With winter almost upon us, the time has come to curl up in front of a nice screen and browse the internet. Speaking of which, congratulations are in order to our chair-entity Vicki Hyde and media spokesman Denis Dutton for having their websites nominated in the sixth annual Webby Awards.
These are coming to be regarded as the web equivalents of the Oscars; Vicki’s Sci-TechDaily Review is up for an award in the science category against such luminaries as NASA, while Denis’ Arts & Letters Daily is taking on the BBC and other heavyweights in the news category. The public is entitled to vote for these (at www.webbyawards.com/peoplesvoice/), so if you’re reading this before the closing date of June 7, you know what to do.
It’s been a busy time for us skeptics overall. The Auckland members, led by Felicity Goodyear-Smith, have combined with the Rationalists to hold two meetings, on GM foods and immunisation. These have been well attended, and have done a lot to raise the level of debate on these issues; hopefully more will follow.
And there’s been the old possum peppering story, which the Greens were promoting as an environmentally benign means of pest control, despite a well-designed trial of this technique some years back showing it has no effect whatsoever. The society’s press release in response to the matter got a fair bit of coverage.
There’s plenty of variety this issue. We have a nice introduction to the philosophy of science in the lead article, some reflections of a former psychic researcher, and we re-examine last year’s soy sauce scare.
And John Riddell’s column, in which he confesses to being taken in by a scam, is a beaut. It all came about because of his weakness for fishing, he says…
Speaking about being active, the annual get-together is being planned once again and it’s time to consider a trip to sunny Christchurch to take part in the Skeptics Conference 2002. More details are to be found tucked up on page 8, but circle it in your diary now and book your tickets.
