SKEPTICISM . SCIENCE . SOCIETY Vol. 37, No 1. March 2017 Attack of the Skeptic Michael Marshall Interview +Special Report - NICM Stupid plants &Gullibility Australian Skeptics . www.skeptics.com.au Skeptic_TESTCover_Mar17.indd 1 8/03/2017 10:10 am The Skeptic March 17 Skeptical Groups in Australia NSW VIC Australian Skeptics Inc – Eran Segev Australian Skeptics (Vic) Inc – Chris Guest www.skeptics.com.au GPO Box 5166, Melbourne VIC 3001 PO Box 20, Beecroft, NSW 2119 Tel: 1 800 666 996 [email protected] Tel: 02 8094 1894; Mob: 0432 713 195; Fax: (02) 8088 4735 Skeptics’ Café – Third Monday of every month, with guest [email protected] speaker. Clyde Hotel, cnr Elgin and Cardingn Sts, Carlton. Meal Sydney Skeptics in the Pub – 6pm first Thursday of each from 6pm, speaker at 8pm sharp.($4 contribution). More details month at the Crown Hotel, cnr Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets in on our web site www.skeptics.com.au/vic the city (meeting upstairs) Dinner meetings are held on a regular basis. Ballarat Skeptics in the Pub See Facebook for details. Hunter Skeptics – John Turner Tel: (02) 4959 6286 [email protected] Geelong Skeptics Society (formerly Great Ocean Rd) Meetings are held at the Club Macquarie, Lake Road, Argenton Contact: Carolyn Coulson [email protected] on the second Thursday of each month, excepting January, See Facebook for details.. commencing 7.00pm, with a guest speaker or open discussion Meets on the last Wednesday of each month from 6pm, City on a given topic. Visitors welcome. Further information from the Quarter, Cunningham Pier East Geelong secretary at: [email protected] The Surfcoast Summer Skepticamp is run annually by members ACT Gippsland Skeptics in the Pub Canberra Skeptics – Lauren Kelly Interested parties contact Mark Guerin or Martin Christian Power PO Box 555, Civic Square ACT 2608 via the Gippsland Skeptics page: https://www.facebook.com/gr http://www.canberraskeptics.org.au Tel: 0410 382 306 oups/291929110900396/?ref=bookmarks [email protected] (general inquiries), [email protected] (Canberra Skeptics in the Pub). A free monthly talk, open to the public - check website for details Melbourne Eastern Hills Skeptics in the Pub Skeptics in the Pub gather at 1pm on the third Sunday of each Contact: Andrew Rawlings [email protected] month at King O’Malleys Pub in Civic. For up-to-date details: http://mehsitp.codenix.org www.meetup.com/ SocialSkepticsCanberra/ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-Eastern-Hills Skeptics-in-the-Pub/19241290737690?ref=ts Meets second Monday of each month at The Knox Club, Wantirna South. Melbourne Skeptics in the Pub See Facebook for details. Meets on the fourth Monday of every month from 6 pm at the Mt View Hotel in Richmond. Mordi Skeptics in the Pub http://www.meetup.com/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) For details on Skeptical groups in other states and territories, see inside back cover Volume 37 • No 1 March 17 Contents REPORTS Confrontation at MBW 10 Mendham, Saunders & Bryce 11 NZ Skeptics Conference 11 Tim Mendham & Richard Saunders SPECIAL 12 NICM, TCM & rhino horn 12 Tim Mendham & Eran Segev 18 FEATURES The Skeptic’s Guide 18 Michael Marshall interview 30 ARTICLES 38 The Prince of Nigeria 30 Alessandra Teunise 35 Unlearned Journals 35 Diana Lucia Homeopathic miracles 38 Steve Roberts I Think I Am 40 Tim Harding 52 The Body Electric 45 Brian Dunning Stupid Plants 48 Tim Entwisle Evolution of Creationism 52 Peter Hogan 48 40 REGULARS Editorial 4 54 Around the Traps 5 Puzzles page 16 Them! 17 56 The logical place 29 What goes around 54 Book reviews 56 Forum 58 EDITORIAL Friends and associates here is the saying that you will be have something to do with it – one of Tknown by the friends you keep. its senior lecturers was a supporter who And when your friends act up or have last year had run a course in healing a close brush with the law, that means touch at the university, advertised on you could be tainted, in some people’s the university’s website. The practitioner ISSN 0726-9897 minds, with the same brush. photographed by the ABC for the clinic Quarterly Journal of Sometimes those friends are a few was wearing a JCU shirt. Yes, anyone Australian Skeptics Inc steps away – friends of friends, so it’s can buy a university branded shirt at (ABN 90 613 095 379) not entirely your fault. And sometimes the co-op, but if you’re practising woo Editor they’re just people who happen to be on university grounds in a university- Tim Mendham on the same ground as you, making owned building supported by university you an innocent bystander. staff, then some people may just think Editorial Board And sometimes there are cases where you’re part of