November 18, 2023

Zafir Ivanov and Reason’s Fulcrum coming to Skepticon 2023

The fact that two individuals can form opposite conclusions when faced with the same evidence, is something that Zafir Ivanov has pondered most of his life.

Zafir has devoted a great deal of time to understanding how we form beliefs. Why are some people immune to counter-evidence? Why are some easily swayed by weak arguments, and others unmoved by strong evidence? In fact, people respond to evidence quite differently.

https://skepticon.org.au/speaker/zafir-ivanov/

Zafir’s interest led him to study research literature, experiment with difficult conversations and to become an amateur ethnographer. He writes, gives presentations, and talks about why we believe and why he thinks it best we believe as little as possible. Zafir has collaborated with the Cognitive Immunology Research Initiative and The Evolutionary Philosophy Circle.

At Skepticon 2023 he will introduce a modified version of a concept called Reason’s Fulcrum. Zafir will use this to demonstrate Bayesian Reasoning, and thinking in ratios in addition to how this can help one appropriately adjust when faced with new evidence. He will argue in support of rejecting absolute certainty and Truth (with a capital T).

In November last year Zafir presented the below TEDx talk, Our worldview alters our view of the world.

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November 11, 2023

Stephen Bavaro coming to Skepticon 2023

Pseudoarchaeology is a type of fantasy story telling of the “ancient” past. A well referenced entry on Wikipedia basically describes it as the interpretation of the past without accepting existing evidence-based findings or applying the methodology of genuine archaeology. This 1987 articlefrom Penn Museum’s Expedition Magazine confirms pseudoarchaeology was well established decades ago.

Seasoned skeptics tend to nod sagely and acknowledge the days of Chariots of the Gods?, by Erich von Dänniken whenever the topic comes up. More recently we have Ancient Apocalypse, masquerading as a documentary on Netflix and narrated by well known myth-maker, Graham Hancock. Like many baseless claims today, social media, slick videos and pseudoscientific language have contributed to a contemporary rise in the popularity of pseudoarchaeology. As an accurate understanding of our world and its past is critical, this is most unfortunate.

Enter Stephen Bavaro. Stephen is studying archaeology at Macquarie University in Sydney. He has a strong interest in pseudoarchaeology and pseudohistory, particularly with how they distort the study and understanding of past and current cultures. You can check out Stephen’s Facebook page here.

https://skepticon.org.au/speaker/stephen-bavaro/

At Skepticon in Canberra last year, Stephen spoke about von Dänniken and belief in ancient aliens. This year at Skepticon in Melbourne he will focus on Atlantis and the role of Ignatius Donnelly in popularising belief in an actual city, as opposed to Plato’s notion of an allegoricalconstruct. Stephen spoke to Richard Saunders about his work during last weeks episode* of The Skeptic Zone. 

You can read about all speakers at Skepticon 2023 here and look at ticket options here.

* Allow web fonts or hit “pause” to see the audio player, if you have an ad blocker.

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November 10, 2023

Susan Gerbic to speak at Skepticon 2023

Self-proclaimed skeptical junkie, Susan Gerbic, will be speaking at Skepticon 2023, which runs over December 2nd and 3rd this year.

https://skepticon.org.au/speaker/susan-gerbic/

Susan has done some awesome things in the world of skeptical activism and is the founder of Monterey County Skeptics. In addition she founded and manages the About Time project, which you can check out here. Susan is a winner of the James Randi Foundation award for 2017 and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. She also contributes to Skeptical Inquirer.

Susan could also see, not just the potential of Wikipedia, but the potential power in genuinely educating those who visit Wikipedia to access information on a topic. We all end up on Wikipedia at some time to read up on any number of subjects. In fact it’s a top hit in searches. Susan felt strongly about the quality of information on Wikipedia, and how it influenced decisions people might make.

So Susan founded Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW). This involves organising a team of people across the globe, that edits pages on Wikipedia in multiple languages. Consider this GSoW slogan:

The mission of the Guerrilla Skepticism editing team is to improve skeptical content of Wikipedia. We do this by improving pages of our skeptic spokespeople, providing noteworthy citations, and removing the unsourced claims from paranormal and pseudoscientific pages. Why? Because evidence is cool. We train – We mentor – Join us. 

