Category: General

The recent debate in New Zealand in re legalised child abuse (sucks to be you if you think the repeal of Section 59 was about anything else) has ended with a cross-party compromise. Seeing that I’m currently very interested in Social Epistemology (and that one of the ways you can characterise the constitution of a group is whether they share the same beliefs) it fascinates me that the Labourites and the Nationalites are making out that their party leader won and that the other has made a strategic mistake. If you support National, then John Key has outsmarted Helen Clarke by being able to be all Prime Ministerial. If you support Labour then Helen Clarke has outsmarted John Key by making him agree to a compromise of the Labour Party’s invention. If you belong to a minor party then both Helen Clarke and John Keys have betrayed the electorate and will suffer at the next election. In all cases it seems that people are selecting their beliefs based upon the domain of interest that is ‘Which party do I prefer most?’ Now, of course, this is exactly how politics works, but even so I still find it most amusing.

Still, yay for the repeal.

PS. I know; two posts in one day? What will I do next.

I’m not at all confident when it comes to balanced reporting in re Conspiracy Theories as Research; I’m sure many of us remember the storm in a teacup that was the secondary school teacher using Conspiracy Theories as an aid to teaching History. That blew over very quickly, and I’m told it was because the media got it entirely the wrong way around. Thus, it was with some trepidation that I listened in on Kim Hill’s interview with Dr. Marc Wilson of Victoria University’s Psychology Department. (more…)