scam, just ignore it. name and shame dodgy health service These phony miracle products can providers and practitioners, and protect have dangerous interactions with STATE-BASED ORGANISATIONS the public by banning them from medicines you’re already taking. They All state governments have practising. might even cause you to delay or stop organisations that deal with consumer Under proposed new laws, the medical treatment for your condition, complaints, particularly in the area of existing Health Services Commissioner even when proven treatments are health care and dealing with business will be replaced by the Health available from your physician. issues (Fair Trading, etc). On scams – Complaints Commissioner, creating “a and particularly those pseudoscience more comprehensive health complaints Warning signs scams that are of interest to Skeptics – system that better protects the public • The treatment claims to be effective most state bodies will point you to the and providers of health services”. against a very wide range of Scamwatch site. The new Commissioner will receive ailments, but there is no scientific However, there have been specific beefed up powers to take action evidence to back up the claim that schemes to counter scams that are against dangerous and unethical health the miracle cure actually works. promoted by individual states for action providers who are not registered under • The miracle cure is suggested after either within their own borders or on a national health practitioner regulation a condition is diagnosed using national basis. law. 26 The Skeptic June 16

The laws will also prevent dodgy address from a mailing list. Respond • fake lotteries healthcare practitioners who are once and you will be targeted for • internet shopping not regulated under national health further scams.” • mobile phones practitioner regulation law and are It follows this statement with an • online banking banned in other states from moving to extensive list of actual scammers who • employment Victoria and offering their healthcare use mail and email to contact potential • investment opportunities. services there. victims (http://tinyurl.com/jnb7lms). It also offers consumers tips on how In June 2009, the South Australian Each entry on the list of scammers is to protect themselves from scams; what Social Development Committee linked to more detailed information, they can do to minimise damage if they issued a report titled Inquiry into including samples of the types of do get scammed; how they can report bogus, unregistered and deregistered correspondence they might use. Note a scam. health practitioners. While the main that these are often overseas-based The book is available as PDF, Word recommendation of the report was to scammers, and those who use mail as document or audio file from https:// establish a health care complaints body their medium (no pun intended) of www.accc.gov.au/publications/the- similar to the HCCC in NSW, the scamming. It does not include high little-black-book-of-scams . report also actually named four dodgy profile media personalities who ‘contact practitioners in the process. These the dead’ etc. were Elvira Brunt, Elizabeth Goldway, Monica Milka and Lubomir Batelka. PUBLICATION ON SCAMS Milka was recently reported to the The Little Black Book of Scams from the About the author: ACCC’s Scamwatch. ACCC highlights a variety of popular Tim Mendham Western Australia has had WA scams that regularly target Australian is executive officer and ScamNet under the auspices of the consumers and small business in areas editor with Australian WA Dept of Commerce’s Consumer such as: Skeptics Inc. Protection facility for some years (scamnet.wa.gov.au/scamnet/home. htm). WA ScamNet profiles the most prevalent scams targeting Western Australians and provides information on different types of scams, how to Where are you going? recognise scams, and what to do if you have received a scam. It gathers information from Dear subscriber ... consumers and businesses and profiles scams that have targeted Western If you change your Australians. Based on this information, including suspect emails and letters, postal or email Consumer Protection can identify the most prevalent scams and provide address, please information to law enforcement drop us a line. agencies in Australia and overseas. On psychic scams, it says: “Self- proclaimed psychics claim to have had We know how visions or have foreseen your lucky numbers. For a fee, they will send traumatic it your lucky numbers, ‘wish amplifiers’, would be to talisman or other paraphernalia, which will bring you great personal wealth, miss even a often through playing lotteries or other games of chance. The talisman are single copy often plastic junk items such as beads or even cards. We have had cases where of The Skeptic. consumers have sent tens of thousands of dollars to these operators – all in the name of ‘good luck’. These scam artists have probably obtained your name and 27 ARTICLE Health TheABC OfAA

Cassandra Perryman doubts that Alcoholics Anonymous’ famous 12 steps lead anywhere.

i, my name is Cassandra (Hi, that sought to help individuals with principles. AA and NA are for H Cassandra) and it’s been 3 hours life difficulties). Wilson had also had individuals who have substance abuse since my last glass of wine. alcohol dependency, and was issues, Al-ANON and Alateen Okay, well, maybe less than 3 hours. keeping himself sober by are for families of individuals Does that simple exchange conjure assisting other people with substance abuse issues. up a mental image of adults sitting in with alcohol issues. a circle, usually on folding chairs, in While on a business THE 12-STEPS some sort of dingy gymnasium? For trip, Wilson feared The primary treatment many individuals, the two letters of AA relapse and so reached pathway for AA is the will instantly come to mind. This idea out to see if there 12-step model. The steps of AA is so pervasive in our society that were any individuals he are universal across all AA the generic meeting image can be seen could counsel. Wilson was programs, and the method on TV, in movies, in books and, now, introduced to Smith, and that of completing the 12-steps is in a Skeptics magazine. date of introduction is considered the laid out in The Big Book (available for founding of AA. $17.60 from your local AA chapter). In A BRIEF HISTORY Alcoholics Anonymous (the full summary, the steps are: AA was founded in 1935 in Akron, name of AA) is the famous cousin of • Admission that the individual is Ohio by stockbroker Bill Wilson and similar programs such as Narcotics powerless; physician Dr Bob Smith. As the story Anonymous (NA, founded in 1953), • Admission that a higher power is goes, Smith had developed a severe and Al-ANON/Alateen (founded in needed to restore sobriety/sanity drinking problem and was assisted by 1951). All these programs are based and so lives must be turned over to Wilson. Both were members of the on the AA 12-step model, and all the care of God (their emphasis) Oxford Group (a religious organisation work under the same basic practice and His powers (their gender); 28 The Skeptic June 16

• A need to humbly ask Dr Bob Smith and Bill Wilson that shortcomings and - founders of AA, helping deficits of character be each other with their drinking removed; problems. • Admission to all individuals wronged in the past and a desire to THE 12-STEP MECHANISM make amends with all Whenever we are those individuals, and skeptically evaluating a • A spiritual awakening claim, we ask ourselves that leads to counseling two questions: how it others to practise these would work, and does it same principals. work. We’ll take those in Individuals who run AA the reverse of their normal based treatment groups, order to get the one that’s therefore, are individuals easier to explain out of the who have completed all way first. 12-steps and have reached First, what is the the spiritual awakening. mechanism this concept Services and groups are operates on? That is, how always to be provided for does it work? free, but all materials are The AA mechanism bought by either the sponsor is elusive, at best. The or individual. AA has at least program claims that it is 50 books for sale, ranging the 12-steps which guide in price from $5 - $33, plus more than a bit like a religion, you’re not alone. a person through recovery, but openly 50 pamphlets priced at $0.01 - $1.10 The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) admits that the 12-steps are not for but, to be fair. you can print a personal determined that coerced attendance everyone. From its perspective, the copy for free, and for parolees, military 12-steps are an all-encompassing way the sponsor’s wallet The AA mechanism personnel, employees, of life. “Once an alcoholic, always which will set you “ or any individual, an alcoholic” is a commonly stated back $2.85, not to is elusive at best. The is a violation of motto, and it is the perspective of the mention various program admits tht the Establishment program that a person can never return framing supplies, Clause of the First to social drinking or, in some instances, award certificates, the 12-steps are not Amendment (that ever be around alcohol. It is then tokens, and other for everyone. famous one that says through the AA fellowship, moving merchandise. ” the US shall make through the 12-steps, helping others The AA model no law respecting an work through the steps, and not being is anti-establishment, all about establishment of religion). Although around alcohol that creates long term rotating leadership, and uses previous AA claims to be completers to coach new entrants. spiritual as opposed Individuals, or their sponsors, buy to religious, its their own books and local chapters church-like nature was will handle venue booking at their enough to have the local level. All said and done, it’s a SCOTUS rule against very inexpensive business model. In it on the basis of its 2013, though, AA reported an income religious activity. (See of US$19,656,267. The underdog Griffin v. Coughlin, is doing alright. According to its tax Warner v. Orange return (its public record), US$13m County Department of that was from sale of merchandise, of Probation, and primarily The Big Book. That income Kerr v. Lind as a good is up US$500,000 from 2012, despite starting point if you the popular notion that AA is on the are interested in the decline. legality of AA in public If you’re thinking all of this seems institutions in the US.) 0329 ARTICLE Health

The ABC of AA as people say. To that affect, AA is Basically, it works for people who want likely to work for some people even if it to work, and who believe it will Continued... there is no mechanism of operation, work. It’s the therapeutic version of and no overall validity to the program the placebo. because, well, some people. It appears Most likely, what marginal success that is exactly what is happening. AA has is related to the supportive sobriety. Membership in AA, from this Thousands of studies have turn nature of the group meetings and perspective, is lifelong. up nothing significant. Those studies sponsor system. Social support has A major aspect of the program, that say AA is great are overwhelemd long been recognised as a factor in the mechanism of operation, is not by studies that say it doesn’t work rehabilitation (among other aspects in clear. Is it the 12-steps that support at all. Overall, then, life). If the individual continued sobriety? The ongoing AA doesn’t work. The is surrounded by disease model of alcoholism? Is it effectiveness of the supportive, positive, the sponsor system? The consistent program is dubious at healthy people then attendance at meetings? Research into best, and many people they are more likely the specific mechanisms of AA has not go through many times to succeed. If they been conducted. That’s not to say that before reducing their are surrounded by researchers have been selective and drinking. abusive, enabling, biased in how they have researched Some research into negative people they AA, it’s that those types of studies are AA is well-planned, are more likely to very difficult to do, and don’t get grant well-conducted, and relapse. As such, funding. well-analyzed, but any weekly meeting The mechanism is elusive, but most research is just that brings feelings overall does it work? That’s a bit middle of the road in of trust, care, more complex a question. I tell my methods. Many of the attentiveness, and students all the time that the problem studies cannot isolate positive support with psychology is not its theoretical if the participants would have the same methods, it’s that we deal with the are receiving outside psychological likelihood of treating alcohol abuse as most unpredictable subjects known care (CBT is effective in reducing AA. to humans – more humans. We are substance abuse), and the anonymity Although I, and many other unpredictable, but predictable. You built in to AA makes it impossible to substance abuse researchers, are very can have issues with your best planned deduce why people have dropped out critical of AA, it can be said that it research for no reason other than you (a good measure of why a program does not do harm. No research has held it on Tuesday. “Because Tuesday”, doesn’t work). shown that the person has gotten A consistent worse, instead they have dropped out predictor for the and potentially continued use. Life effectiveness of continued as it was when they started. AA is that it is This isn’t a problem unique to AA. In successful for reality, the effectiveness of drug and people who have alcohol rehab as a whole is relatively a high desire low. The mechanisms are complex, to change, and addiction is very difficult to overcome, connect with and treatment is expensive. the 12-step The specific issues with AA is mentality in the that it is considered the best and first meeting. most powerful option of treatment, partially thanks to pop culture, but the evidence does not back that claim. THE PERVASIVENESS AND DANGERS OF AA Cartoons and comics I suppose here is where I should state were used to make the message clear - a my potential bias. I was the assistant nice cup of coffee is director of a mental health therapeutic better than a drink community, and the director of a every time. mental health education program 30 The Skeptic June 16