GSoW was particularly relevant this year, with regards to unqualified and dangerous “naturopath”, Barbara O’Neill. An Australian, O’Neill is subject to a Permanent Prohibition Order from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission. This hasn’t stopped her manipulating social media and exploiting opportunities to present harmful claims to audiences overseas, in pursuit of her lucrative scheme. Fortunately as her profile recently rose, so did hits on O’Neill’s Wikipedia page – one edited by GSoW.

Episodes of The Skeptic Zone on 18 June and 2nd July this year, featured Gerbic who discussed the spike in traffic to O’Neill’s Wikipedia page. In the wake of TikTok videos, hits on the page went from around 20 per day to 9,000 per day. No doubt, many were convinced to save their money.

Gerbic’s activism covers all areas of skepticism, particularly that of “Grief Vampires”. 

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November 9, 2023

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz coming to Skepticon 2023

So, it’s Sunday morning right. No not now. Back then. Back on… Sunday morning.

I’ve plunged the coffee, added a cup and milk, and am scrolling through that thing called X. You know – what Elon did to Twitter. I meant to check the weather because it’s cool, windy and wet and I hate the heat, so I’m like “Yay! Let me look at the digits”, but somehow I get on X.

There’s a tweet with a screenshot and the screenshot reads:

If you’re not an expert but you think you’ve destroyed the entire foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you could be wrong.

Even before the caffeine kicked in I knew it was good – the tweet not the coffee – and perhaps I maybe wished I’d said it. Okay, I did wish I did but I didn’t and will now have to learn to live with that. Then I looked at the handle and the caffeine must have just then kicked in because my memory worked. It went way, way back to the afternoon before, when I’d seen it on Twitter / X. It was @GidMK.

Now, @GidMK calls himself the Health Nerd, but has a whole bunch of talent. In fact I even know that:

https://skepticon.org.au/speaker/gideon-meyerowitz-katz/

Well, I actually stole that from the Skepticon 2023 speaker bio for Gideon. I also know stole information that he’ll be involved in a panel discussion and that you can:

Join Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz (Health Nerd) and the award-winning science journalists Melissa Davey and Liam Mannix in this panel discussion looking at science in the media and how to avoid being misled by the headlines you read.

Skepticon 2023 runs over Saturday 2nd to Sunday 3rd December, and you can get tickets for either day or for virtual attendance. As for the tweet itself, well I couldn’t find it at first. I had to do an advanced search, which is all very la-de-dah with lots of typing in little boxes until I found it way, way back in January 2020. 

Yes. It was from B.C. Before COVID. And it’s hard evidence that critical thinkers were employing logic and sensibility long before social media platforms realised fact-checking was a thing.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to catching Gideon at Skepticon.

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November 8, 2023

Melanie Trecek-King coming to Skepticon 2023

Over on the Skepticon 2023 website is a link to all convention speakers. 

Melanie Trecek-King, the creator of the online critical thinking resource, Thinking Is Power will be speaking at Skepticon 2023. Melanie is an Associate Professor of Biology at Massasoit Community College and has a “teach skills, not facts” approach to science education.

You can check out Melanie’s Facebook page, the Thinking is Power X profile or read Melanie’s full profile on the Skepticon 2023 website.

Details and a range of tickets to Skepticon 2023 are available via Try Booking.

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August 7, 2023

Buying Skepticon 2023 tickets

This post is for anyone having technical difficulty buying a Skepticon 2023 ticket.

Head to the Skepticon website and click the Buy Tickets button. Or click this link for the ticketing website.

You will see this page.

After clicking “Book Now”, just follow through the pages below. Click or swipe through the slide show below to see each step or follow the instructions below the images.

