Spectator Australia

A lesson in living
called complementary cures that shun rig-
orous testing and trials — idiocies like
homeopathy with its fairytale assumptions

the Skeptical life

and one-atom-of-active-ingredient-per-
universe concoctions.
Denis Dutton could even hold his own
as a cold reader. This is the term you give to
Paying tribute to Denis Dutton, one of the art of telling people about themselves in
a way that makes (some of) them think you
New Zealand’s leading intellectuals have magical powers or can see into ‘other
realms and existences’. In fact, of course,
james allan cold reading is just the art or skill of using
well-crafted questions, facial cues, gener-

I
met Denis Dutton on a plane going that goal. Arts & Letters Daily was, and is, alisations, quickly passed-over misses and
to a New Zealand Skeptics meeting one of the best offerings on the web. a knowledge of the odds to tell people
back in 1994 or ’95 when I lived in A few of the obituaries also mentioned things about themselves that they are in fact
Dunedin. Denis was based in Christchurch Denis’s dislike of gobbledegook writing first telling you.
and had been one of the founding mem- and incomprehensible gibberish, most of it Oh, and Denis was also an accomplished
bers of the New Zealand Skeptics, though found in university humanities departments. after-dinner speaker and just plain good
I didn’t know that when, after attending The Dutton-initiated Bad Writing Contests, company over a drink. He was a polymath
a Richard Dawkins lecture on the South which carried on for years, were plain hys- who didn’t wear his learning on his sleeve.
Island, I impulsively joined that group terical at times. They offered a lesson in the Put simply, he was never boring. I think
after seeing some of their brochures herd mentality, that smart people with doc- he was basically a man of the Enlighten-
lying about. torates would let the worst sort of ungram- ment, and I think he would have liked to be
A few months later, on the way up to matical, jargon-filled prose with virtually no described as such too.
Auckland for my first ever Skeptics All this and a professor of phi-
conference, I happened to find myself losophy at Canterbury University in
seated beside this interesting man with Christchurch, where he worked for a
an American accent who, it turned quarter of a century. One can’t help
out, was not only attending the meet- suspecting that no Denis Dutton-type
ing too, but was the key driving force professor could survive in an Austral-
behind the organisation. ian university these days. That suspi-
This was Denis Dutton, a Skep- cion, and its attendant regrets, flows
tic, man of letters, author of The Art not just from the fact that Australian
Instinct, founder of the brilliant Arts universities are the worst managed and
& Letters Daily website, amateur most pervasively bureaucratic in the
cold reader, proponent of plain, clear English-speaking rich world — though
writing, knower of all and sundry, they are. It flows, too, from the prolif-
and my friend. Denis died a fort- eration in Aussie universities of jar-
night or so ago aged 66 after a battle gon-filled teaching directives (ripe for
with cancer. Duttonesque mocking), of genuflect-
Almost all the obituaries of Denis ing before whatever makes life easiest
that I have seen have focused on his and most primary school-like for fee-
wonderful website creation Arts & paying students, of a general lack of
Letters Daily. And wonderful it was. intellectual curiosity among university
In fact I can recall one of the yearly managers, and of an incessant need for
New Zealand Skeptics meetings, prob- data (think ‘research assessment exer-
ably the one in 1997, when Denis told cises’ and teaching scores) even where
me that he was almost ready to start the data is so shonky as to be worth-
this website. ‘Truth hates delay’ would less. You see the one unbreakable rule
be the motto, though in the original of Australian universities is that worth-
Latin from Seneca. And he would aim, less data is better than no data.
he told me, for a few new articles a day discernible meaning pass without a critical But I digress, albeit along lines with
selected from anywhere he could get them. comment, indeed sometimes producing this which I am sure Denis would concur. Yet
His goal was to choose pieces that crossed sort of gibberish themselves. Denis decided whatever the merits of that digression,
subjects and disciplines and that would to single out the most egregious examples Denis Dutton was a remarkable man, a man
be interesting to a well-read Manhattan- and give them a mock award — to embar- of many interests, talents, tastes and friends.
ite. This reader would be curious about rass the writers and all those who had pre- I was lucky that I picked up that brochure
libertarian views and conservative think- tended there was any value in this mush at 16 years ago and then found myself sitting
ing, not just the regular left-wing staples of all. It was typically funny, and pointed. on a plane beside the funny man with the
most inhabitants of Manhattan. And there Then there was Denis the Skeptic, American accent who would go on to con-
would be science, book reviews, even good a side of him on which virtually none of tribute so much to the intellectual life of
sports pieces. And of course funny, humor- the obituaries has dwelt. As I said, Denis New Zealand and the planet.
ous ones on occasion. This was to be the was a founding member of the New Zea- His was a life well lived.
one-stop website for the thinking man and land Skeptics (and no, he wasn’t responsi-
woman with a sense of humour and a curi- ble for the American spelling). This was, James Allan is professor of law at the
osity about the world. and is, a group committed to such things as University of Queensland.
My Lord Denis managed to deliver on evidence-based medicine instead of so-
x the spectator australia | 15 January 2011 | www.spectator.co.uk /australia