which was connected to a therapeutic makes it a realistic scenario is that community. My dissertation research AA does not keep member records, the Logical Place was within a therapeutic community does not do background checks on for substance abuse (chasing those any of its sponsors, and works under Association fallacy elusive mechanisms of change). I have a strict shroud of confidentiality and n association fallacy is a faulty a long-going and deep connection to anonymity. Individuals who report A generalisation which asserts that the therapeutic community culture. being a victim of 13th stepping can the qualities of one thing are inherently The tenacity of the AA model easily be ‘guilted’ into not reporting qualities of another, merely via an can be seen in the the incident to the irrelevant association. Association treatment programs police, as these are fallacies come in various shapes and it has become Basically, it works a population of sizes, but most of them are a type of intrinsically likened “ individuals who are red herring fallacy that introduces to. Behind the scenes, for people who want in an exceedingly irrelevant premises into an argument in many countries, it to work, and who vulnerable position. and draws an invalid conclusion. there is a model of believe it will work. The formal structure of the rehabilitation known ” WHAT ARE THE OTHER association fallacy is: as the therapeutic OPTIONS? Premise 1: A is a B community. These Frequently when I Premise 2: C is also a B therapeutic communities provide criticise or discuss AA I get asked, Conclusion: Therefore, C is an A. approximately 70 per cent of “Well, if not AA, then what?” It’s a An example of the fallacy is “All dogs rehabilitation beds in Australia, fair enough question. The alternatives have four legs; my cat has four legs. Canada, and the US. Drug and alcohol to AA are not as well-funded, and Therefore, my cat is a dog.” Another treatment therapeutic communities haven’t been around as long. That example is where some atheists oppose frequently use the 12-step model as the said, there are some options that the idea of free will because Christians guiding principal for their programs. are evidence-based and are showing believe in it. (This is despite the fact that Many prisons use AA as the only drug to be more efficacious. One such prominent atheists such as Professor and alcohol treatment option. program is Secular Organisations Daniel Dennett also believe in free will). In the US, forced entry in to these for Sobriety based out of the Center Special cases of this fallacy include programs is now a violation of rights, for Inquiry in California. Another is guilt by association, or conversely but the same protection does not SMART recovery, which has branches honour by association. Guilt by associa- exist in Australia (or Canada, to my in multiple countries, including tion can sometimes be a type of ad knowledge), and drug court referrals Australia. Although SMART does hominem fallacy, if the argument attacks to an AA-based program are common. run on a bookshop-style income, its a person because of the similarity The retention rate of these programs recovery program stays updated with is low (to be fair, most retention rates the newest evidence-based methods between the views of someone making when it comes to drugs and alcohol are available in the substance abuse field. an argument and other proponents of low), and there is a quick connection, If you, or a loved one, is having the same argument. An example would or disconnection, to the program. That issues with drug or alcohol abuse, be “My opponent for office just received means that thousands of individuals seek professional help and surround an endorsement from the Puppy Haters who are in a vulnerable position are yourself with a positive support Association. Is that the sort of person being forced to go through a spiritual- group. The biggest predictors of you would want to vote for?” In this based, non-effective rehabilitation successful treatment outcomes are way, appeals to emotion can also be program. positive group interactions, readiness included for added rhetorical effect. I would be remiss if I did not also to change, and length of time in A form of the association fallacy discuss a rumoured danger within treatment. . often used by those denying a well- AA. A quick Google search of AA and established scientific theory is the “the 13th Step” will take you down a so-called Galileo Gambit. The argument rabbit hole of dark recounting of abuse About the author: goes that Galileo was ridiculed in his within the program. 13th stepping Cassandra Perryman has time but later acknowledged to be refers to an individual who is a trusted, undergraduate degrees in right; then because the denialist’s non- older member who uses their status to Psychology, and Law, and mainstream views are provoking ridi- manipulate, harass, or even ‘pick up’ a PhD in Psychology. She cule and rejection from other scientists, a younger, more vulnerable, member. can be heard on various they too will later be recognised as Although it is not well-documented, podcasts such as Science on correct. the scenario is recounted from many Top, Smart Enough to Know - by Tim Harding unconnected sources. What further Better, and SkepticZone. 31 ARTICLE History of Science

Tim Harding looks at the birth of experimental science – into the bright light after the dark ages utof thedark

ne of the aims of the Australian eighth century to the ninth century, not all) universities offered three OSkeptics is “to investigate claims intellectual progress in Western Europe professional courses of law, medicine of pseudoscientific, paranormal and generally lagged behind that of the and theology. similarly anomalous phenomena from Byzantine and Islamic parts of the a responsible, scientific point of view”. former Roman Empire. But from QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS In testing such claims we employ around 1050, Arabic, Jewish, and Dialectic was a method of learning by empirical scientific methods, often Greek intellectual manuscripts started the use of arguments in a question and in the form of a controlled scientific to become more available in the West answer format, heavily influenced by experiment. So where did these in Latin translations. These translations the translations of Aristotle’s works. scientific methods come from? of ancient works had a major impact This was known as ‘Scholasticism’ and To the ancient Greeks, science on Medieval European thought. included the use of logical reasoning was simply the knowledge of nature. For instance, according to Pasnau, as an alternative to the traditional The acquisition of when James of appeals to authority. For the first time, such knowledge was Venice translated philosophers and scientists studied in theoretical rather “ Western Europe Aristotle’s Posterior close proximity to theologians trained than experimental. generally lagged Analytics from to ask questions. Logic and reason were Greek into Latin At this stage, the most influential applied to observations behind the Byzantine in the second scientist was Grosseteste, who was a of nature, in attempts and Islamic parts of the quarter of the leading English scholastic philosopher, to discover the Roman Empire. twelfth century, scientist and theologian. After studying underlying principles ” “European influencing phenomena. philosophy got one of the great After the Dark Ages, the revival of shocks of its long history”. This book classical logic and reason in Western had a dramatic impact on ‘natural Europe was highly significant to philosophy’, as science was then called. the development of universities and Under Pope Gregory VII, a Roman subsequent intellectual progress. It was synod had in 1079 decreed that all also a precursor to the development bishops institute the teaching of liberal of empirical scientific methods in the arts in their cathedrals. In the early thirteenth century, which I think were twelfth century, universities began to even more important because of the emerge from Cathedral schools, in later practical benefits of science to response to the Gregorian reform and humanity. The two most influential demands for literate administrators, thinkers in development of scientific accountants, lawyers and clerics. The methods at this time were the English curriculum was loosely based on philosophers Robert Grosseteste the seven liberal arts, consisting of (1175-1253) and Roger Bacon a trivium of grammar, dialectic and (c.1219/20-c.1292). rhetoric; plus a quadruvium of music, Apart from the relatively brief arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Carolingan Renaissance of the late Besides the liberal arts, some (but 32 The Skeptic June 16

theology in Paris from 1209 to 1214, as the refraction of light through rain he made his academic career at Oxford, drops. becoming its Chancellor in 1234. He later became the Bishop of Lincoln, CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS where there is now a university named Although Grosseteste is credited with after him. introducing the idea of controlled According to Luscombe, Grosseteste scientific experiments, there is doubt “seems to be the single most influential whether he made this idea part of figure in shaping an Oxford interest a general account of a scientific in the empirical sciences that was to method for arriving at the principles endure for the rest of the Middle Ages”. of demonstrative science. This role Grosseteste’s knowledge of Greek fell to his disciple Roger Bacon, who of the enabled him to participate in the was also an English philosopher, but ut dark translation of Aristotelian science and unlike Bishop Grosseteste, Bacon was a ethics. In the first Latin commentary on Franciscan friar. Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, from the Bacon taught in the Oxford arts 1220s, Robert Grosseteste distinguishes faculty until about 1247, when he four ways in which we might speak of moved to Paris which he disliked and scientia, or scientific knowledge. where he made himself somewhat “It does not escape us, however, unpopular. The only Parisian academic that having scientia is spoken of he admired was Peter of Maricourt, broadly, strictly, more strictly, and who reinforced the importance of most strictly. Scientia commonly so- experiment in scientific research and of called is [merely] comprehension of mathematics to certainty. truth. Unstable contingent things are As a scientist, Bacon continued objects of scientia in this way. Scientia Grosseteste’s investigation of optics in strictly so-called is comprehension of a laboratory setting. He supplemented the truth of things that are always or these optical experiments with studies most of the time in one way. Natural of the physiology of the human eye by things – namely, natural contingencies dissecting the eyes of cattle and pigs. – are objects of scientia in this way. Of Bacon also investigated the geometry of these things there is demonstration light, thus further applying mathematics broadly so-called. Scientia more to empirical observations. According strictly so-called is comprehension of to Colish, “the very idea of treating the truth of things that are always in qualities quantitatively was a move away one way. Both the principles and the from Aristotle, who held that quality conclusions in mathematics are objects and quantity are essentially different”. Top: Albrecht Durer’s Astronomer, 1500. of scientia in this way. Scientia most The most important work of Bacon Above: Robert Grosseteste. William Morris 19th strictly so-called is comprehension of was his Opus Majus (Latin for ‘Greater century design for stained glass window in what exists immutably by means of Work’) written c.1267. Part Six of this St Paul’s Parish Church, Morton. the comprehension of that from which work contains a study of experimental it has immutable being. This is by science, in which Bacon advocates the means of the comprehension of a cause verification of scientific reasoning by rigorous method for empirical science, that is immutable in its being and its experiment: “I now wish to unfold analogous to the use of logic to test causing.” the principles of experimental science, the validity of deductive arguments. Grosseteste’s first and second ways of since without experience nothing can This new practical method consisted describing scientia refer to the truth of be sufficiently known. For there are two of a combination of mathematics and the way things are by demonstration, modes of acquiring knowledge, namely, detailed experiential descriptions of that is, by empirical observation. by reasoning and experience. Reasoning discrete phenomena in nature. Grosseteste himself went beyond draws a conclusion and makes us grant Bacon illustrated his method by Aristotelian science by investigating the conclusion, but does not make the an investigation into the nature and natural phenomena mathematically conclusion certain, nor does it remove cause of the rainbow. For instance, he as well as empirically in controlled doubt so that the mind may rest on calculated the measured value of 42 laboratory experiments. He studied the the intuition of truth, unless the mind degrees for the maximum elevation refraction of light through glass lenses discovers it by the path of experience.” of the rainbow. This was probably and drew conclusions about rainbows Bacon’s aim was to provide a done with an astrolabe, and by this 33 ARTICLE History of Science

Out of the Dark Continued...

technique, Bacon advocated the skillful mathematical use of instruments for an experimental science. The optical experiments that both Grosseteste and Bacon conducted were of practical usefulness in correcting deficiencies in human eyesight and the later invention of the telescope. testing of a proposed treatment Above: Roger Bacon’s optics from De Multipli- But more importantly, Bacon is on a group of patients while using catore Specierum. Left: Statue of Bacon outside credited with being the originator another group of untreated patients Oxford University Museum of Natural History. of empirical scientific methods that as a blind control group to isolate and were later further developed by statistically measure the effectiveness scientists such as Galileo Galilei, of the treatment, while keeping all REFERENCES Francis Bacon and Robert Hooke. other factors constant. This empirical Bacon, Roger, Opus Majus. A Translation by Robert This is notwithstanding the twentieth approach is vastly superior to the Belle Burke. (New York, Russell & Russell, 1962). century criticism of inductive scientific theoretical approach of ancient Colish, Marcia, L., Medieval foundations of the Western methods by philosophers of physicians such as Hippocrates and intellectual tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, science such as Karl Popper, Galen, and owes much to the 1997). who in his book The Logic of pioneering work of Grosseteste Grosseteste, Robert, ‘Commentarius in Posteriorum Scientific Discoverysaid “the and Bacon. This is why I think Analyticorum Libros’. In Pasnau, Robert ‘Science and theory to be developed in that the development of empirical Certainty,’ R. Pasnau (ed.) Cambridge History of Medieval the following pages stands scientific methods was even Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, directly opposed more important than the 2010). to all attempts revival of classical logic Hackett, Jeremiah, ‘Roger Bacon’, The Stanford to operate with and reason, in terms of Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), the ideas of practical benefits to Edward N. Zalta (ed.). inductive logic”. humanity. Kenny, Anthony, Medieval Philosophy (Oxford: Popper advocated While the twelfth Clarendon Press 2005). empirical century revival Lewis, Neil, ‘Robert Grosseteste’, The Stanford falsification as of classical logic Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), a more reliable and reason was Edward N. Zalta (ed.). scientific method than very significant Luscombe, David, Medieval Thought (Oxford: Oxford induction, but this in terms of University Press, 1997). does not take anything Western intellectual Moran Cruz, Jo Ann and Richard Geberding, ‘The away from Grosseteste progress generally, the New Learning, 1050-1200’, in Medieval Worlds: An and Bacon as the development of empirical Introduction to European History, 300-1492 (Boston: originators of controlled scientific methods were Houghton Mifflin, 2004), pp.350-376. experiments. in my view the most Pasnau, Robert, ‘Science and Certainty,’ in R. Pasnau (ed.) The benefits of important intellectual Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: science to humanity endeavour of the Cambridge University Press, 2010). – especially medical European thirteenth Popper, Karl, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. (London and science – are well century; and Bacon’s New York 1959). known and one contribution to this example should was greater than suffice here. that of Grosseteste An essential because he About the author: component of devised general Tim Harding BSc works as medical science methodological a regulatory consultant to is the clinical principles for later various governments. He is trial, which is scientists to build also studying medieval history the empirical upon. . at Monash University. 34 PUZZLES The Skeptic June 16