the university. Steve Roberts it is your responsibility to know who So, only a few days after the clinic Eran Segev you are associated with, even if you opened, JCU shut it down. It decided Martin Hadley aren’t directly associated with them. it did have something to do with it, and Barry Williams But most worrisome is when that was the bad reputation the clinic Design Services you are responsible for putting the was giving the university. Nova Consulting P/L ‘friends’ where they are, and they prove The other example is covered at some themselves less than worthy and in the length in this issue of the magazine, so All correspondence to: process demean your reputation, and let it suffice to say that the National Australian Skeptics Inc you know they are less than worthy, Institute of Complementary Medicine PO Box 20 and yet you still associate yourself with at Western Sydney University, which Beecroft NSW 2119 them. By doing that, you endorse their is a proponent of traditional Chinese Australia actions, and then you have to take the medicine, has been revealed to be, Contact details lumps. however indirectly, accepting the use of Tel: +61 (0)2 8094 1894 Recently there have been two products of endangered animals. Once Mob: +61 (0)432 713 195 organisations which have found it was linking to a database of Chinese Fax: +61 (0)2 8088 4735 themselves in that position. herbs, one of which contains rhino One has hemmed and hawed and horn – that link was removed once it [email protected] then taken decisive action. James was pointed out. The second is a thesis, www.skeptics.com.au Cook University owned a building on supervised by NICM, which lists TCM its Townsville campus. It leased that cures, one of which contains rhino horn The Skeptic is published four times building to others, and one of the and musk deer, both endangered. per year by Australian Skeptics Inc. lessee’s tenants was a healing touch The issue is, especially for Views and opinions expressed in articles clinic. Healing (or therapeutic) touch universities, that you have to be careful and letters in The Skeptic are those of is a ‘medical’ treatment which removes who you lend your name to. The days the authors, and are not necessarily bad energies from your body by of the sheltered groves of academe those of Australian Skeptics Inc. passing hands over it. You don’t need are long gone; for better or worse, Articles may be reprinted with to touch the patient for it to work, universities and their institutions are permission and with due acknowledge- despite the name. The practitioner will under the watchful eye of potential ment to The Skeptic. draw bad energy out of your body and critics and hopeful defenders. And All effort is made to ensure correct flick it to one side. (Word of advice, universities are answerable to both. acknowledgement of all contributions. don’t stand behind the practitioner or (And we won’t even mention We are happy to update credit when so you’re going to end up with bad energy Wollongong University’s antivax informed. all over your shirt.) conspiracy-laden PhD for Judy So JCU had a pseudoscientific Wilyman. That would be very Editorial submission deadline clinic on its hands, and when people unfriendly.) . for the next issue: complained, it used the “I got nuthin’ April 30, 2017 to do with it” excuse. Except it did - Tim Mendham, editor 4 NEWS The Skeptic March 17 Around the traps ... JCU closes healing touch clinic AUS: James Cook University has closed a Senior Lecturer in JCU’s College a Healing Touch Clinic that had been of Healthcare Sciences, Centre for operating on its Townsville campus just Nursing and Midwifery Research was a TGA calls for comment days after it opened. supporter (she also promoted a “Healing Healing (or therapeutic) touch is a Touch Level One masterclass” on the on CAM labelling pseudoscience whereby a practioner university’s website last year), and a waves their hands over a patient, practitioner had been photographed AUS: The Therapeutic Goods enabling the wearing a JCU shirt. Administration is seeking comments practitioner “The clinic had from interested parties on a range of to detect and been run by Healing reforms to the regulatory framework manipulate what Touch Townsville for complementary medicines. This is they say is the with clinics designed to provide an opportunity patient’s ‘energy conducted for a few for consumers, health professionals field’. It is similar hours every fortnight and sponsors “to contribute to the to Reiki and the in a JCU building development and implementation of ‘laying on of hands’ on the campus,” a range of reforms aimed to improve practices of faith the university said, the regulation of complementary healers.