Bent Spoon Winner 1998

Southern Cross University

By Barry Williams

Bent Spoon Winner

From a strong field, which included media, politics, bureaucracy, and various psychics, the adjudication committee decided that a special Dishonourable Mention should be awarded to Sydney radio station 2SM for spending hours per week promoting the services of a woman who claims to speak to people’s dead relatives, and that the organisation formerly known as the Creation Science Foundation should be mentioned for a Lifetime Lack of Achievement Award for its unrelenting promotion of ignorance.

However the big gong of the year went, for the first time, to an institution of higher learning. In nominating Southern Cross University, in northern NSW, mention was made of the public support one of its academics gave for the concept of "empowered water", the subject of a TV expose on Today Tonight in which the Skeptics were prominently and nakedly involved. However, the clinching argument was for the university’s offering a degree course in naturopathy, while also claiming to be conducting research into whether there was actually any validity to naturopathy. Offering a course in a subject before there is evidence that the subject actually exists is the sort of logic that might be acceptable in various unregistered "institutes of natural therapies", but it seems to completely out of place in an accredited university.

Nominations:

• Mr. Ronnie Burns
• The "Millennium Bug" Panic Merchants
• Parliamentarian Ms. Franca Arena
• Woman's Day and New Idea magazines
• Ann Ann the Extraordinaire
• La Trobe University
• Cobar Town Council
• Jean McLean, Victorian State MP
• Ministry of Education
• "The Collective Media"
• Diana Spencer's Psychic Advisor

Australian Skeptic of the Year

The winner of our more junior, but more desirable, award, Australian Skeptic of the Year for 1998, presented a less onerous task to the committee. This is awarded to Australians, not formally associated with Australian Skeptics, whose work contributes substantially to the promotion of critical thinking. Following presentations in 1996 to Prof Derek Freeman, the eminent ANU anthropologist, and in 1997 to Nobel laureate and Australian of the Year, the distinguished immunologist, Prof Peter Doherty we were concerned to maintain the high standards we had established.

We were delighted to find a suitable recipient in Dr Michael Archer, professor of palaeontology at the University of NSW.

Mike Archer was born in Sydney and raised and educated in the USA. Returning to Australia in his early 20s he conducted important research in his field, culminating in the remarkable fossil discoveries at Riversleigh in the Gulf of Carpentaria, that have done so much to expand our knowledge of the pre-history of our continent.

He was one of the first academics to recognise the dangers to the nation’s intellectual health posed by the imported (from the USA) fundamentalist dogma masquerading under the name creation "science", and has been a constant and effective opponent of its insidious attempts to corrupt our education system. He is also one of those rare birds among scientists who has the facility to make his science both accessible and exciting for the lay public. He was awarded a Eureka Prize for this ability.

Most recently, following the retirement of Dr Des Griffin, the long-serving Director of the Australian Museum (one of our oldest scientific institutions) Mike Archer was appointed as its new Director. We are delighted to anticipate that the very amicable relationship that Australian Skeptics had established with the Museum under Des Griffin’s regime will continue and expand in the future.

Dr Mike Archer is a worthy Skeptic of the Year indeed.