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Australian Skeptics WA Branch
Contact and meeting details

WA Skeptics, Box 466, Subiaco WA 6904. Tel (08) 9448 8458
Email: info AT undeceivingourselves DOT com

Dr John Happs (left) is President of WA Skeptics. He is an education consultant, former lecturer in geosciences at universities in Australia and the USA, and author of numerous science texts and book chapters. Dr Geoffrey Dean (right) is Organiser of the WA Skeptics Awards for Young Critical Writers. He is a technical editor, former analytical chemist, and author of numerous scientific papers and book chapters.

Meetings of WA Skeptics forthcoming in 2010
All meetings are on a Tuesday in the seminar room at Grace Vaughan House, Shenton Park, starting at 7:30pm. Scroll down for a location map, and for reports and pictures of meetings since 2005.

21 September 2010. Terry Woodings will present Musings on Miracles -- the logic of a deity's actions in the natural world where religions and science collide. Professor Woodings teaches software engineering at UWA. He warns that he has no qualifications in theology but has a reasonable grasp of logic. Anyone familiar with Terry's previous talks will know that an entertaining and thought-provoking evening is guaranteed.

16 November 2010. Our last meeting for 2010 and not to be missed. For details watch this space. The next meeting after this will be in March 2011. Dates and programme details will be on this website from mid February 2011.

About our meetings
WA Skeptics have been holding free meetings open to all since the late 1980s. All meetings start at 7:30 pm at Grace Vaughan House, 227 Stubbs Terrace, Shenton Park, see map below. Meetings last about two hours and are followed by refreshments. Meetings usually feature current events followed by either a speaker or a video on a paranormal topic (see list and descriptions of previous meetings below), followed by a lively discussion. If you want to hear both sides of the paranormal story then put these meetings on your calendar. Admission, refreshments, and parking are free. Just turn up. Doors open at 7:00 pm. All are welcome.

Entrance to Grace Vaughan House is 500m from Selby Street and 800m from Karrakatta Railway Station. Look for large
blue sign-on-a-pole (it says "Department of Health, Grace Vaughan House, 227 Stubbs Terrace") then follow the signs.
Entry can be tricky in the dark if coming from Selby Street due to hard-to-see islands in the road and in the entrance.

About WA Skeptics
WA Skeptics, the WA branch of Australian Skeptics Inc, began in 1981 in Subiaco. It encourages a responsible view of curious and unlikely claims (including medical claims) by providing regular meetings open to all, speakers for club functions, annual awards for young critical writers, an information service for the media, and pre-tests of WA claimants for the Australian Skeptics $100,000 prize. It has no formal membership and no subscription fee.

Topics of interest to WA Skeptics include: the afterlife, alien encounters, alternative medicine, ancient astronauts, astrology, Atlantis, auras, Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, biorhythms, cattle mutilation, channelling, Chinese medicine, chiropractic, clairvoyancy, climate change, cold reading, Cottingley fairies, creationism, crop circles, crystal power, dowsing, end of the world, ESP, faith healing, feng shui, firewalking, gaia theory, ghosts, global warming, graphology, homoeopathy, horoscopes, hundredth monkey, hypnosis, I Ching, intelligent design, iridology, karma, kinesiology, life on other planets, Loch Ness monster, lunar effects, magnet therapy, miracles, Moon hoax, Murphy's Law, Nazca lines, near death experiences, New Age, Noah's ark, Nostradamus, numerology, ouija boards, out-of-body experiences, palmistry, perpetual motion, phrenology, planetary influences, poltergeists, pseudoscience, psychic surgery, psychic powers, psychics, psychokinesis, pyramid power, reductionism, reincarnation, runes, Sai Baba, scams, seances, shroud of Turin, skepticism, spiritualism, spontaneous human combustion, spoon bending, star signs, stigmata, tarot cards, telepathy, transcendental meditation, UFOs, unicorns. urban legends, voodoo, water divining.

Media and speaker enquiries
When you need facts about paranormal claims, or a speaker, call WA Skeptics at the number given at the top of this page. On average we provide a talk every fortnight to audiences of up to 200 people. Our services are free. However, because we insist on accuracy and anti-sensationalism, print journalists using our services are required to check their copy with us before publication.

