Hello, I'm Doctor Spurt from Effortless Incitement. In 'real' life I am a professional academic, working in both the humanities and science. I'm especially interested in the sciences of decision making, including behavioural economics, cognitive psychology, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroeconomics.
More generally, I'm concerned to defend quality thinking. Our chances of achieving worthwhile objectives depend (partly) on having mostly true beliefs. And our chances of having mostly true beliefs depend (partly) on the quality of our thinking, which means avoiding fallacious inferences, and using the best available evidence in responsible ways. Mostly that means following the best science of the day. But lots of people are reluctant to do that, and there's money to be made exploiting the gullible, and attacking science is often part of the process. I'm committed to spending some of my time fighting the science bashers and evidence abusers. I do it a bit in 'real' life, a bit through my blog, and I'm looking forward to doing a bit more right here at The Intrepid Aardvark.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Skeptic Detective
Having been the go-to sceptic in my circle of friends for many years I finally decided to make a hobby out of it. I started writing a sceptical blog, The Skeptic Detective, in May 2008 and it has been an eye-opener for me. I rediscovered the joy of writing and thoroughly enjoy exercising my sceptical muscles in the public arena.
I have a passion for science which probably started when my mother bought me my first real books: one was about dinosaurs and the other was a beautiful journey through the solar system.
Astronomy has fascinated me ever since that first book and I now find myself working my way slowly through a bachelors degree in Astronomy and Physics, between working and raising a very inquisitive little boy. When I finish it I would like to combine my knowledge and passion for writing to produce educational books for kids based on the wonders of the universe surrounding them.
For this blog I will mostly write about things in our everyday lives which we should be more sceptical about such as e-mail hoaxes and pseudoscience. I will also focus on critical thinking skills (as I hope to sharpen mine in the process) and of course, the love of my life, Astronomy.
My friends think that I'm really smart, lots of fun and totally HAWT!
I have a passion for science which probably started when my mother bought me my first real books: one was about dinosaurs and the other was a beautiful journey through the solar system.
Astronomy has fascinated me ever since that first book and I now find myself working my way slowly through a bachelors degree in Astronomy and Physics, between working and raising a very inquisitive little boy. When I finish it I would like to combine my knowledge and passion for writing to produce educational books for kids based on the wonders of the universe surrounding them.
For this blog I will mostly write about things in our everyday lives which we should be more sceptical about such as e-mail hoaxes and pseudoscience. I will also focus on critical thinking skills (as I hope to sharpen mine in the process) and of course, the love of my life, Astronomy.
My friends think that I'm really smart, lots of fun and totally HAWT!
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