Tag Archives: Australian Skeptics

Conspiracy Of One – Nate Eggins – will entertain Skepticon diners

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Entertainment for Skepticon’s Saturday night dinner, will be courtesy of Brisbane-based songwriter, musician and science communicator, Nate Eggins. In addition, Nate will also be one of the Skepticon MCs. With thought-provoking lyrics, Nate aims:

To encourage interest in science, promote critical thinking and with his quirky sense of humour, playfully nudge us to second-guess pseudoscience, modern advertising and conspiracy theories through fun catchy clever music.

Nate, a multi-instrumentalist, has used his talent and interest to create the solo project, Conspiracy of One. Described as A bit sciency, A bit funny,Conspiracy of One sold out two live performances at the Brisbane Planetarium, for the release of Nate’s debut album, Road To Reason.

Skeptics and fans of the Australian Skeptics podcast The Skeptic Zone are likely familiar with Nate’s 2021 hit, The Sound a Duck Makes. Indeed your “Quack!” vocal may well be on it. Road To Reason reflects Nate’s journey, “from the darkness of ignorance toward the light of scientific and critical thinking”.

Hit songs from the album include Can You Guess My Star Sign? which features Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, The Song THEY Don’t Want You To Hear and It’s Not You, It’s Corona. Great music and good humour with dinner, in the company of skeptics? Sounds like a great night.

You can learn more about Nate Eggins on his Facebook page, Instagram or check out some of his music on YouTube.

The Saturday night dinner is at the St. Andrews Conservatory in Nicholson St. Fitzroy. If you’d like a ticket, please visit Try Booking.

Clinical psychologist required for Skepticon audience

Posted in General, Health, Skeptic by

Gary Bakker is a clinical psychologist with over 40 years experience. His talk at the upcoming Australian Skeptics national convention is titled, Sex, gender and identity: The politics and the science.

Gary Bakker

It can be a controversial area of which Gary notes:

Gary notes:

It has been very hard to get past the politics of issues around sex, gender, and identity while trying to apply the science to our legal and social policy decision-making. For example, it took several submissions to journals before my two articles on the topic – ‘Sex, gender, and identity: It’s complicated’ and ‘Sex, gender, and identity: Science or politics?’ – were published, both eventually in Rationale, the journal of the Rationalist Society of Australia.

Even Skeptical Inquirer “didn’t want to go there” because any moderate contribution is attacked (cancelled) by both of the vocal extremes on the issue.

Visit Skepticon 2023 for more information or look for tickets here.

Katharine Shade’s journey to skepticism

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This year at The Australian Skeptics national convention, Katharine Shade will reveal her journey from the fog and confusion of woo, to the glaring clarity of skepticism.

Katharine Shade

Such ventures from the badlands of belief, tend to feature similarities. Katharine will tell of her escape from the healing that never healed, of living with faith in the so-called “dis-ease” model beloved by fundamentalist chiropractors, and even diving headlong into the semi-aquatic theory of human evolution.

Her tale promises to have a happy ending, as Katharine ultimately succeeded in broadening her approach to learning accepted truths. However, she says it took a bit more time to learn enough skills to be able to more precisely attribute plausibility, and understand how a theory that seems perfectly valid, can be bogus.

You too can follow Katharine’s journey at Skepticon 2023 and even finish off the day at the entertainment packed dinner. Or just kick back at home on the couch, and watch online. Tickets are available here.

Tim Grant coming to Skepticon 2023

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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.