Don’t toss out your RoyalAuto just yet. Victorian Skeptics president Terry Kelly featured in a RoyalAuto article this month.
Amongst the car safety reviews and suggested holiday destinations, a four page interview style article about Terry and things of interest to skeptics. I found the writing and photography to be excellent and it’s always nice to see a good positive story in the press.
You can read the September 2010 article on-line.
Mal.
Your September Skeptical Crossword is here: http://skeptics.cafe/puzzles/crossword-puzzles/ , and there are seven new Picture Puzzles to solve here: http://skeptics.cafe/puzzles/.
August 2010 CROSSWORD SOLUTION
This article first appeared as a Vic Skeptics discussion pamphlet.
The full range of our discussion pamphlets can be downloaded here: http://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/educational/
or by clicking on the “Useful Info” link at the top of this page.
The basic proposition of Western Astrology is that your personality and fate are influenced by the apparent positions and motions of heavenly bodies. View More Australian Skeptic's Guide to Astrology
The Victorian Skeptics are at Scienceworks this weekend, helping out and showing our support for science week. It’s always interesting to experience first hand public reaction to us. Perhaps the people that come to Scienceworks are a biased sample, but I generally find people are quite supportive and interested in what we do.
Illusionist Simon Tayor is also giving us great support by putting on regular shows in the theater within Scienceworks.
And now I have the perfect excuse to show you the bed of nails video, our great crowd puller is back once again.
Mal.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXj24tYimOI]
Don Hyatt gave us a great talk last Monday titled “The Problem with Education”. Luckily for those that couldn’t come along, the talk was recorded.
Listen:
[Direct link to the MP3]
Did you like that? Give us some feedback, do you want us to record future talks?
I’d also like to thank Ben, the wiz audio guy, for making the technology work.
Don has also made available the presentation slides from his talk in PDF form.
Slides 1-7
Slides 8 -23
Slides 24 – 33
Slides 34 – 83
Mal
It appears that some dubious marketing tools are being employed in the sale of the Power Balance wrist band.
First is the use of celebrity endorsement. This practice is unfortunately all too common. Celebrities don’t appear to be any better at critical thinking than your average Joe (or Jo) in the street.
The second dubious practice is the use of physical tests that aren’t objective. The method of pressing down on someone’s arm to test muscle strength can easily be manipulated (either deliberately or mistakenly) by the person doing the pressing. This methodology has been around for quite some time and is known as “Applied Kinesiology”. This is rather difficult to describe in writing. Fortunately Richard Saunders has put together an excellent video that shows you everything you need to know.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piu75P8sxTo]
Now, check out this uncritical video review of the Power Balance wrist band. In this video a View More Video fest: the Power Balance wrist band and the arm press
