Comments and Articles

The illustration is "Attempting the Impossible" by René Magritte
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There are sites in the collection which have comments associated with them.

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There are also some commentaries and magazine articles I have written which apply to a category or more than one site. Some of these have appeared in the following publications.
(You can see the articles ordered by publication here.)

I'm a journalist member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, which means I have a Code of Ethics to comply with. If you would like me to write for your publication or media outlet please use the email link at the bottom of the page to contact me.

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  The journal of the Australian Skeptics
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  Australasian Science
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  Australian Doctor
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  Issues
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  Yahoo! 7 News Blog
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  MamaMia
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  ABC Science
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  The Dubbo Weekender

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Health Fraud ( articles)

A brief history of some science Anatomy of a quack Anti-quackery Committee Are all placebos equal? Argumentum ad whateverum Better get a lawyer son Blackmore's and the Pharmacy Guild – a marriage made in Hell Bogus Challenges Burzynski gets audited CAM or SCAM? Cancer 100 Challenge Checking the facts (AS) Checking the facts (Y) Chiropractic – quackery to the core Citation Cold Case Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon (AS) Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon. (DR) CRA vs Iridology Damaging autism paper retracted Dangerous Practitioners – Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine Debating the undebatable Devastation in Haiti Do Be a Dick Don't hold your breath waiting for change Don't let straw men give you hay fever. Dr Andrew Wakefield Dr Sandra Trademark Drug interactions Faith healer? Fraud! Fighting the Medi-scams Foxes and henhouses Free speech breaks out in Anti-vax Land? Get together and do it again. Getting risk wrong (I) Getting yourself hated Hold the front page! More clickbait coming. Homeopathy – all the idiocy that fits Homeopathy – How can honest people sell this rubbish? Homeopathy – so diluted there's no evidence left. Homeopathy – unbelievable nonsense Homeopathy watered down? How many people do those doctors kill? How many unicorns does it take to match a draught horse's weight? How not to do science – Everyone retracts except Dr Wakefield How time flies. How to attack freedom of speech. If it's too good to be true … Ignorance is Strength I'm a celebrity. What do you want to hear? The 90th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle The Best Research Money Can Buy The Bloated Truth About Gluten The Dietary Supplement Experiment Begins

A Placebo Can relieve A Skeptic's Pain A very profitable trick Irregular regulation Is that a cart or a barrow that horse is pushing? It can't hurt you. It's natural. James Randi: An Honest Liar Keep the eyes on the Prize. Keeping your skepticism out of court (AS) Keeping your skepticism out of court (SC) Let's be balanced! "Limited only by the laws of physics" Magic wands (AS) Magic wands (Y) Milks ain't milk Misremembering the past Mobile phones are frying our brains. Multiple Chemical Stupidity? Nocebo – whatever doesn't kill you might. Obituary – Stephen Jay Gould Of meridians and mice Organic food. What's in it for me? Pan Pharmaceuticals – if it ducks like a quack Pasteur's Last Words Peer review – Close enough is better than nothing. Philosophy and Science Polypharmacy Professor Boyd Haley Progress? We don't need no stinking progress. Put the Lyme in the quackonut Quackery Quackery Down Under Stem promises give way to abuses Still Deluded After All These Years Sweet simple things of life Take your pet duck to the quack Targeting the susceptible The mass media does its job. Not. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same The Myth of "The Myth of Mental Illness" (AS) The Myth of "The Myth of Mental Illness" (S) The outer limits of woowoo The Precautionary Principle The Ragtag Posse of Snake-oil Vigilantes The times they are a changin' The Woo Review Theatre of the absurd Then it came for me Things change. Get used to it. Three Dead Children Tim O'Ranter – Patrick Timothy Bolen Transcript of the murder of Candace Newmaker Treating the symptoms True Believers Truth and Fiction Universities. What are they for? Watch out, doctors, the quacks are after your patients! We live in fearful times. What is a PhD worth? What science isn't. What you see might not be what you get When religion and medicine disagree Who has the backbone to stop this? Will your smart meter make you less smart? World Homeopathy Awareness Week You could just die laughing

Plus ( articles by other people):