ACROSS Brain testers 1. Mr Bowman is a Sagittarius. (6) CRYPTIC CROSSWORD no 30 2. Fantastic land for a gutless tall and crazy saint. (8) 10. Fantastic land mural, ie defaced. (7) 1 2 3 4O 4 5 6 7 8 11. The Free Idi movement just got real. (7) 9 12. Nothing found in the bikini line. (3) 10 11 13. Parapsychologist flower. (5) C 15. 12 across holds a useful thing for coffin lids. (4) N 17. An additional taxer is wrong. (5) 12 P 13 14 O 15 U 19. Being endlessly shouted and dismissed. (3) A H 16 20. Hogwash! And your mother smells! (5) 17 1618 19 20 21. Northerner held by minor setback. (5) S U 23. The forceful one in a Japanese band. (3) 20 S R 24. Cardomancy? Thanks a lot! It’s rubbish! (5) 21 22 23 24 25 R E 26. Energies unknown to science initially repacked into R 24A cars. (4) 25 26 27 28 29 30 28. Lilian has current flower. (5) O M Y 30. 31 28 Writer in jail. (3) O 32. Hot areas where subjects have a right to intrude. (7) 32 33 E 33. Military Mum failed a trial. (7) 34. There’s no end to this crap. (8) 34 35 32 L 35 35. Not a grain when love changes to a haunted house. (6)

Tim Mendham + Steve Roberts DR BOB’S QUIZ DOWN 1. Fantastic land dwellers gather in place of a computer 1. What did Uri Geller claimed to have been randomly attacked network from a nest. (10) by? 2. Arrived at an item for sale in a fantastic place. (7) 2. What is the name of the red bit that hangs over the beak of a 3. Hesitate, right or wrong. (5) turkey? 5. Doles a land dweller rest in 25 down’s crash? (11) 6. Unlike 5 down, he has a legal right to property. (5) 3. What is the size of the unit of measurement, the Sagan? (If you 7. Useless bit of info on 3 x 6 and … er. (7) have 1 Sagan of, say, bananas, how many do you have?) 8. A depressing direction taken by a cruel nobleman. (4) 4. What excuse did John Edward give for failing to claim The 9. The God of Radium. (2) Amazing Randi’s million-dollar prize? 14. Those who bring down heroes toss laconic asides. (11) 16. Where fairies tingle in make-up. (10) 5. What animal (other than humans) causes the most deaths in Australia? 18. Consumed tea mixed in water. (3) 20. Little Thomas sent back for the right word in French. (3) 22. Nasty person has particles of allocated food. (6) 25. Trailer crash in court again. (7) Answers on page 62 27. Poorly plies a practised pitch. (5) 29. A load of what a vehicle is supposed to do. (5) 31. Backward-flying mammals get the point. (4) 33. Fantastic land in 10 across’s fantastic land. (2) 0335 ARTICLE Classic Catch The Chosen The Ones From myth to mass murder, in this classic catch article from 1989 Colin Groves and Borek Puza look at the paranormal face of racism

he founders of western civilisation Thad very decided views about race. The Greeks referred to their neighbours dismissively as “barbarians”, because their languages sounded to them just a featureless jabber – “bar, bar”. Hippocrates ascribed mental as well as physical characters to the different quasi-racial groups he knew of. Roman society was stratified: Roman citizens were inherently better than anyone else, though an outstanding individual from a conquered nation might achieve citizenship. Agricola wrote what poor slaves the British made, because they were savage and unteachable. Tacitus, on the other hand, heartily approved of the of national characteristics was revived amid the fashionable ‘Celticism’ Germans - tall, blond, courageous, in Europe from the 17th century on of the Romantic movement, was frugal, freedom-loving, they were the (when Tacitus’ essay Germania was bolstered by the slave trade, was given very antithesis of published in a pseudoscientific trappings, and has everything he hated modern European survived to the present day. about the Roman The race concept language for the En route, the race concept adorned imperial system. “ first of many times). itself with genetic concepts (which We cannot tell for entered into a mutual As early as about were used, not in any scientific manner, sure whether classical back-scratching with 1700, Count Henri but as a stick with which to warn off authors had anything European imperialism. de Boulainvilliers potential dissenters), entered into a approaching modern ” was contrasting mutual back-scratching relationship hereditary concepts the freedom-loving with nascent European imperialism, in mind when they Germanic/Frankish and at close-spaced intervals was attributed mental - even spiritual - strain in France with the imperial liable to take wing and sail off into qualities alongside physical ones to Romanic (Gallic) strain. the paranormal. At very few points their own and other nations. What is This way of thinking, embellished in its career has the race concept had evident, however, is that their version under the heading of Race, flowered much to do with genuine science, 36 The Skeptic June 16

Clockwise from left: Hitler as Wagner’s Rienzi (or is it Lohengrin); Count Arthur de Gobineau; 1895 lithograph “Volker Europas” fighting the evil East by Hermann Knachfuss; and the Aryan Parsifal.

while the paranormal notions with which it is inextricably infused have simply not hit the public consciousness. ARYANS In the late 18th century, William Jones the first compilers of the Adamite and the Brothers Grimm discovered genealogies, those outside the White the interrelationship among nearly all race were counted as part of the species the European languages (Romance, at all. Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, Greek) and The Black race has an “animal that these links extended via Persian to character, that appears in the shape of the languages of northern India. the pelvis”, a crude yet powerful energy, The reconstructed basic form dull mental faculties, but an intensity of these Indo-European languages of desire. The Yellow race has little closely resembled Sanskrit, the ancient physical energy and feeble desires; it is language of the sacred Hindu texts, in characterised by mediocrity and respect which was recounted how civilisation for order, and makes an ideal docile - including Hinduism, the caste middle class, though it cannot of itself system, and Sanskrit itself - had been create a civilised society; it “does not brought to India some 4000 years ago dream or theorise”. The Whites show by conquerors, the Aryans (meaning an energetic intelligence, perseverance, ‘noble ones’). instinct for order, love of liberty; they And so the Aryan myth was born; are sparing of life (“when they are cruel, and, in the intellectual climate of they are conscious of their cruelty; the Romantic Movement with its it is very doubtful whether such a confusion of race, language and consciousness exists in the Negro”); culture, the culture-bearing Aryans within his lifetime his views had they have a strong sense of humour. were made responsible for bringing the enormous influence; after his death his To create a civilisation, a little blood light to Europe too. view of race became virtually standard mixing must occur. “The civilising All one had to do was to find out throughout continental western Europe influence of those chosen peoples (the who had inherited the preponderance - a Gobineau Society was founded Whites) were continually forcing them of Aryan ‘blood’, and here was your in 1884, and his Essai became, only to mix their blood with that of others”, master race - for blood and soul were slightly modified, a school reader in but as the blood mixture increases, surely linked in that mystical entity, Germany under the Third Reich. a state of racial anarchy is produced, Race. Gobineau distinguished three major leading to degeneration, the decline of It was a French diplomat, ‘Count’ races, or species as he continually called the civilisation, and even a progressive Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), who them: White, Yellow and Black. reduction in its population! crystallised these vague race feelings Were they all descended from Adam? The most outstanding of the White in his book, published in two parts This problem had, in fact, been much sub-races is of course the Aryan. (There between 1853 and 1855, Essai sur discussed in the preceding half century. are others, but they have mixed their l’Inegalite des Races Humaines (Essay While agreeing that the fertility of blood too far, or have other drawbacks: on the Inequality of Human Races). hybrids between them could not be thus the Hamites are negritised, while Although Gobineau complained ignored, Gobineau let it be inferred the Semites are hamiticised; the Slavs that he was ignored, neglected, where his sympathies lay: There is merely became too early detached from misunderstood, it is clear that even nothing to show that, in the view of the Aryan stock.) The Aryan was, in 37 ARTICLE Classic Catch

The Chosen

Ones Left to right: Richard Wagner, author of Jewry in Music; the evil Jewish dwarf Alberich Continued... from The Ring; Hitler with Wagner’s sons, Wolfgang and Wieland; and Hitler and Goebbels with the Aryan Ark (Punch, 1938) pristine form, the most beautiful of all races: “The nobility of his character, the vigour and the majesty of his slender form, his muscular force, are attested for us by evidences which, for being subsequent to the epoch when the race was a unit, are none the less irresistible.” Their skin tone was white and “rosee”; among the colours of the hair and beard, blond predominated. Their basic type, though now mixed, can be seen in the Kashmiris and most of the civilisations, “Their strong nationalism, northern Brahmins, in sculptures of their clear awareness of a complex Apollo and in the Venus de Milo. goal ... leads us to believe in the local For Gobineau, there had been ten, intervention of a more energetic and only ten, civilisations in the history element, nobler than among yellows of the world: the Indian; Egyptian; or blacks. Only the white species can Assyrian; Greek; Chinese; Italian; supply this. There is thus a priori and Germanic in the Old World, and reason to suspect that infiltrations of in the Americas: the Alleghanian; this pre-excellent essence somewhat Mexican; and Peruvian. All but one invigorated these American groups.” certain races are less removed from the of these had been created by Aryans. Having proved that there must be ape than others, but because it asserted Which one? Aha - it was not what something else, Gobineau now feels the unity of the human species, you thought: it was himself free to Gobineau was opposed to it. In the the Assyrian. But the speculate on the foreword to the second edition of his Assyrian civilisation “ Fairness and trust- effects of the Essai (1882), he says that he will resist (incorporating the worthiness are Nordic Viking voyages the temptation to be polemical, and Jews and Phoenicians) virtues; Alpines are petty and the legendary so refrain from attacking Darwinism, was a poor sort trans-Atlantic but he is certain that fantasies about of thing until the criminals and perverts. voyage of St Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages “will die a Iranians took it in ” Brendan. natural death”. hand and revived Gobineau was it - and the Iranians, of course, were very proud of what he considered his WAGNER Aryans. dispassionate, logical approach. “The One strand of modern Racism The average untutored lay person preceding argument has established was missing from Gobineau: anti- may well be harbouring some the following facts ...” he writes at Semitism. This was supplied from misgivings about the Chinese and one point. Entirely lost on him, and an unexpected source, the composer the three American civilisations being his legions of followers, was that his Richard Wagner (1813-1883). due to Aryans. Well, the Manarva- entire edifice was based on a hypothesis Apart from his musical works, Dharma-Sastra recounts how Maha- - the existence of Aryans, and their Wagner produced a constant stream Tsin (“the great country of China”) was superiority - which he awarded the of writings, political and artistic conquered and civilised by tribes of status of Fact, and set out to bolster, essays, letters, biographies, and an Kshatriyas, the Hindu warrior castes, however subconsciously, by distortions autobiography. Anti-Semitism was and “Nothing invalidates, everything of history and recitation of fallacious if a consistent theme in all of them, supports this”, according to Gobineau, commonly held prejudices. reaching a peak in his notorious book which of course settles the matter. The advent of Darwinism in 1859 (originally published anonymously), As for the three American did enable some theorists to claim that Jewry in Music. 38 The Skeptic June 16

It is surprising, after all this, to find “The soul of the anti-Semitism so muted in his operas, race”, according to but it is there none the less. Gustave LeBon (1912), In The Ring of the Niebelungs the “is the strongest evil dwarf, Alberich, is written, to braking-power upon Wagner’s explicit instructions, to be social upheaval”. played as a Jew - the performer was Otto Ammon to sing and gesticulate in a “typically declared (1898) that Jewish” manner. the long skulled Yet, it is fair to say that Wagner’s Nordics, the true Aryans public bombast in this respect did not represent the bearers extend to his personal life. He had of higher spiritual life, the occupants against the Germans, culminating in close friends who were Jews (notably of dominant positions to which they blood-curdling choruses which include the conductor Levi, who conducted are destined by nature, the innate “Sieg! Sieg! Sieg! Heil! Heil! Heil!” the first performance of Parsifal; defenders of the fatherland and the (often cut from modern productions), Wagner urged him in vain to get social order. and at the end the hero prophesies baptised). He refused to sign Bernhard Hans Gunther, the Nazi race that the eastern hordes will never be Forster’s violently anti-Semitic petition ideologue, distinguished the six races victorious against Germany. of 1880 to the Reichstag. When of Germany by their physiques, Little wonder that Hitler later Wagner heard that a young Jewish their personality traits, and their declared, “Whoever wants to music student had been so dismayed spiritual characters: “Fairness and understand National Socialist Germany at reading Jewry in Music that he had trustworthiness are peculiar Nordic must know Wagner.” committed suicide, he wrote a moving virtues: Alpines are petty criminals, For Hitler, racial crossing is to “sin letter of apology and consolation to small-time swindlers, sneak-thieves against the will of the eternal creator”; the young man’s father. and sexual perverts, whereas Nordics “All of human culture, all the results But his public stance was one of are capable of the nobler crimes.” of art, science, technology that we see uncompromising anti-Semitism, and before us today, are almost exclusively coming from such a popular figure, HITLER the product of the Aryan”; “All great of ‘German renewal’, this was what Gunther, one suspects, took his cue cultures of the past perished only had the effect. When Wagner finally from Hitler; and, turning to the pages because the originally creative race died met his hero Gobineau in the late of Mein Kampf, we realise with a shock out from blood-poisoning”; “All who 1870s, the world knew about it, and how much Hitler’s race ideas owed are not of good race in this world are Wagnerian views on the Jews became to Gobineau - but filtered through chaff”. thenceforth inextricably part of Wagnerian anti-Semitism. Contrasted to the culture-bearing, European racism. Hitler was introduced to Wagner’s community-minded, born-to-rule The half century between music, and through it to his thoughts, Aryan was the self-centred, conniving, Gobineau’s death and the Second at the age of 12 when he saw cultureless Jew: the Jews are deceitful World War produced some Lohengrin, in which the 10th century (their “first and greatest lie [is] that noteworthy lunatic writings on race. King Henry the Fowler of Germany the Jews are not a race but a religion”), “What makes an individual act,” wrote is recruiting in Brabant to defend the always planning to disrupt the noble Vacher de Lapouge in 1899, “is the Reich against the barbarous eastern destiny of the Aryans, by implanting legion of his ancestors buried in the hordes. The libretto describes atrocities Bolshevism and, in particular, earth”. committed by the eastern invaders scheming to destroy the superior races’ 39 ARTICLE Classic Catch

