Remember "The Skeptologists"? It’s a pilot for a TV show I did with six other skeptics. We’re still working on getting it picked up, and I hear things are still warm on that front, which is good to know.
In the meantime though, we decided we’d put together a blog where all of us could contribute. So all of us — Brian Dunning, Michael Shermer, Kirsten Sanford, Yau-Man Chan, Mark Edwards, Steven Novella, and I — have started up the SkepticBlog. It’ll feature a post a day from one of us on some sort of skeptical topic. The first are already up, including ones about the economy, hucksters on TV, Sylvia Brown, Chinese skepticism, and mine about UFOs (a repost from here; I know, but I was spread a little thin when we needed the first post); things should ease up soon and I’ll have original content).
Like Swift at Randi’s site, a multi-blogger format will give you a chance to see what’s going on in different people’s minds, with different perspectives.
And reading one more skeptic blog won’t kill you. It might even make your day go a little better. I’m always happy to know there are more rational people out there.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Oh gee thanks Phil. I have a life you know. Well I did. Just when I thought I had enough blogs to read you go and add another and a little more of the aforementioned life gets chipped away one blog post at a time.
BTW, Dr Steve is winning in the comments stakes. Not that it is a popularity contest right?
October 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
There is no such thing as too much skepticism.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Phil, the repost has the same spelling mistake in link with Galileo’s name as the original – Galilei, not Galilee.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Oh, and I forgot to mention. I, for one, welcome our new sceptical overlords.
Congratulations on being part of a very elite group. But you already knew that.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:45 am
[tease]Almost all the skeptics are wearing black … but what is Phil wearing? Pink. Way-to-go! [/tease]
(I am of coarse referring to the banner image on the new blog page)
October 26th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Damnit, another blog to read when procrastinating! Congrats though, and I really hope to see The Skeptologists aired.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Phil Plait, I would advise you not to wear a pink shirt — we all know what happened to Homer J. Simpson in The Simpsons episode “Stark Raving Dad”.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:45 am
This is a *very* impressive blog. I’ve thrown it on my reader already.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Bouncing through the links, I saw one, ummm, leader who stated that we need chant the 5 magic words to harmonize ourselves with the earth and each other so that the ships encircling the earth will leave.
I don’t know about you, but I am a busy man, and have pared those down to 3 words..
Owa – The Beginning
Tagoo – Our Being
Siam – Mythical plain (similarity to the old name of an Asian country is purely coincidental. Much as Douglas Adams pointed out that every society has a drink called “Ginandtonic”, all uneartly organizations have an exotic location called “Siam”)
Repeat the three words repeatedly (that’s a lot of repeatin’), and feel better about yourself (or at least try to feel less foul)
October 26th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
“Stark Raving Dad”
Damn you IVAN3MAN! You beat me to it!
October 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
You’re on SGU this week, schweeeet.
October 26th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
@ The Chemist
I checked out your blog — nice — and I see that you live in Atlanta, Georgia. Well, I live in London, UK, so I have an advantage over you in that the clocks here (GMT) are currently 4 hours’ ahead of yours.
That bloke who commented on your blog about your stomach ulcer is right — stomach ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori.
Click on my name for the Wikipedia article link.
October 26th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Oh goody! Another blog to read!
October 26th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Well, great. Phil, don’t you know I have 2 small children and I barely have time to read all the other blogs I want to read. I guess going the bed at 1:30 am can now be put off til 2:00 am so I can fit in the new blog. Thanks for the added pressure of keeping up with you people…who knew skeptics were so busy?
October 26th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Ah crap, I won’t get any work done now…
October 27th, 2008 at 7:40 am
You know Phil this comes at a great time for me. I just spent the weekend trying my darndest not to slap one of my husband’s friends up-side the head for all the nonsense that was coming out of his mouth. The guy believes some gravitational fluctuation is going to cause the northern and southern hemispheres to switch places in the year 2012….this of course will be the end of the world, to which my response was “I will give you a call on January 1st, 2013 and see if your predictions have come to pass”. This wasn’t the first time I had to deal with this stuff, my Mother seems to believe that every time there is a light in the sky (she recently set up her hot tub, so is out there every night) that it is moving far to fast to be anything but a UFO (the alien type). My scalp is killing me from all the hair pulling I’ve been doing. So many times over the last two weeks I’ve been hoping that your show would be coming out soon so instead of watching ghost hunters, UFO shows, and End of the World documentaries, maybe, just maybe some people will see some sense on T.V.
For now it is comforting to know there are others with a skeptical mind.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Not that Phil can’t pull off wearing a pink shirt… but that looks like a nice red shirt and the photo has been desaturated (look at the photos in the Gallery to see the shirt at full bloom).
Meanwhile, not like I have a life any more, or can put off any more than I already have, but, I’m gonna find a way to incorporate this new blog into my schedule – somewhere, somehow – even if I have to clone myself.
This is wonderful news and I look forward to my assimilation.
John B. Sandlin