• Beware the spinal trap – Simon Singh
• DTP Vaccination or SBS?: The Role of Irresponsible Medical Expert Testimony in Creating a False Causal Connection – David L. Chadwick and Rob Parrish
• Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions – Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Homo Neanderthalensis – H.L. Mencken
• Mannatech Using Disputed Study to Boost Sales of Its Products – David Evans
• Shaken Baby Syndrome – Pamela Rowse RN
• The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing – Andy Lewis
• The Liver Cleansing Diet – Dr Joe Proietto
• The Median Isn't the Message – Stephen Jay Gould
• The WHO and homeopathy – World Health Organization
• When Judges Play Doctor – Paul Offit

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Racism ( articles)

• Getting yourself hated
• Subtle Racism

Plus: ( articles by other people)

• I have a Dream – Martin Luther King Jr
• Redfern Speech – December 10, 1992 – Paul Keating

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Religion ( articles)

• A night out with the creationists
• Acts of God?
• An atheist at Christmas
• "Blasphemy" comes before "Science" in the dictionary
• Bogus Challenges
• Book review – Has Science Found God?
• Book review – Science and Religion : Are They Compatible?
• Can atheism be called a dangerous idea?
• Craig and Krauss – religion meets science
• Creation/Evolution Debate
• Creation/Evolution Debate – Part 1
• Creation/Evolution Debate – Part 2
• Creation/Evolution Debate – Part 3
• Creationists coming! Think of the children!
• Devastation in Haiti
• Don't make any plans for Sunday. Jesus was wrong!
• Earthquakes and God
• Faith healer? Fraud!
• Fides et Ratio – Faith and reason
• Getting yourself hated
• Have we outgrown religion?
• Ian Plimer was right. They do tell lies for God
• Knowing things that just ain't so
• Literature v Literalism
• Literature v Literalism (Y)
• My patience is tried
• Philosophical skepticism and what skeptics really do
• Polite request to creationists
• Psychic predictions for 2011
• Someone gets upset
• The Danger of Knowing for Sure
• The end is nigh! Repent!
• The end of the world. Really?
• The end of the world. Really? (ABC)
• The Myth of "The Myth of Mental Illness" (AS)
• We have a saint!
• We're off to see the Benny, The wonderful Benny of God
• We're still here.
• When religion and medicine disagree
• Why am I a skeptic?

Plus: ( articles by other people)

• A Free Man's Worship – Bertrand Russell
• A Letter Concerning Toleration – John Locke
• Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? – Bertrand Russell
• Among the Believers – a night out with Benny Hinn – John Sweatman
• An Agnostic's Apology – Sir Leslie Stephen
• An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish – Bertrand Russell
• Bible Teaching and Religious Practice – Mark Twain
• Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? – Bertrand Russell
• Is There a God? – Bertrand Russell
• Memorial Service – Where is the grave-yard of dead gods? – H.L. Mencken
• Of Miracles – David Hume
• Of Miracles and Their Uses – Thomas Hobbes
• Of Religion – Thomas Hobbes
• On the Value of Scepticism – Bertrand Russell
• The Antichrist – Friedrich Nietzsche [translation by H.L. Mencken]
• The Necessity Of Atheism – Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The Skepticism of Believers – Sir Leslie Stephen
• The Ten Commandments – Mark Twain
• The War Prayer – Mark Twain
• Theology and Falsification – Antony Flew
• Thoughts of God – Mark Twain
• Vatican Statement on Vaccines Derived From Aborted Human Foetuses – Pontifical Academy for Life
• What is an Agnostic? – Bertrand Russell
• What Is the Soul? – Bertrand Russell
• What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide? – Robert Ingersoll
• Which Way? – Robert Ingersoll
• Why I Am A Rationalist – Bertrand Russell
• Why I Am An Agnostic – Robert Ingersoll
• Why I Am an Unbeliever – Carl Van Doren
• Why I Am Not A Christian – Bertrand Russell

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Creationism ( articles)

• 150 years since the death of creationism
• A night out with the creationists
• Argumentum ad whateverum
• "Blasphemy" comes before "Science" in the dictionary
• Bogus Challenges
• Creation/Evolution Debate
• Creation/Evolution Debate – Part 1
• Creation/Evolution Debate – Part 2
• Creation/Evolution Debate – Part 3
• Creationists coming! Think of the children!
• Darwin visits the Blue Mountains
• Don't let straw men give you hay fever.
• Getting yourself hated
• Ian Plimer was right. They do tell lies for God
• Irregular regulation
• Knowing things that just ain't so
• Literal interpretation of the Bible
• Literature v Literalism
• Literature v Literalism (Y)
• Obituary – Stephen Jay Gould
• Polite request to creationists
• Science books? We don't need no stinkin' science books
• The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
• The Woo Review
• What science isn't.