physically homogenous than they are The Chosen today. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Wagner’s son-in-law, though clear in Ones his own mind that the Aryans were in effect the Germans, admitted that Continued... they could not actually be defined: “Subjective appreciation teaches more than can be learnt in a congress purity of blood. When French troops of anthropology”, he wrote in his occupied the Rhineland in 1923, some 1899 opus, The Foundations of the of their troops were Senegalese: “It was Nineteenth Century. They were really and it is the Jews”, wrote Hitler, “who anyone whose soul was right: “The bring the Negroes into the Rhineland, noble visage of Dante is indisputable always with the same secret thought proof of his Teutonic origin”. and clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting OTHER COUNTRIES bastardisation.” We should not kid ourselves that Let us remind ourselves at this mythologised racism was a peculiarly point how far the Aryans had come German phenomenon. At least up to since their invention. They started the First World War, French writers struggle to stem the onslaught of the off as a linguistic group, speakers of were notably wrapped up in such Yellow Peril. Indo-European languages. They then notions, especially in trying to prove Which, of course, brings us to conquered India and wrote the Vedas; themselves racially distinct from the Australia, where around the turn of we have their own word for that much. Germans. Usually this took the form the century the purple press was much Next they conquer Europe and, under of trying to prove that the Celts, concerned with the Yellow Peril, as Gobineau, they founded civilisations or Romans, or whoever particular recorded by Neville Hicks in his book all over the world (mixing their blood authors conceived themselves to be, This Sin and Scandal (1978). An in the process). Gobineau described were actually purer Aryans than the Australian novel of 1909 ends: “For them physically, as well as in more Germans. No-one seemed to question Australia is the precious front buckle in esoteric ways, but there was still a lot of that, in Adolphe Pictet’s words of the white girdle of power and progress difficulty recognising them, or rather 1859, the Aryans are “a race destined encircling the globe.” their purest descendants. by Providence some day to dominate In successive issues in January 1896, Nobody, in the meantime, had the entire globe”. During the Great The Bulletin warned about the racial ever bothered to provide scientific War, French writers would busily dangers from the north; the Chinaman demonstration that they had ever construct links between the Germans was objectionable because of his really existed - in a word, that human and Orientals, even the Mongols, so menial nature, “bred in the bone of populations had at any time been more that the war became in some eyes a him for thousands of grimy years”; the

Racism in cartoons and film, including “The Yellow Trash Question (left, The Bulletin, 1895); and DW Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, (and birth of the Klan - above middle,1915). 40 The Skeptic June 16

Japanese because he was an “apt and color-coded groups of individuals so the name of Rhodesia was until 1990 ingenious workman ... as progressive that statistically reliable predictions the only other white-supremacist as the Australian and possibly more of their adaptability to intellectually country in Africa. The nation’s former energetic”. rewarding and effective lives can easily name commemorated Cecil Rhodes, The Sydney Daily Telegraph in be made and profitably used by the Empire-builder; its present name 1911 printed an article by no less a pragmatic man in the street.” derives from some monumental stone personality than Theodore Roosevelt, Meanwhile, in Australia, the Asian ruins, Great Zimbabwe, in the country who warned that the Western World Immigration debate carries on. Scratch of its largest tribe, the Mashona. The in general, and Australia in particular, its surface, and you will find the largest of these monuments, called was following France in Yellow Peril and white the Elliptical Building (formerly the “that decline of birth- The image in supremacy, unchanged ‘Temple Ruin’), has an outer wall rate which inevitably “ in three-quarters of a some 250 metres in circumference, 10 signalizes race decay and Klan publications of century; and not far metres high and, in places, five metres which, if unchecked, the dumb and docile below the surface again thick, of regular coursed rectangular means racial death”. lies the International stonework, decorated with chevron and Pure Gobineau. Negro led astray by Jewish Conspiracy, herringbone patterns. There are drains, Roosevelt was a man Bolshevik Jews. as in the Ku Klux doorways with wooden lintels, curved of his times and his ” Klan’s utterances. In steps, and a high conical tower, but no place; in the United States, as Stephen the recent Western Australian election roofs. Jay Gould has recounted in his book [1984], we even had an Independent In modern times they were made The Mismeasure of Man, the early candidate, Jack van Tongeren, standing known to the outside world by a twentieth century was a period when in opposition to the “Asianisation of German explorer, Carl Mauch, in every effort was made to keep ‘inferior’ Australia and the Zionist control of 1871, who had been told of ‘the ruins races from joining the white American Australia”. [Van Tongeren served more of Ophir’ (the ancient land to which gene-pool. The Ku Klux Klan was than thirteen years in prison, from Solomon and Hiram King of Tyre had claiming that ‘Nordic Protestants’ 1989 to 2002, for grand theft and sent expeditions) by a missionary in were the noblest, fittest race, and that arson, after robbing and firebombing the Transvaal, and by a German trader white supremacy was necessary for businesses owned by Asians in Western of “large ruins which could never have civilisation. Australia. - Ed] been built by blacks”. Mauch was Interestingly, the image promoted South Africa bashing seems almost convinced that he had discovered the in many Klan publications is of the too facile in the present context, but let realm of the Queen of Sheba (despite dumb and docile Negro, whose natural us recall that the National Party, which meeting an old African who gave instincts are to keep his place and not has been continuously in power in that detailed descriptions of ceremonies cause trouble, being led astray and country for forty years [until 1994], conducted in Great Zimbabwe by his stirred up by the scheming Bolshevist was founded before WW II, and used father). Jew. the German National Socialist Party as Cecil Rhodes was inspired by the While the Klan itself has a model, even to the ‘manifest destiny’ idea of Great Zimbabwe as Ophir now become an underground ideology of the rulers (in this case, the or Sheba, and in turn inspired the organisation, cleaned-up versions of its Afrikaners). foundation in 1895 of Rhodesia pseudoscientific utterances can still be Ancient Ruins Ltd which, under the found in respectable circles. Thus in ZIMBABWE cloak of archaeology, fostered much 1972, William Shockley, the inventor Immediately to the north of South shameful plundering of the gold and of the transistor, wrote “Nature has Africa lies Zimbabwe, which under artworks found in the ruins. The so- 41 ARTICLE Classic Catch

The Chosen Ones Below and right: Great Zimbabwe Continued... - “large ruins which could never have been built by blacks”.

year later, he reported back: “... a new guidebook is being prepared on behalf of the Historical Monuments Commission in which all theories relating to Zimbabwe will be presented absolutely impartially.” Equal time. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? .

Note: Reprinted from The Skeptic, Vol 9, No 2, Winter 1989.

About the authors: At time of writing, Colin Groves was a senior lecturer in anthropology at the called excavators ascribed the buildings of puberty”. It disagrees with our prior Australian National University, to Sabaeans or Phoenicians; it was even assumptions (read, perhaps, wishful Canberra, as well as being suggested to be a kind of blueprint for thinking), therefore it’s not true. president of the ACT branch Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. One It took another 30 years of genuine of Australian Skeptics. investigator went quite overboard: “The archaeological work to establish that whole of the Temple Ruin was set out Great Zimbabwe, along with the on a series of curves, whereof the radius plentiful less spectacular stoneworks Borek Puza was a was a mystical number, embodied in littering the landscape, was built researcher on the life the relations between the large and by Africans related or ancestral to and work of Richard Wagner. small cones.” the modern Makaranga section of This article was presented as As early as 1906, however, the the Mashona; and the advent of the a paper at the Fifth Australian noted archaeologist David Randall- radiocarbon technique dated the first Skeptics Convention, Canberra, McIver realised that it was built traces of the building to AD 1075 +/- March 1989. by the ancestors of the present-day 150. inhabitants, but he was howled down: One might have thought that “the decadence of the native”, wrote there was an end to it; but not so. one of the Rhodesia Ancient Ruins Archaeologists in Rhodesia began vandals, “is a process which has been propagating these findings, which in operation for many centuries and is could not be allowed in a white admitted by all authorities”, because supremacist country, and the matter of “a sudden arrest of intelligence and was raised in the Rhodesian parliament mental development which befalls in 1969. The Minister of Internal every member of the Bantu at the age Affairs promised to look into it. A 42

ARTICLE Pseudoscience The for

Speed reading classes claim to be able to turbocharge your words per minute. Brian Dunning asks if it is really possible.

e’ve all seen films of speed was still really something. He read two however we’ll look a little more closely Wreaders going through books pages at a time, the left page with his at this shortly. nearly as fast as they can physically turn left eye and the right page with his right The Guinness Book of World Records the pages. It’s enough to make anyone eye. Estimates of his speed vary, but does list a fastest reader, Howard Berg, envious. Who among us wouldn’t love 10,000 words a minute is the number I who claimed 25,000 words a minute, the ability to pick up any book, flip found most often. nearly as fast as one can fan the pages through its pages in just a few minutes, Peek had a unique hardware of a book. Berg is best known for and then put it down in record time arrangement driving amazing stunts of with nearly 100 per cent retention? this ability, though. Fast speeds require speed reading and When I look at my vast stacks of He was born without “ comprehension on unread books, the idea is certainly a a corpus callosum skimmimng, and television shows, compelling one. Fortunately for slow (the connection comprehension drops including one with readers like myself, our demand-driven between the two brain Kevin Trudeau who economy has responded with a product hemispheres), and it’s off dramatically. It’s sold his speed reading we can buy: classes and techniques possible that his two always a trade-off. course Mega Reading. purporting to be able to turbocharge hemispheres were able ” But his claims were our reading speeds to thousands of to process the pages he read in parallel. not without controversy. words per minute. Kids, don’t try this at home. First, his TV stunts were incredible, The most often cited speed reader is The most famous speed reader is but they never came near approaching the late Kim Peek, the famous savant probably John F. Kennedy, who spoke 25,000 words a minute. Second, the upon whom the Rain Man character about it often and is said to have had Federal Trade Commission filed suit was based. His mental abilities were his staff take Evelyn Wood speed against him in 1990 for false and so vast and varied that speed reading reading classes. 1200 words per minute misleading advertising, after a blinded was hardly the most remarkable, yet it is the number cited for Kennedy, study found that none of his customers 44 The Skeptic June 16

