Topic: Introduce yourself here!

[rebecca]

Welcome to the official forum of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Tell us a little about yourself!

[Jay]

Thanks Rebecca for setting up this board for us.  I look forward to chatting with all of you and thanks for listening.

[Erik]

I just recently came across the podcast and have been enjoying going back in time listening to the episodes.

I'm a married guy in the midwest, live the suburbs, and have two kids and a dog. Somehow I'm a liberal atheist despite the perfect sterotype. I have a great interest in science although, even with my degree in physics, I'd consider myself a layman.

I guess that will do for an introduction.

[chris]

Hi, I'm Chris.  I am an astrophysics masters student in New Zealand.  I found your podcast a few months ago and have been slowly catching up on all the episodes.  Of the 30 or so podcasts I listen to, yours is in the top half a dozen.

My skeptical interests are mainly ID/creationism, alternative medicine, psychics, and cryptozoology.

Thank you all for a great podcast, and I hope this message board becomes a popular place for skeptical discussion.

[rebecca]

Hey guys! Congratulations for getting in the forum on the ground floor. Tell your friends!

[bort]

Hello.  I am a biology PhD student.  I am married with a kid in the suburbs but no dog.  I have never believed in UFOs or alternative medicine, but didn't always think of myself a skeptic until recently.  
My skeptical interests are in alternative medice, UFOs, and cyrptozoology.  I really don't pay attention to the ID/creationists due to the fact that I use evolutionary ideas on nearly a daily basis. However,  I do appreciate the work of Eugenie Scott and other evolution proponents.  

<----- I work on this organism

[Wonko the Sane]

Hello fellow skeptics. My name is Richard and I live in Seattle WA where I am a junior at The University of Washington. My whole life I have been a very logical thinker and have never believed in any nonsense,  but I have only recently begun to call myself a skeptic because I didn’t know what else to call my outlook other than being intelligent.  I was also never really aware until recently how many people actually believe in a lot of the nonsense out there. So now I actively try to at least get my friends to think more critically.  Anyway, great podcast and  keep up the fight for sanity.

[Paulhoff]

Hello everyone my name is Paul, I live in Margate Florida and I am on a few forums, as some people have found out, I have a very low tolerance for BS. I have put up with for over 50 years and am tried of it. I am short and to the point, which I can understand upsets some people, oh well.

Paul

     

[JohnMaddox]

Hi everyone!   My name is John and I am a PhD organic chemist for a large chemical company in Tennessee.  I am married and have two young children (boy and a girl) and one dog and two cats.

I recently stumbled across "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" on iTunes and became immediately hooked.  I am currently working my way through the archive from the beginning (I'm on #11) and listening to new ones as they are posted.

I have been interested in the skeptical movement since graduate school when I shared laboratory hood space with a YEC.  And I remain fascinated to this day by folks who are good methodological naturalists in one specific area and yet remain methodological "supernaturalists" in other areas.  It is a very schizophrenic approach to life, IMHO.

Other interests of mine include the evolution/creation debate, history of early Christianity, and urban legends.

-John

[Steven Novella]

Welcome, everyone.

I just wanted to say how priviledged we are to have the former editor of Nature magazine on board with us.    Welcome, Sir John.

[bort]

And I remain fascinated to this day by folks who are good methodological naturalists in one specific area and yet remain methodological "supernaturalists" in other areas.

I also find this aspect of people quite interesting.  I often hear a conversation at my university where grad students are talking about when their next visit to the local haunted house will be or how many UFOs they have seen in their lives.  I have not met a scientist who is a YEC, however I did work with a very good neuroscientist who left the field to pursue a degree in theology at Oxford Divinity school.

[JohnMaddox]

See what happens when I use my real name!  

Of course, it's better than the question I usually get which is:  Are you related to Greg?

-John (the other one)

[mxracer652]

Hello all,

I'm Brendan, I live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh PA, I enjoy the skeptics guide podcasts, local CFI group meetings, reading, cycling (road), motocross, and not watching TV.  I'm also employed as a mechanical engineer (please no Salem Hypothesis remarks) and your run of the mill atheist.

I caught onto the skeptics guide, via Tara Smith's blog Aetiology, when she was a guest on & have been following ever since.

Keep up the good work.

[Evan]

Hello all,

This is Evan, one of the skeptical rogues. Welcome to my first posting.

1 year ago, I along with my friends of over 15 years, began to experiment with podcasting. Our little experiment has blossomed into a widely listened to and embraced contribution to the worlds of skepticism and reason. As of this week, we are the highest ranked skeptical-based podcast in the world (source: I-Tunes). I am very proud to be a part of this team.

But I want to thank all of you, the listeners, for making the podcast a rousing success. Like any other show that is broadcast, podcast, or streamed, we are really only as good and effective as our audience affords us to be. So again, thank you all for listening.

I know this isn't much of a personal introduction, but it'll have to do for now. Talk to you again soon!

-Evan

[cyborganics]

Hello!

My name is Mark but my friends have been calling me Xenu recently.

Yes, Xenu.

They decided it was appropriate after repeated Tom Cruise bashings on my part; that and I often don't get along with *certain* outwardly pleasant devoted folk. For a long time I thought it might be that I was miserable, cranky or merely uptight (all still possible). But I have been realizing lately that I am (an isolated) candid skeptic and that the misguided are simply misinterpreting my criticisms as audaciously dogmatic when they are, in fact, thoughtful conclusions based from diligent inquiry.

So a n y w a y , when I’m not working on making computer games or ranting about how religion and fairy-tale philosophies are unnecessary social constructs, I aspire to better understand these all too common human failings. To that end, my hope is to contribute to and promote the discussion of lucid secularism. I anticipate a societal paradigm shift in the next couple decades embracing apostasy; ironically as a direct result of incongruous harassment of the scientific method by the faithful.

Despite my newly found cheerful disposition, some of my friends still call me Xenu…

I am now considering a legal name change.