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.

Melissa Davey joins Skepticon panel

Posted in General, Media, Skeptic by

Award winning science journalist Melissa Davey will be joining Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and Liam Mannix in the panel discussion, Skepticism in the Media, this December 3rd in Melbourne. The panel will delve into science in the media, how to spot deceptive headlines and more.

Melissa Davey

Melissa is medical editor of The Guardian and in 2019 received the Walkley Foundation June Andrews Award for Women’s Leadership in Media, for her work investigating gynaecologist Dr. Emil Shawky Gayed. The impact of her work was highly significant, with a Walkley judge commenting:

She revealed a systemic bias against women patients, which contributed to a failure to stop these abuses. The stories forced medical authorities to investigate and to suspend the doctor. Davey now leads sessions for doctors on the dangers of ignoring women’s health complaints.

Melissa is Guardian Australia’s Melbourne Bureau chief. In August 2020 Scribe published her book The Case of George Pell: reckoning with child sexual abuse by clergy. David Marr writes of the compelling read:

At last, the secret trials of George Pell are revealed in compelling detail by one of the very few who was there throughout. With unmatched authority, Melissa Davey answers the questions that haven’t gone away: why was the cardinal found guilty, and why was he then set free?

In 2023 Davey led an investigation into concussion in sport, including an examination of the spurious scientific evidence informing concussion guidelines. This work prompted further investigations and an apology from the AFL to players. Melissa and her colleagues consequently won the Grant Hattam Quill award for investigative journalism.

Presently, Melissa is halfway through completing her masters of Public Health. You can catch the panel discussion along with many other stimulating presentations during Skepticon 2023 over the first weekend in December. Live and online tickets are available.

Karen Brewer at Skepticon 2023?

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When it comes to cooker conspiracies in Australia, Karen Brewer has carved out a niche of her own. Few who have observed Brewer are unaware of the all-important two questions.

Where did they go to school? And, who’s their daddy? The answers according to Karen will reveal if said subject is or was “a filthy Freemason DeMolay”. Karen is convinced a cabal of paedophiles march from DeMolay ranks and apart from occupying most areas of public life, have an inordinate influence on the placement of DeMolay symbolism in parks, on buildings, around streets, indeed everywhere.

In her spare time Karen motivates her “ANZACS” to yell at Governors General, or rather their driveways, in Australia and New Zealand. They are usually aided by a megaphone and demand the GG dissolve parliament and issue writs for a new election. This is because the government is corrupt and is hiding the truth about Bill Heffernan’s fanciful list of high ranking paedophiles, announced under parliamentary privilege.

In September 2020, Karen’s allegations of paedophiles in parliament led to the National Party MP for Mildura, Dr Anne Webster, and her GP husband, Philip, being awarded $875,000 in damages for social media defamation, courtesy of Brewer. As Media Watch reported at the time, the judge referred to Karen as “delusional”.

Karen is closely watched on social media by her fans and perhaps many more who just can’t look away. Thankfully, Lyle Allan who holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree and is a Master of Arts in Political Science at the University of Melbourne, has her in his academic gaze. Indeed, Lyle wrote an article for The Skeptic published in December 2021, The Brew Ha Ha, about the conspiracy theorist Karen Brewer.

Lyle Allan

Lyle will speak about Brewer at Skepticon this year and tells us:

Freemasonry has rarely been the subject of fierce opposition in Australia and New Zealand. Karen Brewer, a conspiracy theorist par excellence, does just that.

Freemasons, according to Brewer, control parliament, the judiciary, the police and the public service in Australia and New Zealand. Not only that she claims that Freemasonry promotes pedophilia. She is also critical of Demolay, a little-known Masonic youth organisation that former United States President Barack Obama once belonged to.

Brewer has had run-ins with the law in New Zealand and Australia. The National Party of Australia federal parliamentarian Anne Webster won substantial damages against Brewer for defamation. Paul Barry, on the ABCs Media Watch program, claimed Webster was unlikely to receive the damages awarded to her from Brewer.

Brewer organises demonstrations outside the residence of the various state Governors and the Governor General in Australia and New Zealand.

The amount of support she has cannot be established with certainty, but a comment in The Australian newspaper that she may have 20,000 followers is possibly too many.

I’m really looking forward to his presentation. You can still get tickets for the convention, to attend live or online.

Futurist at Skepticon in the near future

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Adam Ford is a futurologist and an IEET (Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) Affiliate Scholar. He works as a data/information architect, a data analyst and data engineer.

Adam Ford

Adam has co-organised a variety of conferences in Australia, USA and China. He convenes the global effort of ‘Future Day’ seeking to encourage a specific day to ritualize focus on the future.

As a grass roots journalist, Adam has interviewed many experts on the future – and is currently working on a documentary project focussing on preparing for the future of artificial intelligence – the Singularity.

We have all been made acutely aware of the importance of AI in the last 12 months. Chat GPT has become a household phrase, along with warnings of the rise of AI impacting. From the 15 biggest risks it poses including fake news, loss of employment and human connection to serious existential quandaries such as the need to mitigate potential risks of human extinction.

Wow! And I thought my CARROT Weather app swearing at me every day was as bad as things would get. Anyway, speaking of weather, it won’t be a factor for those of you attending Skepticon 2023 or watching online. Not will it impact on the awesome Skepticon dinner and entertainment.

So, check out ticket options here and I look forward to seeing you there.

Sue Ieraci will speak at Skepticon 2023

Posted in General, Health, Skeptic by

When it comes to skeptical activism Sue Ieraci keeps herself, well… active.

Just recently Sue went to MindBodyWallet festival to check out what motivates some to empty their wallets for a choice of woo. This led to an article in Australian Doctor in which Sue reported on receiving advice that the kidneys should produce cloudy urine, because when they’re “open”, sediment will find its way into the urine. Proof apparently, of toxins leaving the body.

Sue also wrote about a visit to a stall managed by a chiropractic business:

They were using thermography (metal probes that were said to be measuring skin temperature on either side of the spine), which they explained could correlate with something neurological. 

I described the shoulder and neck muscle spasm I can get from spending too long at my laptop, mainly using my dominant arm for the mouse. 

Surprisingly, the “scan” readout showed two red bars on the other side of my body — apparently, the side without the pain was hotter! 

When I asked what units of temperature were being measured or displayed, the scan operator was unable to say. 

What he was able to do was offer me a follow-up appointment at the chiro clinic — at a special “discount for showgoers”!

Sue didn’t sign up. Which is just as well because I doubt she has the time. Well, actually I hope she’s working hard on her Skepticon 2023 presentation about what leads conventionally-trained doctors to turn to pseudoscience. The on top of that, Sue is an emergency medicine specialist with a long history of collaboration with Stop the AVN (legends), Friends of Science in Medicine (marvellous) and Australian Skeptics (marvellous legends) in opposing and debunking health science misinformation. 

Sue Ieraci

Sue is active on social media, believes in providing evidence-based discourse and likes a good argument. Sue often treads the knife edge between informing readers and getting banned by pseudoscience spruikers, including those promoting extreme diets, unscientific “therapies” and useless supplements. 

Her favourite homeopathic “remedy” is “Nat.Mur” – Natrium Muriaticum or – as it is more commonly known – water that no longer contains salt. She is fascinated by the concept that a lot of nothing is stronger than not much nothing.

Sue is also going to perform at the Skepticon Saturday night dinner as a stand up comedian. If you’d like a ticket to the dinner, the convention or an online experience please visit here.