gained anywhere near as much as he devoted their careers to studying this, divorce reading from speaking. said they would. Still, the fastest of and have conclusively found that NASA has even built systems to pick those tested had quadrupled their speed any gains you’re likely to achieve are up these impulses, using them to browse to 800 words per minute. probably nowhere near the numbers the web or potentially even control a printed in your class’s marketing spacecraft. Chuck Jorgensen, who ran a BY THE NUMBERS brochure, at least not without massive team at NASA in 2004 developing this How fast is 800 words per minute? It loss of retention. But let’s take a look at system, said: “Biological signals arise doesn’t sound all that great compared the strategies that speed reading courses when reading or speaking to oneself to some of these other speeds. But teach. with or without actual lip or facial apparently, 800 would be extremely movement. A person using the subvocal fast for anyone without Kim Peek’s TALKING TO YOURSELF system thinks of phrases and talks to hardware. Fast speeds require One of the basic goals is the elimination himself so quietly, it cannot be heard, skimming, and comprehension drops of subvocalisation, claimed to be the but the tongue and vocal chords do off dramatically. It’s always a trade- thing that slows readers down the receive speech signals from the brain.” off. At 800, there’s a massive loss of most. Subvocalisation is the imagined In fact, scientists have a term for Speed reading classes claim to be able comprehension. To truly measure pronunciation of every word we read. reading in this way. They call it rauding, to turbocharge your words per minute. reading speed, we’d have to draw a line I do this a lot, and it limits my reading a combination of the words read and at some minimum acceptable level of speed to virtually the same as my audio. To truly comprehend what Brian Dunning asks if it is really possible. comprehension. talking speed. Subvocalisation is even your brain is seeing, nearly all of us Ronald Carver, author of the accompanied by minute movements of must raud the words, fastest speed 1990 book The Causes of High and the tongue and throat muscles. Nearly readers included. Fast readers need Low Reading Achievement, is one every speed reading class promises the not be fast speakers; they simply have researcher who has done extensive elimination of subvocalisation. what’s called a larger “recognition testing of readers and reading speed, Here’s the problem with that. You vocabulary”. Rauding an unfamiliar and thoroughly examined the various can’t read without subvocalisation. word is subvocalised more slowly than a speed reading techniques and the actual Carver and Rayner have both found word already stored in our recognition improvement likely to be gained. One that even the fastest readers all vocabulary. notable test he did pitted four groups of subvocalise. Even skimmers subvocalise We’ve learned that your recognition the fastest readers he could find against key words. This is detectable, even vocabulary, and thus your reading each other. The groups consisted of among speed readers who think speed, can actually be improved; but the champion speed readers, fast college they don’t do it, by the placement of real technique is the opposite of what’s readers, successful professionals whose electromagnetic sensors on the throat jobs required a lot of reading, and which pick up the faint nerve impulses US President Jimmy Carter and his daughter students who had scored highest on sent to the muscles. Our brains just Amy participated in speed reading course. speed reading tests. Carver found that don’t seem to be able to completely His wife Rosalyn and some staff followed suit. of his superstars, none could read faster than 600 words per minute with more than 75 per cent retention of information. Keith Rayner is a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has studied this for a long time too. In fact, one of his papers is titled Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research, and he published that in 1993. Rayner has found that 95 per cent of college level readers test between 200 and 400 words per minute, with the average right around 300. Very few people can read faster than 400 words per minute, and any gain would likely come with an unacceptable loss of comprehension. So before you embark on a speed reading course, understand that knowledgeable professionals have 45 ARTICLE Pseudoscience

The need for second. Half a second is a long time, where Kennedy had taken his speed and that’s the rauding catching up with reading class, but found that he had speed the saccades. no score, as he’d never completed the Is it possible to fixate once in a group class and actually been timed. But in Continued... of ten lines of text, and actually take it what the reporter figured was a bit of all in? Maybe, but only with a sufficient PR posturing, the school told him that pause to comprehend Kennedy “probably” taught in speed reading courses. Focus before moving on. Focus on reading read 700-800 words instead on reading comprehension. Speed reading teaches “ per minute. Carver’s This will improve your recognition you to skip this pause, comprehension ... educated guess is that vocabulary, and you will probably and thus your brain will and you will probably Kennedy likely read begin to read faster. not process the majority begin to read faster. 500-600 words per Thus, elimination of subvocalisation of what your eyes pass. ” minute, but may have is a gimmicky claim. It sounds logical, If we look back at been able to skim as and it’s an easy sell. By skimming a the test that found fast as 1000. So take text, you can subvocalise less of it, and Howard Berg’s students improved to the Kennedy claims with a grain of salt. you will comprehend less of it. Rauding as much as 800 words a minute, we Test yourself at your normal reading the complete text is the only way to have to keep in mind that speed and speed, and you’ll probably be surprised actually read it. comprehension are a trade-off. Whether to learn that what you thought was 800 words a minute constitutes a slow is actually right in that normal THE EYES HAVE IT passing score depends on what kind of range of around 300 words a minute. Another strategy taught in speed comprehension threshold is set, and also If you’re much faster than that, you’re reading is special eye movements. what kind of text it was. among the few people with a highly- These are usually things like reading When The Straight Dope developed recognition vocabulary. To lines backwards and forwards, and administered its own speed reading improve this, stay away from gimmicky taking in several lines of text at a time. tests (http://tinyurl.com/zn4wtjx), they techniques that ignore the way the Again, this gimmick sounds like an found that people who had not read brain processes printed text, and focus attractive superpower to have, but it’s the texts at all often scored nearly as on your comprehension. To read faster, counterintuitive to the way our brains well on comprehension questions as the concentrate on reading slower, and read actually process text. speed readers, when the text was general more often. . Those of us who aren’t Kim Peek enough. In other words, it’s very easy need serial input. for professionals like Evelyn Wood or This article is a transcript of an episode Here’s what’s happening when you Howard Berg to control the conditions of Skeptoid (episode #229, October 26, read. First, your eye lands on a point of the test to produce amazing results, 2010). It is used with permission and is in a printed sentence. This is called good enough to impress television hosts, copyrighted to the author. a fixation, and it lasts (on average) and to sell classes to laypeople. a quarter of a second. Your eye then So what about John F. Kennedy and About the author: moves to the next fixation, and this his 1200 words per minute? Kennedy Brian Dunning is a computer movement is called a saccade, and biographer Richard Reeves looked into scientist, and host & producer takes a tenth of a second. After several this. The 1200 number comes from of the award-winning podcast, saccades, your brain needs time to an off-the-cuff guess made to Time Skeptoid: Critical Analysis catch up and comprehend. This takes magazine’s White House reporter. The of Pop Phenomena (www. anywhere from a quarter to half a reporter called the Evelyn Wood school skeptoid.com).

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe is a weekly Science podcast talkshow discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view.

www.the skepticsguide.org

46 ARTICLE Digital Media The Skeptic June 16

RUSharon Hill looks ListeninG at social media, echo chambers and reinforcing beliefs.

he website that I edit, Doubtful is consumed faster (and digested and used) political outrage, or mystery mongering. TNews (www.doubtfulnews.com) but conspiracy ideas grow and get passed People tend to share the stories that are would be useless if people weren’t along slowly and steadily. The graph ends gruesome, shocking, and ridiculous, even interested in finding out what might or at 400 hours (about 16 days) so we don’t though, if asked, they may guess that might not be true and correct. The site know if these shared posts continued to they are lies. They will also share those appeals to people who are willing to listen propagate. And, we don’t know from this stories that fit in with their preferred to a narrative framed in that way. But, study if they gave birth to new posts. worldview, not ones that poke holes in surprise (not), most people consult the An article on the study by the Washing- topics they are invested in. In fact, try internet guided by beliefs they hold dear ton Post contained some additional quotes that in the echo chamber and you will – whether those tend towards assuming from experts that triggered thoughts get booted out right quick. scientific consensus will give us the from me about promoting corrections Additional research cited in the best answers or that the government is - including the quote, “Continued Vicario study tells us that even exposure covering up the truth. preaching to the choir is not going to to unsubstantiated rumours increases A recent study in the Proceedings of work.” That is, a Facebook page with a the likelihood that you will give them the National Academy of Sciences by Del science focus does not extend its reach credence. Facebook has cornered the Vicario, et al. confirmed what we already past that ‘choir’. The same almost certainly market on that process. False beliefs, suspected – people exist in online ‘echo occurs with pages that promote critical once you have them in your head, even chambers’ where they share information thinking and debunking of false claims. if you don’t recall where they came that supports their existing biases. The Damn, it’s not going to be easy. from, are extremely difficult to discard. researchers looked at 67 public Facebook Human nature is against it. As Robert The best we can do is try to gradually pages that focused on science news, Brulle of Drexel University was quoted: change thinking and eventually replace conspiracy theories and ‘troll’ sites (those “Individuals want to maintain their self- the misinformation with better stuff. We that are deliberately sarcastic and mocking) identity and self-image. They’re not going may be able to do that by considering to see the patterns of how content diffused to read something that challenges their the framing of the story to appeal to from the initial online posting and how values, their self-worth, their identity, people to change their own minds. this related to the common community their belief system.” We will always have fringe beliefs. who shared similar ideas. This is called Those of us who try to reach people Counteracting misinformation spread “cascade dynamics” in the paper and with strong beliefs in conspiracies, the and false beliefs will require a shift in cascade lifetime is measured in hours. paranormal, or alternative treatments presenting these ideas, not just a tweak The data shows a peak sharing appears know exactly how this goes. Changing to what exists. It also will likely require at 1-2 hours after the first post and then minds is near impossible - confirmation a shift in online behaviour. How do a second peak at about 20 hours. Getting bias rules. you slow down sharing, increase critical information out related to a story is critical How to reach the largest audience, thinking, and avoid the backfire effect? in the first hour after it reaches social outside of the ‘choir’, has always been How to catalyse the needed shift is a media (a near impossible task except for a a priority of DN but we acknowledge conundrum. Ideas welcomed. . dedicated news outlet). Science news was that we are hamstrung by our decision found to spread more quickly but then to reject sensationalising and prioritising dropped off and stabilised, whereas the clicks over content. We don’t play games About the author: conspiracy cascade continued on a more with the reader, so we are necessarily less Sharon Hill is editor and gradual curve upwards and became more entertaining to the average site viewer owner of the skeptical news popular through time. than those sites that provide content site, Doubtful News (www. What this tells me is that science news based on apocalyptic destruction, social or doubtfulnews.com). 0347 ARTICLE Whimsy

Sir Jim R Wallaby reminisces about the good old days, when men were women and humour was like nothing you’d ever heard before.

s I enter the twilight of my years readers which contained an unusual our fellow homo sapients, but just as AI find my thoughts turning ever query. “Is it”, our interlocutor imperative is a finely honed sense of more poignantly to those halcyon interlocuted, “essential for a Skeptic to the ridiculous to allow us to grapple days of yore when I was a regular be a fan of The Goon Show?” with the absurdities we so often correspondent in the pages of this This struck me as both an encounter. august journal (and occasionally unusual and a cogent obsecration. What better schooling, then, could in the November issue). That was Is it essential? It occurred to me one ask for than to become a devotee at a time when it came under the that while such of that wonderful (decidedly inadequate) tutelage of a an adherence was ground-breaking bearded oaf who went by the name of hardly mandatory, “ A sense of humour program? Humour, Barnacle Windsock or some similarly nonetheless such is paramount to avoid doubt, absurdity, plebeian sobriquet. Incidentally, such a devotion would iconoclasm, surrealism matters have taken a decided turn for stand Skeptics in falling into depression abound to promote its the better under the incumbency of good stead in their at the credulity of our ageless appeal. “Mendcap” Tomothy Madham, former dealings with the There are, of course, Head Boy of the Long Bay Ladies arcane blethering of fellow homo sapiens.” Skeptics who are not College and one-time All NSW Junior proponents of the so advanced into Saxophone Sexing Champion. mystical and occult. the sere and yellow (Macbeth - W But I digress. One realm in which my convictions Shakespeare 1564-1616) as I, who are Let us return to Barabbas align with those of both Windlass probably not as aware of the full glory Windscreen for a moment. One fine and Mendicant is that a propensity of this program, so for their benefit I day (Madama Butterfly - G Puccini, to doubt, though essential, is by no shall expatiate a little. 1858-1924) said editorial layabout means sufficient for one to be an The cessation of hostilities in the approached me in his accustomed effective Skeptic. A sense of humour Second Global Unpleasantness found obsequious way, bearing a missive is paramount to avoid falling into three young British ex-military men, from one of our more percipient depression at the limitless credulity of former Lance Bombardiers Milligan 48 The Skeptic June 16

