The episode out today on the Skeptic Zone podcast features a panel discussion from the Science Track at Dragon*Con – called “Darwin’s Bulldogs, Teachers on the Front Lines”.

This panel was proposed by the moderator Matt Lowry, who is a high school physics teacher and a part-time Physics and Astronomy college professor. Joining him was myself, C. Kevin Barrett (a writer and biological anthropologist), Martin Bridgstock of Griffith University and author of the forthcoming book ‘Beyond Belief: Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal‘, Barbara Drescher, a cognitive psychologist and lecturer at California State University, Northridge, and our guest of honor, Dr. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education.

I took a little video footage during the presentation – you can see that here:

During the show, you can hear us discuss our experiences with creationists and how to effectively counter their pseudoscientific nonsense while also promoting good science education.

Please pop in a review at iTunes and leave some comments at the official site at www.skepticzone.tv!

Yes, there’s a new video on the Skeptic Zone page – and you can hear presenters Richard Saunders and Dr Rachie on Sydney Radio! Here’s the details, which you can catch world-wide: www.2GB.com – Sydney Talkback Radio!

8pm – 9pm on Saturday nights Sydney time – here’s the live web-cam for the studio they’ll be recording in. Expect to see Richard be particularly flamboyant (has he packed his feather boa?) and Rachie laughing her laugh for the sake of science and reason.

Here’s the equivalent times, world-wide for Saturday 8pm -

Melbourne time: 8pm

Saturday Perth time: 5pm

Saturday Adelaide: 7.30pm

Saturday LA time: 2am Saturday (sorry!!)

Denver time: 3am (sorry!!)

Atlanta time: 5am (sorry!!)

New York time: 5am (sorry!!)

London time: 10am

Toronto time: 5am (sorry!!)

Auckland time: 10pm Saturday

For the really-early birds, hope you can catch us especially!! We’ll be Twittering to alert you and hope you send in some feedback to support Skepticism on radio!

Our Facebook Page!

Hello to all our listeners and thanks so much for being a part of making the show fun and informative! By the way – seen all the vodcast films we’ve got on the Facebook page? Go check out Dr Rachie standing on George Hrab and Richard Saunders helping out with the ‘Twitter Song’ at Dragon*Con!

Recently we’ve done two great episodes, #50 and #51 – with insights and information on a number of pro-skeptic activist groups. They’ve included skeptic-parents, skeptics in the pub (both new and established, world-wide), teachers, blog-groups and radio shows… and much more! If you’d like to have your group, blog, idea promoted – DO let us know!

There’s more time left in the year to get your message out. There may be another survey for our listeners on the way, to check that we’re still getting you the interviews and programming that you want.

Speaking of which – send in feedback, pop in a review on iTunes and let us know what else you’d like us to tackle. There’s a great many forthcoming interviews from Dr Rachie’s travels (she’s heading back to the USA in November, so do keep in touch!) and the ever-refreshing Think Tank for your listening palate. There’ll also be Skeptic Zone members on other podcast interview shows, so here’s hoping you enjoy supporting other programs too.

(P.S – The Australian National Skeptics Convention… not long now! See you there!!)

Firstly, Skeptic North is the first blog to have a truly pan-Canadian scope. They have a great team of Canadian skeptic authors from across the country and from a wide-range of backgrounds, both academic and professional. Their site is skepticnorth.com and you should check out the blog interview with Junior Skeptic’s Daniel Loxton, by Skeptically Speaking host Desiree Schell.

The Skeptic Zone is a big supporter of the Parsec award winning 365 Days of Astronomy. Reports include May 14th with Tiffany Day, Kylie Sturgess on July 1st and now Richard Saunders has contributed an episode for September 23rd. The 365 Days of astronomy podcast hope to continue the show in 2010. Head to their site at 365daysofastronomy.org, for more news about donating and contributing further content.

Right now TAM London is happening – and the Rise of Atheism is on the horizon. The Global Convention is held in Melbourne from  12-14 March 2010 and tickets are now selling at atheistconvention.org.au. It will feature Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Robyn Williams, Phillip Adams and many more. The Australian Skeptics National convention is happening even sooner, in Brisbane at the University of Queensland from November 27-29. The Australian skeptics website at skeptics.com.au has further details.

The New York Skeptics, who just held the NECCSS conference where Dr Rachie presented, now has a blog too. The Gotham Skeptics Blog is found at nycskeptics.org/blog – and anyone around the world can be a supporter of the New York City skeptics.

Finally, Grassroots Skeptics at ohioskeptic.com/grassrootsskeptics/ – they’re all about activism and also looking for contributing writers. Sign up for news and information on their site.

