New Puzzles for March and April 2013 can be found at the top of the PUZZLE PAGE. They include a Picture Puzzle, Skeptical Crossword, “Mixed Bag” set and Logic and Maths Puzzles for each month.
All of our previous puzzles are still available!
PUZZLES ARCHIVE 1 (August 2010 to April 2011)
PUZZLES ARCHIVE 2 (May 2011 to October 2011)
PUZZLES ARCHIVE 3 (October 2011 to November 2012)
PUZZLES ARCHIVE 4 (December 2012 to March 2013)
Announcing the upcoming tour by American author and orator, Sean Faircloth.
Sean Faircloth is the Director of Strategy for the Richard Dawkins Foundation and will be presenting in Melbourne at the Spot Basement Theatre at 6:30pm on Tuesday 26 March, 2013.
Reclaiming a Secular Australia is a topic of interest to anyone with a secular view, including many skeptics. The interference of organised religion in schools, health and government will also be addressed.
Sean Faircloth may be known to some readers as the author of ‘Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Rights is harming us all, and what we can do about it!’
Faircloth’s tour is supported by a number of organisations including the Victorian Skeptics, The Rationalist Society of Australia, Council of Australian Humanist Societies, the Progressive Atheists, the Humanist Society of Victoria and the University of Melbourne Secular Society.
On this tour, Faircloth will also be appearing in Sydney and Perth, before heading to New Zealand for further appearances.
The Spot Basement Theatre is in the new Business and Economics building, at 198 Berkeley St, Carlton.
Tickets are $28 for adults or $12 students and healthcare card holders.
For further details of Sean’s tour and other events in Victoria, please visit the website of Rationalist Society of Australia. Tickets for the Spot Basement Theatre event can be purchased here.
by
Mal Vickers
Pharma
I love data and so does ‘Sense About Science’, the UK based pro-science trust. Sense About Science has launched the All Trials Campaign. The campaign aims to have pharmaceutical companies release the data from all the clinical trials they conduct.
Without the release of all data, pharmaceutical companies are free to indulge in selective publishing. That is, they may only publish the clinical trials that show the most favourable results for the products they would like us to consume.
The campaign coincides with the release of Dr Ben Goldacre’s new book ‘Bad Pharma’.
Countering Antivax Anecdotes with Provax Anecdotes
“Mrs Williams said they made what they thought was an informed decision not to vaccinate any of their children because of concerns over adverse reactions, but had since changed their minds.”
Mrs Williams is quoted as saying:
“It was hideous. He was spasming every three minutes. He was biting his tongue and bleeding. His arms were spasming and he was arching his back and his whole face and jaw was completely locked.”
A family in the UK came to exactly the same conclusion – that vaccination isn’t so bad, the benefits of avoiding the disease far outweigh the small risks. They were struck View More Happenings Feb 2013
February Puzzles are now in pride of place at the top of our PUZZLES PAGE
They include the usual monthly Picture Puzzles, Mixed Bag Puzzles, Skeptical Crossword Puzzle and Logic & Maths Puzzles.
Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12 is the subject of an annual celebration by freethinkers around the world.
As usual, we invite you to celebrate with us in two ways.
(1) If you’re a teacher, or know a teacher, we have our suite of Darwin Day Classroom Exercises. You can download them from http://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/educational/ These exercises cater to a wide range of student ages.
(2) There’s the usual Darwin Day Barbecue for Melbourne people. HOWEVER, this year the venue has changed.
Go to our EVENTS page for details.
Greetings all.
Well, the year has come to an end. We survived the Mayan Apocalypse and time has marched on into the 14th Mayan B’ak’tun and the 2013th year of our Common Era.
That means it’s time to look back, reflect and review just how well the Psychic Predictions for the year turned out.
12 months ago we put out the call for a psychic to provide predictions for the year ahead. We then pit that psychic’s predictions against those from three skeptics, to see who would prove the most prescient.
And the results are now in!
For a full commentary and all the scores, check out the Psychic Challenge 2012 page.
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Ballarat Skeptics in the Pub (wine bar, actually!) will hold its first public meeting on Thursday 31st January 2013.
The Venue is Portico on Sturt, 31 Sturt Street Ballarat
From 6.30ish
All welcome!
A stunning image taken by Guy Wolfe Page Taylor at the Gala Dinner of the 2012 National Convention. Guy posted this on FaceBook, he’s kindly allowed us to reproduce it here. Go on, click on the image for the full-screen version.
It’s great to see/hear all the positive media attention after a convention. The podcasts, coverage in the mainstream print media and on mainstream radio are encouraging. Then there’s the photos on this blog, Flickr and on FaceBook – it’s still a buzz.
For those readers who may not have seen/heard everything, here are some links to the View More Post Convention Media
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Sunday’s Convention Photos
Sunday was another line up of excellent speakers, DJ Grothe, Dr Ken Harvey, Dr Rachael Dunlop, Stephen Mayne, Lawrence Leung, James “The Amazing” Randi and many more. Look carefully in this set of images for a certain life member and secretary of a state branch jamming with Paul Conroy on guitar.
As previously announced. December CROSSWORD on CRYPTIDS featuring Cryptic Clues is based on Cryptid Animals. This is to tie in with the launch of Dr David Waldron and Simon Townsend’s book Snarls From the Tea Tree as well as David’s presentation at Skeptics Café in January.
The usual seven Picture Puzzles can be found at the top of the PUZZLES page.