Left: Goons Milligan, Sellers and Seacombe. starring this curious crew. Secombe) being much put upon by Below: Various Pythons. Bottom: The Goons Hitherto, comedy on British the vicissitudes of daily existence. on the record, with Milligan artwork. radio had reflected the music hall Prey to the depredations of the and variety roots venally flatulent Major Bloodnok of its practitioners, (Peter Sellers) or the silkily smooth comprising unrelated confidence trickster Hercules sketches interspersed Grytpype-Thynne (Sellers again) with musical items. aided by his sinister Gallic henchman The Goons were Count Jim “Thighs” Moriarty (Spike to change this. Milligan) or baffled by the senescent Beginning in 1951 ineptitude of that supplier of certain with an initial two things, Henry Crun (Sellers) and series of sketch his flighty common-law mistress comedy under the Miss Minnie Bannister (Milligan). rubric Crazy People, Seagoon’s usual associate was boy and the departure scout Bluebottle (Sellers), clad in (amicably) of Bentine, his mother’s cast off drawers and the show evolved armed with an arsenal of cardboard through a further weapons of mass infelicity prior to two series until, in his inevitable ‘deading’, usually by September 1954, explosion (decades before the South Series 5 went to air in Park character Kenny suffered a similar the single story (albeit serial fate). Then there was Eccles often straying far (Milligan) a village idiot’s village idiot from home) format and a non-sequiturist without parallel that it maintained in literature, but lovable with it. until the end. Or they could be seen as acute During the observations of modern mores first four series, and events taken to their illogical comprising almost conclusion. As one critic of the time 100 episodes, most claimed, the conclusions did logically of which no longer follow from the original premises, exist, Spike Milligan except that Spike frequently failed to was learning his include all the steps. trade as a writer, ably However one characterises the assisted by a young Goon Shows, they were exquisitely professional, Larry funny, bringing much joy to people Stephens. With Series throughout the world, and they are 5 the true genius of a continuing delight. Since the last T A (1918-2002) and Secombe H D Milligan came into full flower. Who show was produced in January 1960*, (1921-2001) and Aircraftsman Sellers else would have thought of climbing they were rebroadcast at least once a R H (1925-1980) seeking fame and Mt Everest … from the inside? Who week by the ABC in Australia until fortune in the entertainment business, knew that if they were run down in 2004 and after having been dropped, each having had some relevant the street by a grand piano bearing brought back again following many experience in the latter days of their CD plates, they couldn’t sue? Or that complaints from listeners. Not bad for service. by reversing the buttons on their socks a show that ran to between only 140 By happy circumstance, these three and walking backwards holding a and 150 recorded episodes. proto-Goons, along with an itinerant gas stove over their heads they could Spike Milligan was not the first to Peruvian comic, Michael Bentin (aka avoid having their boots explode due see the humour in absurdity; American Bentine) came together in a hostelry to scradge? Without Milligan we writer SJ Perelman and our own owned by ex-major Jimmy Grafton probably would never have known of Australian columnist L W “Lennie” MC (which he won at Arnhem) a these dire occurrences and would have Lower had used this technique to full-time publican and part-time script been much the poorer for it. great effect, but Milligan was arguably writer, who used his contacts with the Each Goon Show could be the first to apply it to an electronic BBC to encourage that institution to seen as a mini-morality play, with medium. Its effect on comedy since commission a new comedy program Everyman Neddie Seagoon (Harry the 1950s can be discerned, inter alia, 49 ARTICLE Whimsy

Go on, be a Goon! hurn” - though the devilishly cunning foreigner most often came Continued... out on top of the vocally patriotic Britisher. The only nationality that seemed to be the continual butt of the jokes were the Scots, who in Monty Python’s Flying Circus and were always portrayed as tightwads echoes remain in some of the better with a set of bagpipes playing in British TV comedies such as Father the background. The fact that Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd Milligan was Irish, Sellers English of more recent times. We cannot overlook the fact that in the 1950s Britain, as with much Aunty Clockwise, of the rest of the English speaking from right: Children world, was a pretty straight-laced of the Goons: The place. This particularly applied in sophisticates of The the broadcasting medium, where IT Crowd; South Park’s an authoritarian censoriousness was Kenny, who is deaded often the norm. It is to their credit as often as Bluebottle; that some courageous producers and the sociable booksellers executives at the BBC saw the need of Black Books; and the to break out of this ‘wowserism’, but impressive clergy of script writers still needed to be careful Father Ted. with their words. Milligan was careful but his goonish muse would not be denied. His scripts multiplied double entendres to and Secombe Welsh might entendres sans numbre and many an well account for this. off-colour joke; one that would have Women might have had been familiar to his many ex-service more reason to complain, fans was represented by only the as throughout the 150 punch line. or so recorded episodes It is interesting to contemplate, only three contained a in a new age where authoritarian woman playing a woman. censoriousness of a different calibre The rest were the work of is once again abroad, whether the Milligan (notably Minnie prospect of a Neo-Wowser Age is again Bannister) or Sellers. in the wings. Once it was perpetrated But the joy and hilarity by self-righteous authorities did not come without ostensibly to protect the sensitivities cost. Spike Milligan of a hypothetical maiden aunt who throughout his long life presumably would expire from the suffered from a manic vapours if confronted with a vaguely depressive illness, not risqué word or thought. Now it seems helped by the fact that that there is a vastly larger pool of in the latter stages of the potential insultees whose delicate Italian campaign he was feelings are such as to suffer irreparable blown up. He had several harm if forced to face the world as it is. breakdowns during the Goon scripts, as with any good Goon period writing a satirical comedy, are replete with weekly script for around 25 episodes of many voices, suffered frequent politically uncorrect words and per year. He was assisted at times by depressive episodes, perhaps indicated thoughts. No nationality nor race was Larry Stephens and later by fellow by an obsession with collecting both immune to Goonish humour - who comic Eric Sykes, but the onus was wives and motor cars. This might have could deny that the American use of always on Spike and he suffered for it. contributed to his tragically early death the English language can be reduced Peter Sellers, too, though a fine at 55, though it has been suggested to the repetition of the words “hurn, comic actor, mimic and master that, towards the end, he became 50 The Skeptic June 16

than had hitherto to like in these classic examples of been the case with cocking a snook at dull authority and radio drama or the sheer joy of being alive. comedy. No simple Oh, incidentally, if you are one of coconuts clashing for those younger Skeptics to whom the horses’ hooves here. Goon Show is only a vaguely heard-of A horse was just as antique, you might have indulged in a likely to cluck like Milliganism without being aware of it. a chicken as neigh; Any time you have been suffering from cars invariably drove some ill-defined ailment and phoned off leaving their your employer/loved one to beg off an passengers running appointment claiming to be suffering behind and the from ‘the Lurgi’, you are quoting one footsteps and door- of the better Goon Shows, “Lurgi openings as Henry Strikes Britain”. The only cure for it or Min sought to let was to purchase a wind instrument Neddy in to their from Messrs Hoosey and Bawkes who place of work often were in fact Grytpype-Thynne and enamoured of the sort of alternative ran to minutes, even though they Moriarty pulling one of their many medical treatments that so bedevil the were ensconced in a bungalow. The cons. . lives of Skeptics everywhere. explosions heralding the entrance of Of the three main protagonists, only Major Bloodnok and his assertion * The cast got back together for The Last Harry Secombe seems to have lived a that he would have no more curried Goon Show of All in 1972. ‘normal’ and happy life. His fine tenor eggs or the like, were only to grow voice, to which he occasionally gave louder and more explosive as the shows full rein during a Goon Show, saw his progressed. As the good major himself post-Goon career in musical theatre was wont to say “It must be hell down reach high standards. there”. About the author: This essay would not be complete So, yes, though it is not essential for Sir Jim R Wallaby would without mentioning the other major a Skeptic to be a goon fan, it would have preferred a life on the contributors. Each show contained two be a miserable and po-faced Skeptic boards, but he kept falling in musical interludes, the first by Dutch indeed who did not find something the water. born Max Geldray, a very fine jazz harmonicist, and the second by the Ray Ellington Quartet, with drummer and vocalist Ellington also playing bit parts in several shows. Opening the show was BBC announcer/news reader Wallace Greenslade who was the butt of many comments from the cast. As the shows progressed Greenslade became a more willing participant who exhibited a calm and dry wit and took it all in good part. There was also a small orchestra led by Wally Stott which provided excellent, and hilarious because they were unexpected, links and interludes. Stott was a composer as well as leader who, after a successful career, some years later underwent a sex-change operation and, as Angela Morey, successfully continued composing and band leading in the USA And then there were the sound effects which soared to greater heights 51 REGULARS

The cycle of life SEEING THINGS Seeing things, insights and outsights. Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image And so it goes, the almost inevitable or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar realisation that all knowledge is pattern of something where none actually exists. Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, connected and connectable. or objects in cloud formations, the ‘man in the moon’, the ‘moon rabbit’, hidden messages within recorded music played in reverse or at higher or lower-than-normal speeds, and Jesus on a slice of toast. The word is derived from the DRAWING CONCLUSIONS Greek words para (“beside, alongside, instead [of]”, in this context meaning something faulty or wrong) and the noun As a child, Rorschach was known eidōlon (“image, form, shape”). to his friends as Klecks, because of his interest in klecksographic inkblots. He developed ten tests, printed on cards, that are used to assess subjects’ perceptions of inkblots, analysed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person’s personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. The Rorschach is a projective test, as it intentionally elicits the thoughts or feelings of respondents which are ‘projected’ onto the What goes around ... ambiguous inkblot images. Projection in this instance is a form of

“directed pareidolia”. DRAWING THINGS Klecksography is the art of making images from inkblots. Kerner invented the technique when he started accidentally dropping blots of ink onto paper due to failing eyesight. Instead of throwing them away, he found that intriguing shapes appeared if he unfolded the papers. Kerner began a collection of klecksographs and poetry in 1857 titled Klecksographien. His collection was not published until 1890 because of his death in 1862. Since the 1890s, psychologists have used klecksographs as a tool for studying the subconscious, most famously by Swiss Freudian psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach The first of ten inkblot test cards by (1884-1922, above far right). Rorschach (above, far right) in 1921, a year before his death. Source: Wikipedia, except where noted

52 The Skeptic June 16

SEEING NON-THINGS SEEING THINGS Pareidolia is different to hallucinations. The Pareidolia is a psychological former is seeing something real but interpreting it phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image incorrectly. Hallucinations are phenomena of seeing, hearing, or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar touching, tasting or smelling things that are not there. Sleep pattern of something where none actually exists. deprivation can result in a predictable series of hallucinations, and Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, the first is the sense of something moving in your peripheral vision. or objects in cloud formations, the ‘man in the moon’, Some have dubbed these “brown furries” because they often appear as the ‘moon rabbit’, hidden messages within recorded music indistinct black-brown objects (the peripheral vision is primarily gray- played in reverse or at higher or lower-than-normal speeds, scale). Visual hallucinations - common in people with Dementia and Jesus on a slice of toast. The word is derived from the with Lewy Bodies - and the less common audio hallucinations The word hallucination is from Greek words para (“beside, alongside, instead [of]”, in this may be associated with psychic phenomena. context meaning something faulty or wrong) and the noun the Latin “alucinari”, to wander Reference: PhysicsForums, http://tinyurl.com/jlkcxe7 eidōlon (“image, form, shape”). in the mind, first used by Sir Thomas Browne in 1646.

DISMISSING NON-THINGS. Frank Podmore (1856-1910, pictured second from the left) was an English author, founding member of the Fabian Society, psychical researcher and member of the Society for Psychical Research. Unlike most works published by members of the SPR, Podmore’s output received good reviews from the scientific community, particularly as he gave rationalistic explanations for much of the psychical research that he studied. While What goes around ... he considered mediums to be fraudulent, he was open minded about the telepathic hypothesis for Leonora POETRY OF NON-THINGS Piper’s séances. However, he said that the evidence Friederike Hauffe (1801-1829) also known for ‘the Seeress of Prevorst’ was “inconclusive, as Frederica Hauffe or the Seeress of Prevorst, was and sometimes indicative of collusion a German clairvoyant medium and somnambulist. with members of the Seeress’s She suffered from convulsions and would fall into family”. spontaneous trances. She claimed to have communicated with spirits and experienced visions. She was made famous by the physician and poet Justinus Kerner (1786-1862, The Seeress pictured above centre) who described her trances in his book Die Seherin von Prevorst (1829 – subtitled Revelations of of Prevorst, the human inner life and about the penetrations of the Friederike spirit world into ours) and recorded alleged instances Hauffe, on her of her clairvoyance and prophetic dreams. He death bed, by also pioneered klecksography and included Gabriel von klecksographs in his books of Max, 1892 Source: Wikipedia, except where noted poetry.

