Skeptics National Convention 2008
The speakers
Professor Barry Brook
Professor Barry Brook holds the Foundation Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and is Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide. He has published two books and over 120 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and regularly writes opinion pieces and popular articles for the media. He has received a number of distinguished awards in recognition of his research excellence, which addresses the topics of climate change, computational and statistical modeling and the synergies between human impacts on Earth systems.
In 2006, he was awarded the Australian Academy of Science Fenner Medal for distinguished research in biology and the Edgeworth David Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales, and in 2007, the HG Andrewartha Medal by the Royal Society of South Australia and was listed by Cosmos as one of Australia’s top 10 young scientists. His area of expertise is climate change, global change biology, and the synergies between different human impacts on Earth systems. Specific topics include analytical and computer simulation modeling for risk assessment of climate change impacts, understanding the relevance of past extinctions to the present biodiversity crisis, tropical ecology and wildlife management.
Dr Rob Morrison and Dr Deane Hutton—Earth Air, Fire and Water: the Elements of Energy
Earth, Air, Fire and Water were once thought to be the four elements from which the world was made but, as we now know The chemical elements are very different from these four, but Earth, Fire, Air and Water remain dominant themes as we confront climate change, the need for energy, environmental degradation and much more. In this hands-on science show, Deane and Rob from the Curiosity Show will explore these four ancient elements and the part they have played in science and technology through the ages.
Richard Saunders—Mystery Investigators
Richard Saunders, TV Skeptic and educator, is known far and wide as an international author and origami expert with 30 books published. Richard was awarded Life Membership of Australian Skeptics in 2001 for his work on The Great Skeptic CD and since then he has created the Great Skeptic CD2, the Great Water Divining DVD and video. In his spare time, Richard is one of the team at the Mystery Investigators. Recently he has been seen on national TV as the skeptical judge on The One. He will talk about what it’s like to reach out to the public especially in schools. This talk includes demonstrations and reports from paranormal investigations.
Debra Panizzon—Engaging Students in Science Education: A role for all in ‘stemming the tide’
Associate Professor Debra Panizzon is the Deputy Director for the newly established Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century. International comparisons (e.g. PISA, 2006) of student achievement in science indicate that Australian students are outperforming many of their peers in OECD countries. However, student attitudinal surveys indicate that our students (along with those from other OECD countries) are not considering careers in science with many unconvinced about the value of science in their lives. Research in science education identifies the complexity of issues around student choice in science highlighting the important role that we can all play in ‘stemming the tide of students’ away from the enabling sciences.
Kylie Sturgess—On Sex, Smarts and Where The SkepGrrls At: An Investigation into Gender Differences and Belief In Weird Things
Callisto: “Why are men always more skeptic than women?”
Robert M: “We’re smarter. Not naive.”
Does Yahoo Answers really supply the answer to this question? After seven years teaching at an all-girls’ school and studying superstitions for an MEd, Kylie Sturgess investigates the contribution of women to skepticism and some of the unanswered questions that may lead to such persistent stereotypes.
Kylie Sturgess credits her childhood enthusiasm for the long-running consumer affairs program The Investigators on Australian television for her life-long interest in consumer education, media claims and how we are led to believe ‘weird things’. A former high-school teacher turned educational researcher, she is currently working on a survey with Dr Martin Bridgstock on paranormal, pseudoscientific and conspiracy theory beliefs.
Loretta Marron—Jelly Beans and other drugs
Our 2007 Australian Skeptic of the Year, Loretta Marron, has had another action packed year in her fight for improved consumer protection. Also known as the ‘Jelly Bean Lady’, Loretta has continued to live up to her reputation as the ‘Terror of the TGA’. Now considered one of Australia’s highest profile informed consumers, this retired scientist and businesswoman has successfully targeted and exposed many dodgy health products and practices.
Taking on the billion-dollar Therapeutic Goods Industry, the Government, supermarkets and pharmacies, Loretta frequently appears in newspapers, on television and radio and is a regular contributor to a variety of magazines and websites.
A diagnosis of cancer in 2003 gave her first hand experience of the scope of misinformation that contributes to the exploitation of our most vulnerable Australians. From her first contact with the Skeptics, when she asked for help to develop what has become the world wide No. 4 health directory (www.healthinformation.com.au), we join her once again to share her on-going exploits as she continues to take on the challenge of providing good consumer health information. In her presentation to the conference Loretta continues to crank up her fight against dodgy health products and practices; now published in the Medical Journal of Australia she has taken on a variety of new projects, which she will share with you.
Margaret Kittson—Brain Gym: A Cautionary Tale
Margaret has over 30 years experience as a teacher and librarian in a range of government and private schools, predominantly in Queensland. Back in the late 1970s, while working as a librarian at a large metropolitan high school, she had a number of run-ins with fundamentalist Christians, biblical literalists who tried their hardest not only to get ‘creation science’ material placed in the school’s library, but to get what was already there relocated to a science number. For those familiar with Dewey, this means somewhere in the 500s. She had placed their material in the 200s (the division for religion), specifically at 213, the number for ‘creation’. This had not gone down at all well with these people.
Things that upset her are people who think they know everything about education and teaching because they once went to school; people who believe that there are ‘magic bullet’ solutions to complex issues in educating children out there which just need to be imposed on to recalcitrant teachers. Her presentation at this conference is inspired by a first hand experience with one such purported ‘magic bullet’ solution the Brain Gym, a subtle form of Applied Kinesiology.
Nigel Dobson-Keeffe—Rational Irrationality: the retreat of reason?
Many people in the contemporary western world sees rationality as a desirable method of thinking or even a pinnacle in conscious thought. It is characterised by truth and logic and implemented by the application of considered, reasoned thought. However recent research is now showing that most of our decision making ability might not really be this well constructed. When tested we find that most humans do not make decisions as expected according to a rational model. Much of our decision making is made at a subconscious level and can be corrupted by other internal and external information we are not directly aware of. These biases in our thinking will be the topic of this talk with examples taken directly from the participation of the audience.
Ian Plimer—Human-Induced Climate Change: a load of hot air
Professor of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide, and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Prof Plimer will look at some issues of Global Warming, arguing that climate change is a constant process on a dynamic planet. Climate changes in geological, archaeological and historical time frames have been far more rapid and greater than slight changes measured in modern times. Furthermore, over time the atmospheric CO2 content has been up to 25 times higher than now. During recent interglacials, temperature and sea level were far higher than at present. The rates of previous climate changes were far greater than anything observed today. Previous climate change took place over decades to centuries, extinctions took place with coolings, life flourished with warming and humans, plants and animals adapted. Previous great changes were buffered by natural systems and tipping points and runaway greenhouse are unsubstantiated myths.
Glen Smith—We are all Human: Perception
Dr Glen Smith is a psychologist who has researched, taught and published in cognition and perception for decades. We are all human, so we all understand what humans do, don’t we? But there are some surprising things in the way we interpret the world that show we actually make a lot of ‘errors’ in what we see and hear and understand. Some of these remain a problem even when we ‘know’ what they are. These are illusions, discrepancies between the ‘real’ world of physics and the results of our perceptual-cognitive system. This presentation will demonstrate a range of these effects. While they are fun and fascinating, knowing about them can help us avoid being too rigid and error prone in our thinking.