  1. This page lists the various ticket purchase options to choose from. In the example above, one Convention Standard plus Dinner has been chosen. Click the “NEXT” button to continue.
  2. The next page asks for additional details such as the name you want on your lanyard, dietary requirements, Twitter (now called X) handle and an email address. The only field you must fill is the name for the lanyard. Click “NEXT” to continue.
  3. The final page includes a box headed Your Cart and lists your ticket details. If you have a promotional code please enter it in the box and click the yellow “APPLY” button as in image 5 above.
  4. The final image is of the booking details field. Fill this out and click “PURCHASE”.
  5. You will receive an email and your ticket.

Updated: 9 November 2023

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June 21, 2023

Skepticon 2023 – Tickets Now On Sale

Tickets for the 39th Australian Skeptics National Convention are now available.

To be held in Melbourne over Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd of December 2023, the convention website tells us:

Skepticon 2023 is the premier convention for critical thinking, skepticism, and science communication in Australia. At this event, rational thinkers, scientists, and experts gather to explore issues facing skepticism in society today. […] This year it will be organised by the Australian Skeptics Victorian Branch and held near the University of Melbourne Parkville Campus.

Location: Ian Potter Auditorium, 30 Royal Parade Parkville.

Head on over to the Skepticon 2023 website to read more, check in on speakers and buy tickets.

Or follow the link below for ticketing information.

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May 6, 2023

Ongoing Trove funding to be announced in federal Budget

If you regularly listen to The Skeptic Zone podcast, you’ll be familiar with the segment A Dive into a Trove. Host, Richard Saunders takes listeners on a “wander through the decades of digitised Australian newspapers on a search for references to [insert topic]”.

It might be the paranormal, ghosts, “therapeutic touch”, Nostradamus, “fake cures” or even Canberra Skeptics, to name a few. It’s one of my favourite parts of the show and always leaves me wiser as to the historical Australian context around issues that skeptics are constantly drawn to.

What you may not be aware of is the uncertainty the very existence of Trove has faced, and that the genesis of that uncertainty goes back to Budget cuts in 2016. Launched by the National Library of Australia in 2009, Trove had by then, grown to a world renowned digital archive with millions of records, growing by several million items per week.

Known as a GLAM Service, Trove hosts content from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. Yet that year, a $20 million budget cut to the National Library of Australia meant that ongoing aggregation of material would cease. This was part of the Turnbull government’s “efficiency dividend”.

Turnbull’s “efficiency dividends” had been announced months earlier, and awareness of Trove’s peril led to a #fundTrove campaign on Twitter. A February 2016 article in The Conversation by Mike Jones and Deb Verhoeven makes a compelling argument as to the unprecedented value of Trove. Tweets presented, succinctly capture the value of Trove, such as this from librarian and “history hunter”, Kyla Stephan.

Another tweet notes that in 2014 over 120,000,000 lines of text were corrected by volunteers at Trove. Regarding Trove’s collation of content from multiple sources, the authors write:

As of February 25 2016, this includes information on over 374,419,217 books, articles, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives, datasets and more, expressing the extraordinarily rich history of Australian culture.

The campaign for funds resulted in a Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) boost of $16.4 million, over four years, announced in December of 2016. In December 2021 the National Film and Sound Archive was funded with $41.9 million over four years to save at-risk items. Trove would get $5.7 million over two years but its future, and the fate of (by then) billions of records remained uncertain.

By December 2022 the #saveTrove Twitter campaign was in full swing, in the wake of an update to Trove Strategy [archive] in which the NLA announced that without secure funding, Trove would be unable to operate beyond July 2023. A change.org petition to Greens arts spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young, and a parliament e-petition attracted ample support. News articles were expansive in reporting the need for funds. Pay-for-view options were ruled out by the NLA.

Jones and Verhoeven again penned a piece in The Conversation, calling for “radical overhaul”. A resource the quality of Trove, they argued, cannot be sustained by ad hoc funding. That such was the case, suggested Trove was seen as an “optional extra”. More so:

What is currently a Frankenstein’s monster of dead and mouldering technologies and systems needs more than just cosmetic surgery. It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up as an essential component of national library services.

