When the facts alone don’t change people’s minds, and even presenting them in a favourable light is not likely to be effective, what else are we left with? We could try the following:
1) Giving people the right analogy, metaphor, figure of speech (another of Lakoff’s brain children). Read more…
There is historical evidence for the use of kayaks from the tour of 1974/75, although in my naïveté I called them “canoes” or “dinghies” at the time. The diary entry for Tuesday, January 7, 1975 at Blackwood Bay commences:
“I slept in again, and later went out on a canoe.”
I had a gift book voucher left over from some celebration or other, and as the shop was closing its branch in town I thought I would redeem it before it went into recycling. Had a look at the maps first, because the pair that I have adorning the living room wall are gradually fading away. Not much more than a street map of Wellington was available so I had a look at the tour guides instead, hoping to find something that might give me a few tips that I had not seen before. The National Geographic volume looked like the sort of thing that I wouldn’t have bought without the voucher anyway, and it looked quite impressive, so I settled for it.Read more…
Skepticism and science have much in common and skepticism is really nothing more than science applied to extraordinary claims. But trying to make people change their minds about their own extraordinary beliefs is difficult. Therefore the question arises as to what we as skeptics should try to achieve.
Firstly, we can almost never win over the other side, the true believers, or even the victims. How could we? They may have a vested interest in continuing to believe, they may be making a living out of it, so it would be unreasonable to assume that they would accept the scientific method, and the results it comes to. I have heard from dowsers and homeopaths, when investigations of their crafts resulted in a negative outcome for them, that this only proved they are right, because somehow the science must have failed, and not the other way round. Read more…
One of the factors responsible for the drift in my memory that occurred in the 34 years I didn’t visit New Zealand was that I had been training for cadetship in Surf Life Saving in 1974/75 and was swimming up to 1200 m a session in times that were acceptable for the exam (400 m/8 min), and had subsequently reverted over the years to being little more than a hobby swimmer. Of course, for anyone (particularly someone young) who can regularly swim distances like those, a distance of several hundred metres simply becomes a distance that can be crossed.
My parents did not allow me to swim across the Bay of Islands to the island that, thanks now to GoogleEarth, I know is only 400 m from the shore; not because they thought I might not make it, but because there were speed boats flitting about; in any case, I made it up the Waitangi River to the Haruru Falls from the jetty at the motorcamp, which was about 200 m. That would have been a trivial distance. Read more…
Nau mai, haere mai!
Time to start the blog up again.
Journey to Te Ika-a-Māui is the next project, a trip to the North Island of New Zealand, arriving on February 11 in the wee minutes of the morning and leaving on April 7, 2015. There is still a lot to see and do.
First and foremost on the programme are the remaining Great Walks of the North Island, the Whanganui River Journey and the Tongariro Northern Circuit. Twice on previous visits have I tried to go over the Tongariro Crossing, but to no avail. Having more time this time around and a better season for mountain climbing, this should be doable at some point. Read more…
