Category Archives: Science

Tim Grant coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Science, Skeptic by

Tim Grant will be at The Australian Skeptics national convention on Saturday 2nd December. He will present a fascinating talk titled, The demonisation of plastics to avoid challenging consumerism more broadly.

Tim is the Director and Founder of Lifecycles, providing premium consultancy working on sustainability metrics. Tim’s specialty is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is a technique for systematically identifying the resource flows and environmental impacts associated with the provision of products and services. The importance of LCA has increased alongside the need to assess and reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from different manufacturing and service sectors.

Tim has over 25 years of experience in developing, teaching, and applying LCA. He is a co-chair of the Ecosystem Services and Natural Resource Task Force and the UNEP hosted project “Global Guidance on Environmental Life Cycle Impact Indicators” (GLAM). He has been instrumental in the development of data and leading-edge sustainability software tools. Tim has also contributed to a number of books, including Life Cycle Assessment: Principles, Practice and Prospects (CSIRO Publishing).

Tim Grant

Regarding his presentation, Tim observes:

Over the past 10 years, there has been increasing pressure from community and environmental groups to reduce plastic pollution, culminating in legislation and corporate declaration of targets to become plastics free or have plastic reduction targets.  

While reducing the emissions of plastics into the environment is a laudable goal, there is significant confusion over the objectives of fossil plastic replacements. It is sometimes framed as a need to be not fossil, to be degradable, biodegradable, compostable, renewable or sustainable – to avoid macro plastics or microplastics. 

Few products meet all of these objectives, and even if they can, there are the plastic replacements that can lead to higher environmental impacts including climate change, water use and land use impacts.  

You can read up more about Skepticon and check out various ticket options here.

Mal Vickers coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, General, Science, Skeptic, Skeptical Activism by

Mal Vickers is a skeptical activist with a singular focus on shonky so-called treatments, and the much-to-be-desired responses of regulators responsible for keeping our community safe.

In 2016 Mal received the ‘Skeptic of the Year’ award, jointly with Dr Ken Harvey for complaints about chiropractors. While studying towards a Master of Public Health, Mal investigated the complementary medicines market using the complaints made about its advertising and products. Mal is a mild-mannered bio-medical engineer and enjoys photography and tinkering in his workshop.

Working with Dr. Ken Harvey Mal has been instrumental in targeting false claims that can harm consumers. They reported on persistent non-evidence based claims in breach of the Chiropractic Board and AHPRA guidelines, and the absence of appropriate responses from these regulators.

Mal and Ken published the first review of the TGA’s Complaints Resolution Panel over its entire 19 year life. The analysis comprehensively demonstrated the failure of the TGA to ensure regulatory compliance by advertisers of complementary medicines.

While our regulatory system is meant to rein in violations, from 1999 to 2018 complaints and established breaches of the law greatly increased. 
At Skepticon, Mal will peel back the layers of misleading advertising that ultimately wastes people’s time and money. 

How do the companies behind these products get away with it? And, who tops the list for unethical behaviour? 

Mal is also on social media:

You can still get tickets to Skepticon for either the physical or online experience.

Dr. John Cook will be at Skepticon 2023

Posted in climate change, General, Skeptic by

John Cook is a Senior Research Fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne.

Dr John Cook

In 2013, John published Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature, an award-winning paper quantifying the 97% scientific consensus on climate change. The paper has been highlighted by President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron. 

In 2007, John founded Skeptical Science, a website that won the 2011 Australia Museum Eureka Prize for the Advancement of Climate Change Knowledge. He has an interest in using critical thinking to counter the effects of misinformation.

Tickets for Skepticon 2023 live and online, available here.

Zafir Ivanov and Reason’s Fulcrum coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Science, Skeptic by

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.

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).

Zafir Ivanov

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

  • Skepticon 2023 runs over 2nd and 3rd of December. Live and online convention tickets, as well as tickets to the Saturday night dinner, are available here.

Stephen Bavaro coming to Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Science, Skeptic by

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 article from 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 allegorical construct. 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.