Thanks to the awesome talents of Perth art director Rikki Burns and photographer Thomas Perry, a skeptically-themed photoshoot starring the Skeptic Zone team members Richard Saunders and Dr Rachael Dunlop was completed this week in Perth! The Skeptic Zone podcast have now produced talks for both the University of Melbourne / Young Australian Skeptics and the University of Western Australia Atheist and Agnostic Society. We’re all looking forward to the final product and you can see a behind-the-scenes video hosted on YouTube, filmed by Skeptic Zone reporter Kylie Sturgess.

I think I can let these pictures pretty much tell the main story.

Yes, that’s Richard Saunders. He has a habit of photographing everything with his phone. And after he’s photographed it? I get an email and Dr Rachie gets an email. And we usually try to fire back some sharp comment about the food he’s got a snap of, or the scenery or how he’s clearly got himself into another pickle of some sort.

Today, however, he appears to have some exciting news for us! What could that be on page nine of today’s

Australian newspaper?

Oh, look! That’s me! I has paper too! Must be a national publication, because he’s in Sydney and I’m in Perth.

Get your copy if you can and you can check out the official site at www.skeptics.com.au.

Today it was revealed that the AVN will be investigated by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) for alleged breaches of the Public Health Act of 1993. In response, the AVN released a statement reproduced below.

It is interesting to note that Meryl Dorey states that she does not consider herself or the AVN to be “health practitioners” in “colloquial” terms. The manner in which Meryl perceives the AVN is irrelevant in this respect, since the law is quite specific about what defines a “health practitioner”.

This is explained in the complaint, reproduced below;

Meryl also claims that she neither she nor the AVN “dispense advice”, despite her extensive lectures, seminars and webinars conducted on a regular basis where she tells attendees that vaccines cause the illness they’re supposed to prevent, that vaccination is not proven or scientific, and that parents who read a few articles about vaccination will know more about the subject than a peadiatrician”.

See Fuzztwin’s blog for more of the transcript to this recent webinar.

According to the statement from Meryl, she has until the end of August to address the complaints from the HCCC.

If you would like to read the entire complaint in pdf form, click here.

It’s been a while since I mentioned the anti-vaxers in Australia, but given recent events, I think it’s time for an update.

Some of you may have been watching with amusement the cat and mouse games this week on the various Facebook pages between the anti-vaxers and the rational bloggers. As fast as the pages were filled up with evidence-based comments about the importance of vaccination, comments would magically disappear, presumably as they were deleted by the anti-vaxers. But, never fear readers, we have a tool called screen capture which has saved much of the material to be used at a later date. Stay tuned for news of this.

The anti-vaxers have come under much public criticism of late (see more info here) and it appears as if they’re beginning to lose their composure. Comments left on my blog this week stated that Meryl Dorey only appears to be pro-choice with respect to vaccination in order to curry favour with the mainstream media, but in private she is clearly anti-vaccination. The commentator appeared surprised when replies suggested that this stance could be construed as hypocritical and dishonest. “What is wrong with this?” was the protest. You tell me…

And then there was an article which appeared on the AVN’s blog, No Compulsory Vaccination, detailing a very complex and powerful conspiracy of mass genocide involving swine flu, vaccinations, the WHO and Barack Obama. Sounds pretty crazy right? The original article comes from a Pakistani news site Pakistan Daily and details a series of very interesting conspiracy theories apparently unearthed by an Austrian journalist. Let’s take a closer look…

Swine flu is a synthetic virus manufactured by a secret illuminati for the purposes of mass genocide.

According to the article, swine flu virus was created in a laboratory to generate mass panic with the specific intention of forcing everyone to have the vaccine. This theory stems from a plot apparently uncovered by Austrian journalist, Jane Bürgermeister, to cull the population with a deadly swine flu vaccine. Jane has apparently filed criminal charges with the FBI against the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations, Barack Obama, a members of the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, and other members of a worldwide illuminati, alleging that bird flu and swine flu have been developed in laboratories and released on the public with the aim of mass murder through vaccination.

The overall aim of the illuminati is to transfer control of the United States to the United Nations and affiliated security forces (UN troops from countries such as China, Canada, the UK and Mexico).

“There is proof many organisations – World Health Organisation, UN as well as vaccine companies such as Baxter and Novartis – are part of a single system under the control of a core criminal group, who give the strategic leadership, and who have also funded the development, manufacturing and release of artificial viruses in order to justify mass vaccinations with a bioweapon substance in order to eliminate the people of the USA, and so gain control of the assets, resources etc of North America”

Apparently a cabal of interbreeding families, including the aforementioned Rockerfellers and the Rothschilds, is seeking to impose a global fascist dictatorship of total human control.

