Over the weekend, a new board has been elected to lead the Hungarian Skeptic Society (HSS) in the next 5 years. Gábor Hraskó, who was also chair of ECSO between 2013 and 2017, has headed the organisation since 2009, but he decided not to run again this time. András Gábor Pintér has been elected as his successor as the chair of the association.
András has been very active in the international skeptic movement, both as the initiator, producer and co-host of the award-winning European Skeptics Podcast and a board member of the European Council of Skeptical Organisations (ECSO) since 2017.
Other newly elected board members of the HSS are police officer Laura Csécsi, IT-specialist Dániel Péterfi and plant biologist/biotechnology expert János Györgyey.
Hungarian version of quack magazine What Doctors Don’t Tell You is launched this month. The March issue costs cca. 1.3 EUR, for the next ones one should pay 2.3 EUR.
Magyar Nemzet Online ran a critical article last Thursday, where the author discussed the original newspaper as well.
Zavech Research had recently conducted a poll on behalf of major Hungarian portal Index on what people believe about the efficacy and role of “official” and alternative medical practices and institutions. The results are disappointing as it can be seen from the graphs attached.
Head of the Department of Ecotoxicology of Agro-Enviromental Research Institute (AERI) Béla Darvas recently wrote an article on Átlátszó.hu – a Hungarian watchdog portal – discussing GM organisms. In his piece, Darvas – a prominent anti-GMO advocate – refers specifically to the Hungarian Skeptic Society (HSS) and various scientists as promoters of GMOs, claiming that for these “pro-GMO” organizations and individuals “GMO is beyond any scientific criticism and is the only viable way, providing the perfect solution”. Apart from the logical fallacies applied, including that of a straw man argument, there are several elements of his claims that should not be left unanswered. Thus, yesterday, the board of the Hungarian Skeptic Society issued a statement with regards to these claims. (more…)
The most popular Hungarian internet portal “Index” had recently launched a new format by organizing the articles into folders based on topic. They call the structure as Index-Files referring to X-Files. During the last period the quality of scientific articles on Index is increasing rapidly and they bravely and thoroughly cover several topics related to skepticism. Their new Pseudoscience – Debunking “Files” collects related articles from the past years.
