An Introduction... Sort Of

A little while ago Mr. Dunning sent out the call for potential bloggers for some hair-brained pyramid scheme he’d concocted. Now I barely have time to keep up with my own blogs (which can be found at paleocave.comand livingthescilife.tumblr.com), but I’m always looking for new avenues to think, write, and discuss, so I said, "OK". But just who the hell do I think I am? Well please do read on.

My name is Ryan Haupt. I’m a grad student and I produce in the podcast Science… sort of. We’ve had Brian on our show a few times and when I went to TAM 8 in 2010 Brian took me under his large skeptical wing and made sure I had a good time. That’s right folks, under his calm, cool demeanor, Dunning is a big softie. Since then I’ve bugged him from time to time about things relevant to our shared interest: science outreach.

Not to toot his horn too loudly, Brian is one of the most honest skeptics I’ve met. He’s confident, which can be perceived as ego (I can relate) but that confidence is in his research and presentation, not his conclusions. There are plenty of skeptics that happen to fall in line with pretty much whatever a more popular skeptic says, which is reasonable, but also kind of silly. Skepticism should be about actually drawing your own conclusions. It’s far more time intensive, but leads to actual diversity instead of monolithic allegiance.

That’s why I’m happy to be contributing the occasional skeptically relevant bloggings here. A pat on the back is nice, but it means more knowing that same guy would slap you in the face if needed. My posts may not be traditional skepticism, I honestly get kind of bored debunking the same old things, but more my explorations along the path of true open-mindedness, my love of science, and other fun intellectual exercises.

If you’re looking to track me down for either that pat on the back or slap in the face I’m all over the internet but I’d say the two primary places ought to be Twitter and my About Ryan page at sciencesortof.com