“Their vehicle is a secret society network….(with)…..operational headquarters is in Europe, in places like Rome, London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin. I refer to this as ‘the Spider’ and it dictates to the global web. There are subsidiary networks of secret societies in every country that answer to the ‘Spider’. Their job is to control their country’s politics, banking, business, military, media, medicine, and so on…”

The Illuminati cabal established global bodies like the World Heath Organisation, World Bank and World Trade Organisation to transfer power from the many to the few.  Their goal is a world government, world central bank, world currency and world army.  The web controls governments,  ‘Big Pharma’, the World Health Organisation and public heath ‘protection’ agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. In short, they control the entire medical system.

And according to information provided by Jane, the swine flu virus was created and released with help from the Rothschild/Rockefeller-controlled World Health Organisation.

And not only does the the illuminati plan a mass cull of the population by the swine flu vaccine, they also plan to microchip every man, woman and child. The microchips would be delivered with the vaccines as naotechnology and allow everyone to be tracked 24/7, manipulated  mentally, emotionally and physically, but also terminated when desired.

Wow, pretty crazy stuff.
So, just to reiterate, Barack Obama is the head of an illuminati planning to kill the entire population of the world via a three pronged vaccination program, which will also inject us with microchips with the aim of controlling the entire population and killing them a a pinch.

It’s interesting that this incredible conspiracy theory was posted on the blog of the AVN, especially when you consider that Meryl Dorey herself had this to say about conspiracy theories;

“While we are already seen as rabid, idiotic fringe-dwellers by so many in the mainstream, it does our argument no good at all to bring in conspiracy theories which, though we may subscribe to them, are unprovable”.

Chem trails are being sprayed to compromise the immune system.

Another plot designed to assist in this mass genocide via spread of swine flu is chem trails. Apparently, chem trails are being sprayed to “compromise the immune system” as a method for later large scale infection of the population with swine flu. This will be possible since an aerosoled precursor of swine flu, which is activated when it comes in contact with the vaccine, has been put into the air and almost everyone has breathed it into their lungs. Once you receive the vaccine, which of course will soon be compulsory, the precursor becomes activated and voila, swine flu.

The following information allegedly came from a caller to radio show who said;

“…he had been personally told by a senior biochemist at a leading pharmaceutical company that: …an aerosoled precursor has been put into the air and almost everyone has breathed it into their lungs. The biochemist states that the vaccines to be administered in the Fall will be ACTIVATED when the constituents come in contact with the aerosoled precursor in the body and will cause a rapid spread of the H1N1 Influenza A virus. This biochemist is very upset about the matter, to say the least, and is a very reliable source that needs our utmost protection.”

Apparently, you can spot chem-trails by the characteristic smokey haze that they leave behind. You can tell they are chemical deposits sprayed by large planes, rather than smog, because they appear in the country as well, where smog is generally not a phenomenon.

Once you start looking and watching regularly (use binoculars if you have them) you will notice, if not the actual planes laying trails, then the dirty haze-like smog that they leave behind. It is important to know how to spot the difference between chem-trails and contrails – contrails appear following the passage of planes across the sky as condensation forms over the wings, but chem-trails are released from the rear of the aircraft. If you are sensitive to the chemicals released by chem trails, then expect to react with a sore throats and flu like symptoms.

Time to ensure your tin-foil hat is on and tightly secured.

Help out the show! The Skeptic Zone Survey is to help us touch base with our demographic and learn more about what you like about the show and what we can improve for your listening enjoyment.

It’s not a very long survey, promise! Just three quick demographic questions and a short overview of what we have on offer and what things you like and would like to see more of. Since the length of the show is something we alternate every week (one slightly over an hour / one slightly under), we’re keen to see how much of that is influencing our listeners’ enjoyment. The The Skeptic Zone Survey is right here.

Don’t forget, a big part of the Skeptic Zone involves networking across Australia and internationally.  A repeat of the lectures done in Melbourne will be heading to Perth on the 8th August at the University of Western Australia, with big thanks to the UWA Atheist and Agnostic Society and the WA Humanists. There will also be a get-together, thanks to the Perth Atheists, on the 9th August at the Flying Scotsman.

Check out the Perth in the Zone Flyer (pdf) on the Skeptic Zone site.

The following videos were in an unedited version of the TANK Vodcast last year – here they are now in properly formated condition.

Interview with Professor Jeff Malpas – Dr Jeff Malpas interview on the origins and efforts with primary school students in Australia and the need for wider society to encourage critical thinking in schools.

Interviews with Dr Stephan Millett and Dr Alan Tapper – interview on the efforts in Western Australia to implement critical thinking into mainstream secondary education.