Plus ( articles by other people):

• 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense – John Rennie
• A Refutation of Deism – Percy Bysshe Shelley
• A scientist and Christian talks about Intelligent Design – David Goldney
• Creationist Deception Exposed – Barry Williams
• Homo Neanderthalensis – H.L. Mencken
• The Dissertation Kent Hovind Doesn't Want You to Read – Karen Bartelt
• The Information Challenge – Richard Dawkins
• Theology and Falsification – Antony Flew

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Anti-vaccination liars ( articles)

• A brief history of some science
• Answer me this, anti-vaccinators
• Anti-vaccination propaganda at the Folk Festival
• Anti-vaccinators demand the impossible
• Anti-vaccinators want to deceive
• Argumentum ad whateverum
• Asses and the law
• Banned from the Australian Vaccination Network's mailing list
• Bending your conscience to fit your opinion
• Better get a lawyer son
• Bogus Challenges
• Book review – The Doctor Who Fooled The World
• Censorship and intolerance at iVillage
• Checking the facts (AS)
• Checking the facts (Y)
• Child Abuse
• Chiropractic – quackery to the core
• Damaging autism paper retracted
• Dante and Virgil descend to Hurstville
• Death By Lethal Vaccine Injection
• Debating the undebatable
• Devastation in Haiti
• Don't let straw men give you hay fever.
• Dr Andrew Wakefield
• Final jab for the anti-vaccination lobby
• Free Alan Yurko (Part 1)
• Free Alan Yurko (Part 2)
• Free speech breaks out in Anti-vax Land?
• Getting risk wrong (I)
• Getting yourself hated
• How many unicorns does it take to match a draught horse's weight?
• How not to do science – Everyone retracts except Dr Wakefield
• How to attack freedom of speech.
• If it's good enough for doctors, it's good enough for liars
• Irregular regulation
• Keeping your skepticism out of court (SC)
• Liars just can't help themselves
• Lies about abortions and vaccines
• Lies about vaccines and foetuses
• Lying with the truth
• Mark and David Geier
• Meryl Dorey disagrees with me – Part 1
• Meryl Dorey disagrees with me – Part 2
• Meryl Dorey disagrees with me – Part 3
• Meryl Dorey disagrees with me – Part 4
• Needle point
• Pictures of children suffering from "harmless" diseases
• Polio vaccination – thank you very much! (MM)
• Professor Boyd Haley
• See how "harmless" measles is.
• The Anti-vaccination Lobby
• The AVN circles the drain
• The girl in the iron lung.
• The good news keeps on coming
• The Precautionary Principle
• The real truth about vaccinations
• The times they are a changin'
• Tim O'Ranter – Patrick Timothy Bolen
• Vaccines
• "Vaxxed" spreads like a plague
• We live in fearful times.
• What is a PhD worth?
• What's in a name: The anti-vaxxers reach a shocking new low

Plus: ( articles by other people)

• Anti-immunisation scare: The inconvenient facts – Dr Stephen Basser
• DTP Vaccination or SBS?: The Role of Irresponsible Medical Expert Testimony in Creating a False Causal Connection – David L. Chadwick and Rob Parrish
• Fatal Exemption – Paul Offit
• Measles: A dangerous illness – Roald Dahl
• Meryl Dorey's Trouble With Finance – Ken McLeod
• Meryl Dorey's Trouble With The Truth – Part 1 – Ken Mcleod
• Meryl Dorey's Trouble With The Truth – Part 2 – Ken Mcleod
• Meryl Dorey's Trouble With The Truth – Part 3 – Ken Mcleod
• Olmsted Lied, People Laughed: The "Amish Anomaly" hoax – David Brown
• Shaken Baby Syndrome – Pamela Rowse RN
• Vatican Statement on Vaccines Derived From Aborted Human Foetuses – Pontifical Academy for Life
• When Judges Play Doctor – Paul Offit

