It was an eye opener. Under the stern glare of past headmasters of Kings College, the NZ Skeptics were holding their annual dinner that always goes with the annual conference.
We had arrived at our seats to find tidily folded strips of tinfoil and were instructed to get creating-tinfoil head adornments have the added goodness of blocking evil mind controlling rays.
Within minutes highly talented skeptics had whipped up mediaeval crowns, medusa snake heads, devil horns and shark fins to pop on their clever heads. We are a disparate bunch with hidden talents, I concluded as I looked around me. Some were less talented, it has to be said-all I had was a scrunched up piece of tinfoil. And-further shame-I didn’t even get the prize for the most pathetic effort.
Skeptic conferences are, like the creations we made that night, weird and wonderful affairs. Throughout the heady mix of thought-provoking sessions there is a real pleasure in hanging out with like minded people from all over the country.
This 2006 Auckland conference was another cracker. Our very own John Welch tackled the questions of why doctors go bad, we heard about the charms and harms of herbal medicine, bad science in the courtroom-and a high school student telling us the connection between hair length and musical talent. Mad cow disease, science and TV, and ethnic fundamentalism. Being our 20th anniversary, it was especially pleasing to have the presence of two founding members, Bernard Howard and Warwick Don. Warwick treated us to a potted history of the Skeptics, complete with fire walking clips and a youthful-looking Paul Holmes.
Over the next few months the NZ Skeptic will bring you many of these presentations. But we won’t be able to reproduce the feeling one takes away from this annual flocking together of our group. And it is a good one.
On another note, this is my last issue as editor. The editorial reins are being passed to David Riddell, a fine bloke although it must be said that his tinfoil hat was truly pathetic. He will, however, make a fine editor. And as he lives at the same house as me, I’ll keep an eye on things.
One more thing, before you read Louette McInnes’ piece on Richard Wiseman (p 7), check your powers of observation by watching the video at viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html-all you have to do is count the number of times the players in the white shirts pass the basketball among themselves. Ignore passes by the black players. Then read the Wiseman article. And email us your totals.