53 REVIEWS Phenomena

what they are, how to define them, can you The Hand of God study them scientifically, and do they exist. In his book, The Science of Miracles, he finds issue with the argument from ignorance The Science of Miracles situation where if you don’t know why By Joe Nickell something happened then it must be God, and the follow-up question, if it is the hand of God Prometheus Books, A$29.99 involved, then whose god are we talking about. Nickell is, of course, one of the most famous investigators of the paranormal in the world his reviewer has a problem with today, having spent almost 50 years looking at Tmiracles. everything from unknown creatures and strange Not just whether they happen artefacts, to weird constructions and miracles. or not, but the meaning of the very He says that his approach has been to avoid word “miracle”. “putting the proverbial cart before the horse; The Oxford Dictionary gives that is, I have refused to decide, antecedent to three meanings: an extraordinary inquiry, whether or not a miracle could exist. and welcome event attributed to a I have therefore tried to avoid the approach divine agency; a remarkable and very of ‘believers’ and ‘debunkers’ who may start welcome occurrence; an outstanding with the desired or expected answer and work example, specimen, or achievement. backwards to the evidence.” In other words, In the media’s coverage of starting with the conclusion and then finding surprising events and happy endings, something to support it. such as finding a kid who’s been This means investigating specific cases, lost in a Japanese forest for a week, “trying to discover the best evidence and they far-too-often resort to calling let it lead to the most likely solution, using it a miracle. It’s hard to distinguish established principles of scientific inquiry”. which meaning is being used. It would be churlish not to admit that that In the case of the wonders of saints’ curative process has, in most if not all of Nickell’s powers, it is obviously the first definition (but investigations, lead to the conclusion that a we won’t go into here whether that’s an accurate man-made explanation is much more likely description of events). Using the “divine agency” than a paranormal or divine one. The book’s interpretation in relation to such events as subtitled “Investigating the Incredible” and finding surviving people under the ruins after an he does say in his introduction that we should earthquake or the lost kid in Japan, is logically “check our emotions and rely on reason and problematic. If it is divine agency that saves a evidence, seeing, as I have long held, that handful of people from the ruins, then surely the progress of science is a series of solved it is divine agency that sent the other 200,000 mysteries”. The results of his endeavours - the to their deaths. Apparently the lord giveth with restraint and taketh away by the bucketload. The other problem with divine agency in such cases is that it ignores – even denies – the efforts of masses of real life people working to create “outstanding achievements” using “remarkable” efforts with their bare hands, efforts and persistence. Thus the divine apparently looks down with disdain on the little people, being given credit for what he/she did not do. Unless, of course, you believe that the divine entity worked within the rescuers – they were the divine’s instrument. But that just brings you back to divine powers and divine responsibility for the ‘natural’ disaster or cancer condition or fatal car crash in the first place. Or the kid lost in the forest. The human element is lost. Joe Nickell has similar problems with miracles: 54 The Skeptic June 16

solved mysteries - therefore may not be that cases, giving 57 particularly ‘miraculous’ surprising to Skeptics. phenomena to investigate. In the past, he has been described as a Let’s look at one of those, the miracle of “miracle detective”, and miracles have played a Fatima. Most readers will know that this big part in his career, both as an investigator and involved three Portuguese children who as an author. His first book was Inquest on the witnessed, in one way or another, a vision of Shroud of Turin (1982), a topic that he says has Mary Magdalen in 1917. On the 13th of the proved to be a millstone to him as he has had to next six months they saw and, for at least one of return to it time and again, called upon to react the children, talked with the figure. Increasingly to the latest claim of miraculous conclusions. large crowds gathered to witness if not the Since then, he has authored Looking for a vision then associated manifestations, such as Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions the sun ‘dancing’, rain-soaked ground suddenly and Healing Cures (1993) and Relics of the Christ drying and a fall of petals. Different people (2007). described different things, and on one month This latest book, The Science of Miracles, the children were kept away by authorities for actually came out in 2013, but is a summation of questioning, though Nickell doesn’t say what, if all that has gone before in Nickell’s investigations any, manifestations occurred on that occasion. Below: Three excited and is a primer on religious phenomena. He At the same time as the visions, Mary gave visionaries - Lucia Santos divides it into six sections: miraculous effigies; the oldest child, Lucia, three secrets that were and her cousins, Francisco magical relics; miracle healings; visionary only revealed later, the first two several years and Jacinta Martos. experiences; saintly powers; and the Devil’s work, after the events that were predicted (the first a Below left: Totally the last covering a range of Satanic phenomena, vision of hell and the premature deaths of the unposed witnesses to the from footprints to possessions and hauntings. two youngest children, and the second the end miracle of Fatima. Each of these sections is subdivided into specific of World War I.) Nickell appeared in a documentary when the third secret was revealed in 2000 by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). It turned it that this was a rambling vision that depicted, among other things, a sword-wielding angel, Mary coming to the rescue, and a bishop killed by soldiers with bullets and arrows(!). Nickell spends as much time on the background of Lucia, the influential leader of the children, and the secrets, as he does on the visions themselves. He looks at Lucia’s background, which included her pre-vision performances dancing and singing in public and telling stories of “fairy tales, biblical narratives and saints’ legends which made her popular with village children and an ability to pressure others to do her bidding”. This might give an impression of a child being a tad more consciously and coldly manipulative than Lucia perhaps was, but a telling part of the tale are her visions of “a snow-white figure” on at least three occasions and later an angel, these happening years before the Fatima visions. Nickell also points out that Lucia’s mother described the children’s narrative as “childish nonsense” and Lucia herself as “nothing but a fake who is leading half the world astray”. An issue with the Fatima stories, as with many claimed miracles and manifestations from the past, is the reliability of witnesses. Nickell points this out in reference to the accounts by 55 REVIEWS Phenomena

members of the crowd who witnessed the sun assesses the evidence, often resting on theories dancing, etc, accounts that were given both of “contagion” (proliferation of accounts at the time and later (often much later). But that build on each other, sharing details that he does need to rely on the descriptions as were not part of original depictions) and retold by investigators who have looked at the retrofitting (fitting original claims to later but miracles at a great distance in time from the past events in a sometimes desperate attempt ‘actual’ events. Nickell has broad experience to prove a paranormal ability, much as those of many claims, having investigated them supporting Nostradamus’ supposed predictions personally, on site and at the time, but in many weave a tenuous relationship between vague of the cases described here he relies on third prognostications and current occurrences, though often applied with equal conviction to different occurrences over periods of time). Nickell writes, as he always does, clearly and concisely, though not exactly with a great deal of humour (dispassionate scientific investigation probably doesn’t allow that). Could he have covered more miracles in this book? Certainly, but that would make it an encyclopaedia, and we said he wrote this is primer, an overview of the 50+ most famous cases, and covers a broad range from Devil footprints in 19th century Devon, to The Book of Mormon and raising the dead. It is recommended, and will hopefully lead you to look at his other books, those which take a similarly broad review as this one, and those which look more closely at specific cases, including Nickell’s millstone of the Shroud of of Turin. On a final note, it is interesting to recount one case where Nickell played an active role. The shrine at Fatima party assessments. This is unavoidable, and This is the film, The Reaping, released in today reflects the humble whether some might cavil at this, the apparent 2007 and which features an investigator that origins of the vision of inconsistencies of the eye-witness accounts, Nickell says was based on him. That the film three peasant children. the past histories of those involved, and in this centres around an ex-missionary who loses case the fact that the secrets were written down their faith, finds their faith and fights a replay and revealed much later than the events they of the Biblical ten plagues in the bayous of foretold, are enough evidence to cast doubt, at Louisiana, and who is also a woman, means least, over the miracles, if not to dismiss them that it’s not exactly an accurate depiction of entirely. Nickell sifts through the evidence his life. Nickell was a consultant to the film, and comes to the conclusion that … well, he visiting the set and meeting the ‘reel’ him finishes by saying that debate on the Fatima represented by Hilary Swank. He later told visions will continue. the Fortean Times - surely one of the more That is somewhat disappointing, but enjoyable publications in the paranormal field probably in line with proper scientific method - that “I liked the first 10 or 15 minutes, where - we have a good indication of probability, the character seemed to be doing something but absolute one-hundred per cent certainty is similar to what I do. But then it changed into elusive and perhaps unobtainable. the world of the supernatural, which, for good In his relating of the Fatima miracle, Nickell or evil, has never happened to me: I’ve never does not get into the grainiest detail - seven had frogs rain down upon me!” The film has pages is hardly enough for that, and to do that generally been panned by critics, and one would require a whole book in its own right, could unkindly suggest that its actual release and there have been many of those. In this was something of a miracle in its own right. chapter, as in the others, he gives a summary of the events, witness accounts, and the background to put the miracle in context. He - Reviewed by Tim Mendham 56 ARE YOU SKEPTICAL? Are reason, science, education, critical thinking and common sense important to you? Then you should subscribe to The Skeptic.

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queries this. Therefore, I suggest reading The Koran context History of the Quran by Allamah Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Zanjani as a start but any Islamic scholar In which a response on Islam looks at abrogations, will confirm what I have stated. Also google Chronological Order of Quranic Surahs by Kevin inconsistencies and instructions P. Edgecomb. The other two important points are abrogation (Arabic - naskh) and dualistic logic. n response to my opinion [The Skeptic, 36:1, It comes as no surprise that the message of I p56] on his original article, “A Skeptic Reads later revelations in Medina changed and often the Koran”, Martin Bridgstock suggests that I conflicted with earlier revelations in Medina. am quoting the ravings on a website. I am not If there was conflict from a later revelation, the an Islamic scholar. My credentials are that I earlier revelation is overruled. The evidence have lived and worked in Islamic countries for abrogation is listed in the Koran itself, for (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab example: Emirates) for some nine years and • 2:106: If We abrogate or cause to be have witnessed Sharia in action. forgotten, We will replace it by a better For over 25 years, I have taken one or one similar. Did you not know that a keen interest in Islam’s central Allah has power over all things? character, Mohammed. I have • 13:39: Allah abrogates and confirms what read the Koran several times, He pleasures. His is the Degree Eternal. versions of the Sira and of the • 16:101: When We change one verse for Hadith, along with books by another (Allah knows best what He reveals), many authors including Karen they say: “You are an impostor”. Indeed Armstrong, Sam Harris, Bill Warner, most of them have no knowledge. Robert Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn • 17:86: If it were Our Will, We could take Warraq, Salman Rushdie, Nonie Darwish, away that which We have sent thee by Ali Sina, Sujit Das, Lee Harris, John Azumah, inspiration: then wouldst thou find none to Michel Youssef, Brigitte Gabriel, Reza Aslan, plead thy affair in that matter as against Us. Wafa Sultan, Nujood Ali, FW Burleigh, GM The third and last point is the hardest to Davis and Mark Gabriel to name but a few. I comprehend, especially for a westerner such as was fully aware of the beliefs of Al Qaeda and Martin with a scientific background. That is the Osama bin Laden long before 9/11. In short, one of dualistic logic. If two verses contradict studying Islam, both as a religion and as a each other, then both are correct in Islam as they political ideology, is a subject that interests me. are the sacred word of Allah. The application of All Islamic doctrine is based on the words of either verse depends on the circumstance and the Allah (the Koran) and the words and actions advantage of doing so. or the Sunna, of Mohammed (the Sira and the The following two examples of paired verses Hadith). All doctrine must be viewed as a whole are good examples: and not separately. One can pick up the Koran • 2:256: Let there be no compulsion in and read it but to actually understand it is religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: another hurdle. whoever rejects Evil and believes in Allah There are three important points to grasp hath grasped the most trustworthy hand- before reading it. The first point is that the hold that never breaks. And Allah heareth Koran cannot be read in isolation to the other and knoweth all things. Islamic literature because, as I have previously This is abrogated by: pointed out, the suras (or chapters) are not in • 9:5: When the forbidden months are past, the chronological order of their revelation. A then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye working knowledge of the Sira and the Hadith find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, are essential. As a scientist, Martin asks for and lie in wait for them in every stratagem proof and his main concern is that I don’t give of war. But if they repent, and establish enough references but the Sunna of Mohammad regular prayers and practice regular charity, are the basis of these references. The Koran is then open the way for them: for Allah is reported to have been revealed to Mohammad Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful (the Sword by the angel Jibreel over a period of 23 years, 13 verse). years in Mecca and 10 years in Medina. Martin • 3:186: You shall certainly be tried 58 The Skeptic June 16

respecting your wealth and your souls, 113 verses are abrogated by 9:5 (Sword verse) and you shall certainly hear from those and nine verses are abrogated by 9: 29 (Fighting who have been given the Book before you verse) – reference: An-Nasikh -wal- Mansukh by and from those who are polytheists much Ibn Khuzaymah. Another reference is Abrogation annoying talk; and if you are patient and in the Koran by Rev Anwarul Haqq guard (against evil), surely this is one of the Martin raised the problem of the different affairs (which should be) determined upon. versions of the Hadith and the reason why This is abrogated by: he did not consult them while reading the • 9:29: Fight those who do not believe in Koran. A bit of clarification is required before I Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they comment on this statement. There are two major prohibit what Allah and His Messenger denominations of Islam, namely Sunni and Shia. have prohibited, nor follow the religion About 85 to 90 per cent of the world’s Islamic of truth, out of those who have been population is Sunni while Shia accounts for just given the Book, until they pay the tax in 10 to 15 per cent. acknowledgment of superiority and they are The division in Islam began over the in a state of subjection (the Fighting verse). disagreement among the followers of Mohammed as to who should become leader after his death as none of his sons survived to adulthood and Mohammed, himself, did not nominate a successor. The Sunnis allege that Umar, a companion of Mohammed, nominated Abu Bakr, Mohammed’s father-in- law and advisor, and that the Muslim community then elected him. This was disputed by some of Mohammed’s companions who maintained that Ali ibn Abi Talib, his cousin and son- in-law, had been chosen to be his successor. The word “Shia” originated from the Arabic “followers of Ali”. This political and violent schism has existed for the last 1400 years. The Hadith are the traditions of Mohammed and usually follow a chronological order. Now, here’s the problem with the Hadith. The Sunnis rely on six versions of the Hadith of which two have the highest status and are considered authentic by Islamic scholars throughout the Muslim world. One is by Mohammed al-Bukhari and the other by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, both of whom were Persian. However, the Shias use different versions. They believe that the Sunni versions are unreliable because they had been accepted by Abu Bakr and were narrated by the very individuals who waged war against Ali. The Shias have four different versions but state that as many hadiths should be preserved as possible, even the fabricated and weak ones. A Shia scholar will designate a particular hadith as authentic, strong, weak or fabricated before a reference 59 FORUM Religion

