About Skeptoid
Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena is a weekly pro-science, anti-pseudoscience podcast. It was born in October, 2006 to help fight the good fight against the overwhelming majority of noise in the media supporting useless alternative medicine systems, psychics preying upon the vulnerable, the erosion of science education in the classroom, xenophobia of advanced energy and food production methods, and generally anything that distracts attention and public funding from scientific advancement.
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Skeptoid generally examines four basic types of popular pseudosciences:
- Consumer frauds, like magic jewelry and free energy
- Urban legends, like the Amityville Horror or the Philadelphia Experiment
- Useless alternative medicine schemes, like detoxification and reflexology
- Conspiracy theories, like chemtrails or 9/11 "truth" theories
About Me
A few years ago, I began searching for interesting and unusual phenomena
in Internet forums and mailing lists. More than once, I tried to open a discourse offering alternate, more
reasonable explanations for the reported phenomena, as diplomatically
and respectfully as I could. Nevertheless, the most insightful replies
I got were:
Warning: skeptoid alert!
and
Another debunkatron rears its ugly head.
OK, fine, I understand that it's their forum, that I'm just a guest, and if they are not open to critical examination, that's their right and they're under no obligation to me. But I marveled that they felt that way, in light of the forum's stated purpose: "Discussion of Fortean phenomena." That their only response was to make up patronizing and dismissive nicknames for me shows that their true interest is certainly not open discussion. In fact, the next time I tried to log in, I found that my account had been banned.
This happened on three different Fortean Phenomena forums, and I'm being completely honest when I say that my posts were respectful and in no way inflammatory. They were much worse than that: they were skeptical.
So, in the interest of improved public relations, I'm going with the flow. If rationally examining pseudoscientific claims makes me an evil skeptoid debunkatron, so be it. I'll even help out by so identifying myself up front.
Thus was born the Skeptoid.
By profession I am a computer scientist, both as a Silicon Valley CTO and as a consulting engineer. My only academic credential that bears any scrutiny is in Writing for Film and Television from University of California, Los Angeles. I also have a credential that doesn't bear any scrutiny — and you'll find it at Thunderwood College.
I've written a few books and numerous technical articles. I decided to put this experience to good use, and created the Skeptoid podcast. I'm also one of the featured bloggers on SkepticBlog, the official blog of the upcoming TV series The Skeptologists which I host. Here is a blurb about me from CBS Radio's Sound*Bytes with Jan Ziff, and here's my appearance on CNNfn from my previous career as a CTO.
I have a great wife, two terrific kids who are smarter than me, a cat who's dumber than me, and some assorted koi who haven't yet been evaluated. We all live happily on the beautiful and sunny southern California coast.
Brian Dunning
© 2009 Skeptoid.com
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