Meetings of WA Skeptics since 2005

Meetings in 2010
20 July 2010. David Archibald spoke on Solar Cycles and their Influence on the Earth's Climate. The evidence points to a return to weak solar cycles (and global cooling) after the strong solar cycles of 1950-2000, which had the highest level of solar activity for 8000 years. Essentially a weak solar cycle lets in more cosmic rays, which means more seeding of water vapour into clouds, hence more reflection of incident sunlight, hence cooler temperatures. The link between weak solar cycles and cooler temperatures is remarkably consistent. An example is shown below.

All this and more can be found in David Archibald's 2010 book The Past and Future of Climate: Why the world is cooling and why carbon dioxide won't make a detectable difference. 142 highly readable pages with 75 illustrations (most in colour) and a foreward by Professor David Bellamy. $29.95 from www.davidarchibald.info, which has more of David Archibald's work in easy-to-read articles and YouTube presentations. Bottom: Data from N Ireland showing how the mean annual temperature at Armagh Observatory varies in tune with solar cycle length. The mean of 9.6°C during cycle 22, peaking about 1990, fell to 8.2°C during the longer and weaker cycle 23, peaking about 2003. The difference of 1.4°C is three times the global rise supposedly due to a hundred years of carbon dioxide! The next two cycles (cycle 24 began in May 2010) are likely to be much weaker, thus promising global cooling, not warming. From Figure 61, one of dozens showing the effect of solar cycles on climate.

18 May 2010. Cancelled owing to maintenance work being carried out at Grace Vaughan House.

16 March 2010. Dr John Happs spoke on Scientists Behaving Badly, a masterly overview of climate change and the latest developments in the growing international scandal about the IPCC and its abuse of the scientific process.

Dr John Happs addresses WA Skeptics in March 2010 on Scientists Behaving Badly

Meetings in 2009
Meetings in 2009 were disrupted because our normal meeting room at Grace Vaughan House was being refurbished and was unavailable. Otherwise 2009 featured excellent speakers and our first social meeting.

Molecular biologist Joanne Nova addresses WA Skeptics in November 2009 on how bullies and status seekers destroy rational
debate on climate change. "Science is not a democracy and natural laws don't form because a UN committee decreed it."
Global actions are not driven by science but by bank profiteering. You can learn more at http://joannenova.com.au

July 2009 -- Sociologist Dr Jeremy Northcote gave an overview of his book The Paranormal and the Politics of Truth in which he examines the tactics used by believers and skeptics. For his purpose the actual truth was irrelevant. Supposed debate about the paranormal is actually a dispute marked by closed minds on both sides, and by differing agendas, for example believers may be seeking meaning whereas skeptics seek evidence. So nothing gets resolved. Genuine debate is simply too threatening to cherished beliefs. The only remedy is for both sides to understand each other but this seems unlikely to happen. The audience tended to disagree -- skeptics (at least in WA) understand very well what is happening.

Saturday 8 August 2009 -- this Evening of Skepticism was organised not by WA Skeptics but by UWA's Atheists and Agnostics Society. It featured Richard Saunders and Dr Rachael Dunlop, both vice-presidents of the Australian Skeptics in Sydney. Saunders was also the skeptical judge on The One, Channel 7s top rating search-for-a-psychic show for 2008. Despite eminent speakers and advance mention in the Subiaco POST, only about 70 people attended, mostly from atheist groups (ironically neither speaker said much about atheism) with about half a dozen each from the WA Humanists and WA Skeptics. Both speakers illustrated their talks with Power Point visuals.

Saunders opened the evening by stressing that you don't need to be gullible or drunk to be fooled. You just need to be human. A series of optical illusions had the audience seeing things that were most definitely not there. Ghostly images on digital photos were unnoticed specks of dust floating close to the flash. "I am a fake" says the sign above a fake psychic at Melbourne fairs. She gives demos of how psychics seem to know everything about you when in fact they know nothing. Psychics rely on our ability to read specifics into generalities. Suppose they say "You have problems with money". We immediately think of OUR problems and OUR money. No money problems? "Just wait until next week". They can't lose. Which is why most people believe in psychics. Without proper training most of us are unable to see the rip-off. Incredibly, some people refuse to believe the "I am a fake" sign, and plead for private readings! All you need to be ripped-off is to be human.