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Pseudoscience ( articles)

• A brief history of some science
• A close run thing at the chemist
• A conspiracy of conspiracists
• A Placebo Can relieve A Skeptic's Pain
• A very profitable trick
• Anatomy of a quack
• Are all placebos equal?
• Argumentum ad whateverum
• Better get a lawyer son
• Beware! Are invisible rays frying your brain?
• Blackmore's and the Pharmacy Guild – a marriage made in Hell
• Book review – Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction
• Burzynski gets audited
• But is it science?
• CAM or SCAM?
• Checking the facts (AS)
• Checking the facts (Y)
• Coincidences
• Communicating science and skepticism
• Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon (AS)
• Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon. (DR)
• Counting the Opinions
• Craig and Krauss – religion meets science
• Darwin visits the Blue Mountains
• Debating the undebatable
• Denialists ignore the science
• Do Be a Dick
• Don't let straw men give you hay fever.
• Don't wave goodbye just yet.
• Experimenting on skeptics
• Faith, Fact and Fiction : The demarcation of science and non-science
• Fides et Ratio – Faith and reason
• Filtering science through conspiracy
• Get together and do it again.
• Getting risk wrong (AS)
• Getting risk wrong (I)
• Getting yourself hated
• Give me my word back.
• Go! Learn things.
• Have you heard the one about ... ?
• History lesson for smart kids
• Homeopathy – so diluted there's no evidence left.
• How many unicorns does it take to match a draught horse's weight?
• How time flies.
• How to attack freedom of speech.
• I try not to know what just ain't so
• I'm a celebrity. What do you want to hear?
• Irregular regulation
• Is philosophy dead?
• It can't hurt you. It's natural.
• It's all happening. And it's all connected
• James Randi: An Honest Liar
• Just the facts, ma'am.
• Keep the eyes on the Prize.
• Keeping your skepticism out of court (AS)
• Knowing things that just ain't so
• Lying with the truth
• Magic wands (AS)
• Magic wands (Y)
• Milks ain't milk
• Misremembering the past
• Mobile phones are frying our brains.
• Multiple Chemical Stupidity?
• My patience is tried
• Nocebo – whatever doesn't kill you might.
• Obituary – Stephen Jay Gould
• One, two, three. What are we counting for?
• Organic food. What's in it for me?
• Pasteur's Last Words
• Peer review – Close enough is better than nothing.
• Philosophical skepticism and what skeptics really do
• Philosophy and Science
• Philosophy Versus Science, And Vice Versa
• Professor Boyd Haley
• Progress? We don't need no stinking progress.
• Prove all things
• Psychic parasites
• Psychic predictions for 2011
• "Psychic" Predictions for 2010
• Psychics predict the future. Do they?
• Psychological testing
• Publication in the peer-reviewed literature
• Right to read denied by deniers
• School Daze
• Science as she is spoke
• Skeptical Field Trips
• Skeptics aren't always skeptical.
• Smart people. Strange ideas.
• Someone gets upset
• Stem promises give way to abuses
• Still Deluded After All These Years
• Sweet simple things of life
• That dreadful carbon tax
• The 90th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle
• The AVN circles the drain
• The Bear's Progress – SkeptoBear's 2004 World Tour
• The Bermuda Triangle
• The Best Research Money Can Buy
• The Bloated Truth About Gluten
• The Danger of Knowing for Sure
• The end is nigh! Repent!
• The end of the world. Really?
• The end of the world. Really? (ABC)
• The Magical Mystery Museum
• The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
• The Myth of "The Myth of Mental Illness" (AS)
• The Power of Coincidence
• The Precautionary Principle
• The science goes round and round, and it comes out here
• The times they are a changin'
• The Woo Review
• The WooWoo Credo
• Things change. Get used to it.
• True Believers
• Understand the numbers? Don't count on it.
• Universities. What are they for?
• We live in fearful times.
• We're still here.
• What is a PhD worth?
• What science isn't.
• What's that up in the sky? Is it a ...?
• Where were you 40 years ago?
• Why am I a skeptic?
• Will your smart meter make you less smart?
• Words have meanings.

