Fri, 18 June 2010
0:00:00Introduction Richard Saunders 0:01:45 Kylie Sturgess interviews Dr Janis Bennion from http://skepticladies.wordpress.com 0:29:30 Sean the Blogonaut and friends visit Mind Body Spirit 0:50:50 THE THINK TANK - Dr Rachael Dunlop, Joanne Benhamu, Eran Segev & Richard Saunders Comments[5]
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- Hello! Thanks for the compliment about the interview! :)
Actually, regarding "I don't see or hear women taking on the women who do so much damage and spread so much misinformation to literally millions of viewers everyday." - quite a few of us work on breaking down the arguments made and there's a few Time and Salon articles about Oprah and what she does.
For my own part, I've been working with some others on the impact of Meryl Dorey and the AVN, which has had some influence on the non-uptake of vaccination in Australia.
If you're attending Dragon*Con this year, we'll be looking at the impact, via one of the panels? It should be on the Monday, 2.30pm, called "Women: Myths, Feminism And Skepticism". :) - I very much enjoyed Kylie Sturgess' interview with Dr Janis Bennion. She seemed very genuine and thoughtful.
My comment is I was dismayed that a topic not mentioned at the Ladies meetups was the terrible, detrimental, and long lasting influence high profile media personalities like Oprah Winfrey have on spreading psuedo-science and misinformation to literally millions of devoted women fans. Cosmetics are the least of our worries. She spread dangerous new age advice and has a huge amount of credibility. Yes of course there are male fans as well, and there are plenty of male purveyors of woo. However it seems to me the male community has no qualms taking on women or men in the struggle for education, science, and reason.
I don't see or hear women taking on the women who do so much damage and spread so much misinformation to literally millions of viewers everyday. Perhaps the success of these celebraties as women outweighs the content they provide? I hope not. In particular I point out Oprah because she seems to be held in such 'high regard' by so many women both as a woman and as an African American. Yet I ask, "At what cost to science and reason?"
- It was really nice to hear Sukyo Mahikari mentioned in a skeptical podcast at last ... they're a cult that seems to skim under the radar a lot of the time.
I'm an ex-member of Mahikari, and can say that while they offer "True Light" for free, their initiation courses do cost money, and members are expected to make frequent 'donations'.
While they're very careful to make no claims in their public literature, their very strict religious teachings claim that True Light can cure all illnesses, including cancer. They claim that True Light purifies everything, erases negative karma, and saves "attaching spirits".
You can read more about them here :
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~skyaxe/ and http://mahikaribasics.bravehost.com/
- It's usually recorded at a restaurant that's inside an RSL Club. The bus is a courtesy bus provided by the RSL Club to make it easier for those within a certain distance of the club to get to/from it without having to drive. Some RSL's provide this service, some don't.
In case you're not from Australia, RSL stands for Returned Service League, you can read more about it here - http://www.rsl.org.au/ - Many thanks to Richard for the editing work on my interview with the Adelaide Skeptics, I swear there was not a skerrick of wind before we started recording.
Will hold interview inside in future :).
For those technophiles out there interview recorded on a samsung t10 mp3 player with pin hole mic.
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