Dr Rachael Dunlop spoke about Alt Med scams with examples copied from free magazines at health food stores. "Healing energies", "biomagnetic toxicity", the list of claims unsupported by science went on and on. Some practices such as iridology and dowsing regularly fail when submitted to blind trials. Other practices such as ear candling could be harmful. Particularly harmful was the anti-vaccination campaign run by the deceptively titled "Australian Vaccination Network". The Network claims to be pro-choice but is actually anti-vaccination and anti-choice. It works by spreading false information about vaccines. It claims that whooping cough is "just a bad cough". But about 1 in 200 children will go on to develop pneumonia and die. It wrongly claims that vaccines cause diseases such as autism. Fifty years ago we lived in dread of killer diseases such as smallpox, diptheria, and polio. Today, thanks to vaccines, smallpox is gone, and the rest have almost disappeared. The audience was still asking questions when the meeting ran out of time.

May 2009 -- WA Skeptics hold a social meeting at China House restaurant, Shenton Park.
Although restaurant-based skeptic meetings are common in the Eastern States, this was our first in WA.

Meetings in 2008
Highlights included videos of Richard Dawkins on The Enemies of Reason, videos from the Penn and Teller series, Dr John Happs on misconceptions about climate change, Dr Kim Kirsner from UWA on locating HMAS Sydney, Luke McGuiness on the skeptics National Convention in Adelaide, Dr Geoffrey Dean on four ways to reduce belief in weird things (reduce public uncertainty, revamp the media, reform education, revise Western worldviews, none of which will happen), and a look at possible future directions for our website, all followed by lively discussion. This year the WA Skeptics Awards were presented by Dr Michael Shermer, visiting Perth from the USA as part of Science Week, see 2008 Results listed under WA Skeptics Awards.

WA Skeptics at a meeting in November 2008. This year Perth subscribers to the national magazine the Skeptic exceed 120,
with occupations that include chemistry, computers, education, engineering, geology, geophysics, graphic design, journalism,
libraries, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, psychology, radiology, teaching, and technical writing. More than two-thirds are on
email. Since 1995 the attendance at meetings has averaged around 20, a comfortable number in a room with seating for 25.

Meetings in 2007
Highlights included speakers on 9/11 conspiracy theories and on climate change, both followed by lively and informed discussion; the presentation of WA Skeptics Awards for 2007 by Professor Richard Wiseman, visiting Perth from the UK as part of Science Week (see 2007 Results listed under WA Skeptics Awards); and the launch on 20 November of our website www.undeceivingourselves.com. An additional meeting in February for a pre-test of claimed telepaths came to nothing when the telepaths failed to show up, see Attempts on the $A100,000 Prize listed under Investigations by WA Skeptics > Undeceiving Ourselves.

Meetings in 2006 Our five meetings in 2006 were well attended and began shortly after the nominal start time of 7:30 pm. As well as the usual mix of videos and accounts of current happenings, much of the discussion this year was devoted to our WA Skeptics Awards for Young Critical Writers launched in February 2006 to nearly 100 secondary schools through out WA. The first Award presentations were made at our July meeting, see 2006 Results listed under WA Skeptics Awards. The year ended with the wine-tasting tests described in Has Wine a Magnetic Personality? listed under Investigations by WA Skeptics > Strange Things.

WA Skeptics at a meeting in July 2005.

Meetings in 2005
Our five meetings in 2005 included videos on Nostradamus and a TV special from Britain's LWT in which psychics tested their predictive skills against people with expertise in psychology, sport, politics and weather forecasting. But the procedures were poorly designed and heavily edited, so no conclusion was possible. Highlights were a successful drive for volunteers to help with organising meetings, and an illustrated history of WA Skeptics since 1980, for excerpts see History of WA Skeptics. In June there were nearly 120 Perth subscribers to the national magazine the Skeptic. In August mailouts to the 150 names on our mailing list were discontinued in favour of handouts at meetings.

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