Plus: ( articles by other people)

• An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish – Bertrand Russell
• Dumb and dumber at the ABC – Ken McLeod
• Dumb, dumber and really dumb at the ABC – Ken McLeod
• Homo Neanderthalensis – H.L. Mencken
• I can smell onions! – Ken McLeod
• Of Reason and Science – Thomas Hobbes
• On Astrologers – Bertrand Russell
• On the Value of Scepticism – Bertrand Russell
• Path to the truth is littered with useful failures – Umberto Eco
• Postmodernism Disrobed – Richard Dawkins
• Stupid Skeptic Tricks – D. Owens
• The Grand Academy of Lagado – Jonathon Swift
• The Liver Cleansing Diet – Dr Joe Proietto
• What is a kook? – Michael Davis
• What Is the Soul? – Bertrand Russell

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Multi-Level Marketing, Pyramid Schemes, Scams and Frauds ( articles)

• Advertisements
• Better get a lawyer son
• Creating Distrust with Multi-level Marketing
• Doing the sums with MLM
• How time flies.
• How to attack freedom of speech.
• Keeping your skepticism out of court (AS)
• Keeping your skepticism out of court (SC)
• MLM adventures
• Multi-level Marketing Doesn't Add Up
• Multi-Level Marketing spam collection
• The Multi-Level Mirage
• The Ratbags Dream
• Thoughts about multi-level marketing

Plus: ( articles by other people)

• Mannatech Using Disputed Study to Boost Sales of Its Products – David Evans
• Report of G Robert Blakey – Amway – G Robert Blakey

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Conspiracy theories ( articles)

• A conspiracy of conspiracists
• Anatomy of a quack
• Book Review – Republic Of Lies
• Checking the facts (AS)
• Checking the facts (Y)
• Confirmation bias, denialism and Morton's Demon. (DR)
• Devastation in Haiti
• Filtering science through conspiracy
• Getting yourself hated
• How time flies.
• It's all happening. And it's all connected
• Knowing things that just ain't so
• My patience is tried
• Peer review – Close enough is better than nothing.
• Philosophy Versus Science, And Vice Versa
• Put the Lyme in the quackonut
• Right to read denied by deniers
• Smart people. Strange ideas.
• Sweet simple things of life
• The 9/11 conspiracies
• The Anti-vaccination Lobby
• The times they are a changin'
• What is a PhD worth?
• What science isn't.
• What you see might not be what you get
• Where were you 40 years ago?
• Will your smart meter make you less smart?

Plus: ( article)

• The Paranoid Style in American Politics – Richard Hofstadter

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Other topics

• Free speech
• Full Canvas Jacket
• Introduction to skepticism
• Jack Shitman gives me an award
• Mary Daly and Feminist Nonsense (a tautology)
• MindBodySpirit Festival, November 1999
• Penis enlargement spam collection
• Skeptical Activism? A real thing or just talking to the choir?
• Y2K – Is there still time to panic?
• Y2K – What went wrong?

Plus:

• MindBodySpirit Festival, May 2004 – Belinda Bowditch
• Remembrance Day Speech – Paul Keating

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Book reviews

• Agnotology: The making and unmaking of ignorance by Robert N Proctor & Londsa Schiebinger (Eds)
• The Australian Book Of Atheism by Warren Bonnett (Ed)
• The Cancer Cure That Worked! by Barry Lynes
• The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
• The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• The Doctor Who Fooled The World by Brian Deer
• The End of Faith : Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
• Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner
• Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore (Film)
• Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe by Victor Stenger
• How to Poison Your Spouse the Natural Way by Jay Mann
• A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton
• Merchants of Deception by Eric Scheibeler
• Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction by Charles Wynn and Arthur Wiggins
• Republic of Lies by Anna Merlan
• The Root of All Evil? by Richard Dawkins (TV program)
• Science and Religion : Are They Compatible? by Paul Kurtz, Barry Karr and Ranjit Sandhu (Editors)
• Seven Brief Lessons On Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• The Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Spong
• The Six Ways Of Atheism by Geoffrey Berg
• Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia by Jöelle Gergis

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• "The Danger of Knowing for Sure" – An essay I wrote about skepticism, following the events of September 11, 2001 (This also appeared as a guest editorial in the Skeptic in Vol 21:4, Summer 2001)
• The Ragtag Posse of Snake-oil Vigilantes – The remnants of a superseded RatbagsDotCom project.