By January 2023 the government hinted that relief may be on the horizon. There are currently over 14 billion digital items in Trove and it plays a key role in research for PhD theses, history classes, family research, the shaping of Australian identity and of course, informing skeptics about all manner of woo from our ever-receding past. In February, Teal MP Dr. Monique Ryan, the member for Kooyong, informed federal parliament that Trove had “democratised knowledge” and called on the government to provide the NLA with the necessary funding.

Ultimately, it came to pass. On 2 April this year it was announced that the Albanese government would provide $33 million over four years, in addition to $9.2 million in indexed ongoing annual funding beyond that time frame. The media release Securing The Future of Trove, from Arts Minister, Tony Burke stated that the funding helps restore strong cultural infrastructure, which is a “key pillar” of Revive, the Government’s new National Cultural Policy.

The NLA is “delighted that Trove’s future has been secured”, and stated:

The certainty of this funding decision will allow the National Library to continue to provide this essential service, enrich it with new content, and stabilise and secure the platform, in line with the Trove Strategy. 

Trove is a free resource of truly remarkable potential. You can access it here. To discover more about how material is collated I recommend this entry at The Atlas. To understand more about the archive, its history and long term strategy, visit What is Trove.

And if you type “Australian Skeptics” into Trove, your results would be here.

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March 27, 2023

Ivermectin now a quack cure-all

During the second and third years of the COVID pandemic, skeptics began to hear more and more of an anti-parasitic drug that had been used frequently for animals and less so for humans.

Ivermectin has been approved by health authorities to treat humans with strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis (river blindness): conditions that are caused by parasitic worms. Also there are topical ivermectin preparations used to manage skin conditions such as rosacea and external parasites such as head lice. Used as prescribed it is quite safe and has improved the lives of countless individuals in developing nations. Yet we weren’t hearing about ivermectin used in this manner. Thanks to disinformation and irresponsible repetition of dubious claims, ivermectin was being promoted as a means to combat COVID-19.

The anti-vaccination movement embraced ivermectin because it resonated with the “my body, my choice” mantra. Right leaning media identities promoted it in much the same illogical way as they had hydroxychloroquine. It had been used safely for decades, they argued, and thus was clearly a sound choice to combat COVID-19 symptoms. Yet hydroxychloroquine, had a pharmaceutical history as an anti-malarial and an agent to manage symptoms of arthritis and autoimmune disease, not in treating COVID-19. Ivermectin similarly, had no clinically proven background in the treatment of COVID-19. The clinical trials had simply not been done.

For skeptics, the issue was and is quite simple. Look toward reputable sources. Seriously examine the arguments in favour of ivermectin. Review the strength of research being cited. Place the issue in context. Keep an eye out for ideology. Check the profiles and backgrounds of key players, and so on. In short: Seek the evidence.

Initially there was the 3 April 2020 media release from Monash University. The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute announced a paper published in the peer reviewed journal Antiviral Research. The title, The FDA-approved drug ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, was tantalising. An informative piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 October 2021 cites experienced drug developer Dr. Craig Rayner referring to the impact of the announcement:

“It was incredibly hyped,” Dr Rayner said. “I knew it was going to start a fire.” […]

“It’s not the best thing for Australia to become known for in terms of its contribution to the pandemic,” Dr Rayner said. “But that’s what it is, unfortunately. It has promoted vaccine hesitancy and people are dying because they’re taking a veterinary medicine that has not been proven.”

For those looking to grab the ivermectin ball and run with it, the media release was peppered with big names, other nasty diseases and potentially exciting findings. It has since been modified to include an FDA warning and offer clear disclaimers about ivermectin’s effectiveness. What mattered to those who would go on to push ivermectin as a safe cure for COVID-19, came from just a few paragraphs:

View More Ivermectin now a quack cure-all

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January 31, 2023

Puzzles for February

After a month’s holiday, we’re back with puzzles.

The Skeptical Crossword looks at Paranormal Pastimes. 

There are the usual twenty Mixed Bag Questions, another seven Picture Puzzles and a new set of Logic & Maths Puzzles, this time with the emphasis on logic and critical thinking.

All at the top of the  PUZZLES PAGE.

Enjoy!

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