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Richard Saunders (skeptic)
Richard Saunders is an Australian scientific skeptic and podcaster. In 2001, he was awarded a life membership by Australian Skeptics and has twice served as their president. He has presented on skepticism, represented the Australian Skeptics on television and radio shows, and is the co-host of ''The Skeptic Zone'' podcast. Early life Saunders was born in Kurri Kurri, New South Wales, Australia. His father, R. H. Saunders, a reverend, was posted in Tribune, Saskatchewan, where he lived in 1968 and 1969. Professional career Web design After graduating from high school, Saunders joined educational publisher Ashton Scholastic and sold educational software for Apple II and Commodore 64 home computers. He also worked as a web designer for The Advance Bank of Australia and Commonwealth Bank and in 1999 was transferred to EDS, where he designed the interface for netBank online banking and worked for two years before joining GreenStone Pty Ltd as a web designer for three years. Acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Skeptics
NZ Skeptics is a New Zealand incorporated society created in 1986, with the aim of promoting critical thinking. The main areas of interest to the NZ Skeptics are claims of psychic abilities, alternative medicine, creationism and other pseudoscientific claims. At its founding in 1986, it was known as the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (NZCSICOP). In 2007 the name was formally changed to NZ Skeptics Incorporated. History NZ Skeptics was co-founded (as the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) by David Marks, Denis Dutton, Bernard Howard, Gordon Hewitt, Jim Woolnough, Ray Carr and Kerry Chamberlain in 1986. Other similar organisations exist in the USA (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry), Australia (Australian Skeptics) and India ( Indian CSICOP). Denis Dutton was the first chair. Vicki Hyde took over as the first chair-entity (a title devised by Hugh Young both to be all-inclusive a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media was a media (communication), media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' in 1841. The Fairfax family retained control of the business until late in the 20th century. The company also owned several regional and national Australian newspapers, including ''The Age'', ''Australian Financial Review'' and ''Canberra Times'', majority stakes in property business Domain Group and the Macquarie Radio Network, and joint ventures in streaming service Stan (company), Stan and online publisher HuffPost, HuffPost Australia. The group's last chairman was Nick Falloon and the CEO was Greg Hywood. On 26 July 2018, Fairfax Media and Nine Entertainment Co. announced it had agreed on terms for a merger between the two companies. Shareholders in Nine Entertainment Co. took a 51% of the combined entity and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and claims to be the most widely read masthead in the country. It is considered a newspaper of record for Australia. The newspaper is published in Compact (newspaper), compact print form from Monday to Saturday as ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and on Sunday as its sister newspaper, ''The Sun-Herald'' and digitally as an Website, online site and Mobile app, app, seven days a week. The print edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' is available for purchase from many retail outlets throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, most parts of regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland. Overview ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' publishes a variety of supplements, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The One (TV Program)
''The One'' is an Australian television program broadcast by the Seven Network, hosted by Andrew Daddo. The program pits several alleged psychics against one another, participating in trials which challenge their purported abilities in activities such as clairvoyance, telepathy and mediumship to determine who is Australia's "top psychic". The show was originally created by Fox Studios Australia, who in 2006 contracted Simon Turnbull, President of the Australian Psychics Association, to help create the show. The psychics' abilities are observed by a studio audience or at external locations, and are judged by a two-person panel including Stacey Demarco, a self-described 'metaphysicist', and Richard Saunders, a life member of the Australian Skeptics. Season 1 of the show (5 episodes) premiered in Australia on Tuesday, 8 July 2008, and ended on 5 August 2008. Season 2 (8 episodes) aired in Australia on the Seven Network, from Wednesday, 5 October 2011, ending on 23 November 2011 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is a publicly-owned statutory organisation that is politically independent and accountable; for example, through its production of annual reports, and is bound by provisions contained within the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, with its charter enshrined in legislation, the ''Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983''. ABC Commercial, a profit-making division of the corporation, also helps generate funding for content provision. The ABC was established as the Australian Broadcasting Commission on 1 July 1932 by an Act of Federal Parliament. It effectively replaced the Australian Broadcasting Company, a private company established in 1924 to provide programming for A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugenie Scott
Eugenie Carol Scott (born October 24, 1945) is an American physical anthropologist who has been active in opposing the teaching of young Earth creationism and intelligent design in schools. She coined the term " Gish gallop" to describe a fallacious rhetorical technique of overwhelming an interlocutor with as many individually weak arguments as possible, in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument. From 1986 to 2014, Scott served as the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit science education organization supporting teaching of evolutionary science. Since 2013, Scott has been listed on their advisory council. Scott serves on the Board of Trustees of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Scott is a member of the Board of Advisers for the publication, ''Scientific American''. She is also a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and GWUP. Early life and education Scott grew up in Wisconsin and first becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Dunning (author)
Brian Andrew Dunning (born 1965) is an American writer and producer who focuses on science and skepticism. He has hosted a weekly podcast, ''Skeptoid'', since 2006, and he is an author of a series of books on the subject of scientific skepticism, some of which are based on the podcast. ''Skeptoid'' has been the recipient of several podcast awards such as the Parsec Award. Dunning has also created the ''Skeptoid.org'' spin-off video series, ''inFact'', and ''The Feeding Tube'' both available on YouTube. Dunning has produced two educational films on the subject of critical thinking: ''Here Be Dragons'' in 2008, and ''Principles of Curiosity'' in 2017. Dunning co-founded Buylink, a business-to-business service provider, in 1996, and served at the company until 2002. He later became eBay's second-biggest affiliate marketer; he has since been convicted of wire fraud through a cookie stuffing scheme, for his company fraudulently obtaining between $200,000 and $400,000 from eBay. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Randi
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author, and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims.#Rodrigues, Rodrigues 2010p. 271 He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims. Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from his foundation at 87. Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Pop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney, Australia
Sydney is the capital city of the state of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about 80 km (50 mi) from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Blue Mountains in the west, and about 80 km (50 mi) from Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and the Hawkesbury River in the north and north-west, to the Royal National Park and Macarthur in the south and south-west. Greater Sydney consists of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are colloquially known as "Sydneysiders". The estimated population in June 2024 was 5,557,233, which is about 66% of the state's population. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2017. The city's nicknames include the Emerald City and the Harbour City. There is evidence that Aboriginal Australians inhabited the Greater Sydney region at least 30,000 years ago, and their engravings and cultural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Amaz!ng Meeting
The Amazing Meeting (TAM), stylized as The Amaz!ng Meeting, was an annual conference that focused on science, skepticism, and critical thinking; it was held for twelve years. The conference started in 2003 and was sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Perennial speakers included Penn & Teller, Phil Plait, Michael Shermer and James "The Amazing" Randi. Speakers at the four-day conference were selected from a variety of disciplines including scientific educators, magicians, and community activists. Outside the plenary sessions the conference included workshops, additional panel discussions, music and magic performances and live taping of podcasts including '' The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe''. The final Amazing Meeting was held in July 2015. History and organization TAM was first held in 2003, attracting around 150 attendees. When the CSICOP conferences entered a seven-year hiatus in 2005, TAM quickly filled the gap and, with more than 1,000 attendees, deve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homeopathy
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths or homeopathic physicians, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called ''similia similibus curentur'', or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed ''remedies'' and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent "remember" the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease. All relevant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