continued … concerning divorce. When Islam gets the numbers in a democratic country, democracy will fail and be replaced by a theocracy. The core philosophy in is given. A Sunni scholar will just provide the Islam is that Allah’s law is above man-made law. If reference, particularly as the two versions of this scenario does occur, I doubt whether you can Bukhari and Muslim are considered authentic. ask Muslims who support Sharia to just leave as Note: for a Sunni to doubt any hadith from the Martin suggests. Sunni’s six versions is considered blasphemy. For an example, take 33:36 in the Koran: My point is that 90 per cent of the world’s It is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, Muslims accept Bukhari’s and Muslim’s versions when a matter has been decided by Allah and and consider them authentic. Shih Bukhari and His Messenger to have any option about their Shih Muslim can be used to interpret the Koran. decision. In summary, if all three factors - chronology, Ibn Warraq, an anonymous and critical author abrogation and dualistic logic - are not clearly of Islam, on commenting on the subject of understood, comprehension of the Koran will be equality, particularly of women, before the law problematic. and the separation of church and state in Europe, Martin also mentions that I compare stated, “What we risk is the Islamisation of Christianity with Islam. What I did write was to democracy instead of democratisation of Islam.” compare Jesus with Mohammed and each one’s A suitable starting point for readers to acquaint concept of the Golden Rule. I am sure that Jesus themselves with his history is The Story of would have condemned killing in his name as he Mohammed: Islam Unveiled by Harry Richardson. was not a violent man - “turn the other cheek” Another informative book is House of War by GM - but Mohammed had a completely different Davis, PhD. viewpoint as far as the treatment of the kafirs Finally, the difference of opinion between was concerned (eg verses 9:5 and 9:29). Again, Martin and myself is not one of my cherry- compare the architects of the two religions. The picking passages as Martin alleges but more acts of violence perpetrated by Mohammed precisely his incomplete analysis which only are on historical record if one cares to read the considers the Koran, while ignoring crucial Sunna. The Battle of Badr, for example, was information contained in the Sira and the Hadith. in response to Mohammed’s plan to attack a caravan en route to Mecca (the caravan escaped). Terry Coupland Again, the context is important. There was booty Middle Ridge, QLD to be made attacking caravans. In a “what if” scenario, I often wonder if Genghis Khan, another warlord, had invented his own religion how history would have changed the modern world. One’s actions are easier to justify if endorsed by a verse dictated by a deity. Yes, Martin is correct when he states that at the time of Mohammed’s death in 632 AD, half of Arabia was under his control. After his death some of the tribes in Arabia broke away. However, Abu Bakr launched the Wars of Apostasy (Ridda wars), 632 to 633 AD. In just over two years he had annexed the whole of Arabia, which set the scene for the invasion of Persia, Syria and well beyond, ultimately to the gates of Vienna. On the subject of human rights for females, the application of Sharia, Islamic law, has already begun in Muslim enclaves in Europe, especially 60 LETTERS To the Editor The Skeptic June 16

ungraciously complained about it. The What you think ... very next page quoted American preacher Pat Robinson as saying, “Kill Them All”, thereby disposing of “anyone who Paranormal publishing believes in UFOs” – rather a drastic solution, but Pat might just have had a bad day. he Skeptic just received, and it’s a spell-casting, magical talismans, and Treal winner! Thanks! other assorted “psychic tools”, all backed James “The Amazing” Randi Re your reference to Paranormal up by articles on a “phantom army”, USA magazine [The Skeptic, 36:1, p13] I have “psychic vampires” – that one quoting copies of Uri Geller’s Encounters, (1997) someone named “Midnight Childe” – Editor’s note: In the mad swirl of come- subtitled The World’s Most Paranormal “popular haunts”, and a haunted radio. and-go paranormal publications, the Magazine” published by Paragon I must tell you that hardly had this Encounters magazine Randi refers to Publishing Ltd, Bournemouth, Dorset. opus appeared on the stands than – in should not be confused with the current The UK continued its proud tradition October 1996 – it changed its name to magazine of the same name, published of woo-woo publications dedicated to Uri Geller’s Encounters, now enhanced in the US. This is (or was, the last issue promoting hi-class nonsense, with an 84- by a regular column by Geller himself, is dated mid-2015) a free bi-monthly page, glossy, well-produced, full-colour, and such titles as “Who Said Dinosaurs PDF featuring science fiction, fantasy, large-format magazine, Encounters, filled Were Dead?”, “Prayers for Rain,” “Great horror and paranormal short fiction; with incredible ads such as systems for Balls of Fire,” and “Bun Lives On,” www.blackmatricpub.com. And to make “Settling All Your Debts And Being which extolled a “Nun Bun” – lovingly matters even more confusing, there is Debt Free For The Rest Of Your Life,” preserved at the Bongo Java Coffee an arts and literary magazine also called twenty-one do-it-yourself ghost hunting House in Nashville, Tennessee – that Encounters published by Baruch College kits all on one page, a “Lightweight easy was sanctified because they felt it looked in New York. We don’t know if that to transport Ouija board,” supplies for like Mother Teresa, who had rather publication has paranormal short stories.

Murrians & who have no connexion with the the early Wars of Scottish Independence, Murray River or Sir George. had nothing to do with evolutionary Murrayans theory. Darwin’s rival here was the Allan Lang biologist Alfred Russel Wallace. Note the Adelaide SA uncommon spelling “Russel”. n the review of Susan Martinez’s The Historically there have been a number IMysterious Origins of Hybrid Man (The of versions of evolution in biological Skeptic, 36:2, p52), Colin Kline [see Evolutionary theory, going back in Western thinking to below – Ed] suggests that: “By ‘Murrians’ the pre-Socratics. Nowadays it is usually she evidently means the Murrayians, figures understood that “theory of evolution” the aboriginal people of south-eastern refers to the account of evolution by Australia, invented by JB Birdsell in means of natural selection, as advanced by the 1930s as one of three supposed n The Skeptic, [36:1, p32], Saunders Darwin and Wallace. Accordingly, there races which he had claimed populated I and Wilson write “Michael Faraday, is no need to dignify it by capitalisation Australia. I had always thought that the Arthur Conan Doyle, and William (“Theory of Evolution”); though term ‘Murrayian’ was derived from the Wallace, co-founder of the Theory of evolutionary theory is the cornerstone of Murray River, which in turn was named Evolution, were all vocal in their support biology, there is nothing sacrosanct about after Sir George Murray, who in the of Spiritualism”. it, or any other scientific theory. 1930s was British Secretary for War and There are several mistakes here. Finally, theories are not “founded” by the Colonies. I stand corrected.” Faraday was in fact an open opponent anyone – they are advanced, promulgated, I would suggest it’s not so evident. of Spiritualism. For example, he suggested and so on, but a laboratory or My immediate thought was, rather demonstrated that some seance an institute set up to investigate them than the relatively obscure Birdsell/ happenings were caused by ideomotor would be “founded”. Murrayian, that Susan was alluding to behaviour of the participants, not by the Murri people of Australia’s north- activities of “spirits”. Terence McMullen east (Queensland and Northern NSW), William Wallace, a name famous in Glebe NSW 61 LETTERS To the Editor

Greatness was thrust upon him real author of the review), William Who is Colin when, one day, finding his underpants Wallace, Alfred Russel Wallace, the too shabby, he modified them: so Mycenaeans, and the real Colin Kline. Kline? successfully that he was urged to Our thanks to Colin Groves for taking book review in the latest issue of market his new design and became his misnomenclature in his strides. A The Skeptic (Vol.36:1, p52) was known worldwide as the Little signed by Colin Kline. The identity Knickers man. Thereafter, doors and of this person has generated much gates of all kinds were opened to him speculation: the twittersphere has been in all sorts of places; indeed, one of tweeting furiously, and the chattering them, the Lion Gate at Mycenae, classes have been chattering overtime was actually renamed in his honour as they sip their lattés. So I thought I (although, mishearing his name, the would perform a much-needed public Bronze Age site manager named it service by laying out what I know of “Lino’s Gate” instead of “Klino’s”. You this remarkable individual. can see evidence of this on p15 of the Scion of a famous family (he same issue of The Skeptic). possibly numbers a film actor and It is a great pleasure to see that a cricketer among his paternal kin) Klino has become a Skeptic and Colin Kline was born. Where and now contributes to our illustrious when is outside the scope of this magazine. I continue to wear his brief biography. Short in stature, his underpants with pride. name was spelt Klein by some of his schoolteachers, but to his friends he is Colin Groves Klino, because his first name proved Canberra ACT impossible to get right – “Calvin” was a common version, which he accepts, despite his antipathy to fascism and Editor’s note: Ok, March 2016 wasn’t theocracy, because he likes chocolate a great issue for getting names right. and has a collection of cuckoo clocks. Our apologies to Colin Groves (the

CRYPTIC CROSSWORD SOLUTION DR BOB’S QUIZ SOLUTIONS

Y E L R O B L S S E E S A B

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L A I T R A M E S C I O R T

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62 The Skeptic June 16

Local Skeptical Groups

VICTORIA TASMANIA

Ballarat Skeptics Launceston Skeptics Currently being re-activated Contact: Jin-oh Choi, 0408 271 800 See Facebook for details [email protected] www.launcestonskeptics.com Citizens for Science – Mornington Peninsula (formerly Peninsula Skeptics, aka The Celestial Teapot) Launceston: Skeptics in the Pub Contacts: Graeme Hanigan 0438 359 600 1st & 3rd Thursday of each month http://www.meetup.com/Citizens-for-Science/ 5.30pm @ The Royal Oak Hotel www.facebook.com/groups/peninsula.skeptics/ Launceston: Skeptical Sunday Great Ocean Road Skeptics – (Geelong) 2nd Sunday of each month Meets on the last Wednesday of each month from 6pm, City 2.00pm @ Cube Cafe Quarter, Cunningham Pier East Geelong Contact: Carolyn Coulson [email protected] QUEENSLAND https://www.facebook.com/groups/147741491945391/ The Surfcoast Summer Skepticamp is run annually by Brisbane Skeptics in the Pub members Meets on the first Tuesday of each month from 6:30pm at the Plough Inn, Southbank Melbourne Eastern Hills Skeptics in the Pub http://Brisbanesitp.wordpress.com - Meets second Monday of each month at The Knox Club, follow links for Facebook, Twitter and email list Wantirna South. Contact: Andrew Rawlings [email protected] http://mehsitp.codenix.org https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Eastern-Hills- Skeptics-in-the-Pub/19241290737690?ref=ts

Melbourne Skeptics in the Pub Meets on the fourth Monday of every month from 6 pm at the Mt View Hotel in Richmond. http://www.melbourneskeptics.com.au/skeptics-in-the-pub/

Mordi Skeptics in The Pub Meets at 7.30pm on the first Tuesday of each month at the Mordialloc Sporting Club. ($4 to cover website costs) http://www.meetup.com/Mordi-Skeptics-in-the-Pub/

NOTE: LISTINGS WELCOME We invite listings for any Skeptical groups based on local rather than regional areas. Email us at editor@ skeptics.com.au with details of your organisation’s name, contact details and any regular functions, eg Skeptics in the Pub, with time, day of the month, location etc. Because this is a quarterly journal and most local groups meet monthly, it is unlikely we will be able to include references to specific speakers or events. The 32nd Australian Skeptics National Convention Melbourne 2016

Good Thinking November 25–27 University of Melbourne

convention.skeptics.com.au

Skeptic_BackCover_JUN16.indd 64 4/06/2016 3:56 pm