Oh, gosh, busy busy. First week of a new job and it’s been hectic. But you can hear me as well as read my work this week!
Firstly – the latest Skeptic Zone podcast out today will feature my interview with Professor Christopher French, a psychologist and vocal skeptic specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He’s a Professor of psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, is head of their Anomalistic psychology Research Unit which he founded in the year 2000, and is the co-editor of The Skeptic (UK) magazine with Lindsay Kallis.
Then the latest episode of my solo-created podcast, the Token Skeptic podcast – is episode #9!
Yes, episodes 8, 7 and 6 are still to be uploaded, so I’ll work on back-dating them. But they’ll be out by tonight or tomorrow (…there’s a long and ultimately daft story involving battling technology and grues). This particular episode involves Skepticism and Communication:
When I was at the recently held 10:23 Event at the Perth Skeptics, plenty of new people came to ask questions about what skeptics and skepticism is achieving. They included such things as ‘is this really science communication?’ Could we be doing more harm than good by such stunts or is it part of an important ‘bigger picture’ that’s being presented? What should be the next step? Were people drawn in because of nerdy stereotypes or skeptics being ’sexed-up’ – and is it misleading or preventing progress to go down those paths when promoting skepticism?
All of these notions and views have intrigued me since taking part in the ‘What Do I Do Next? Leading Skeptics Discuss 105 Practical Ways to Promote Science and Advance Skepticism’ document. In response to my experiences I took an opportunity to speak to Michael McRae, a science communicator and former science teacher.
If you’ve been listening to the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, you’ll have heard that I sponsored the episodes for this week under the name of the Token Skeptic, so hopefully people catch those shows too! 
FINALLY – if you listen to the Fancast: Vibraphone the Musical at the Geologic Podcast, you should recognise two voices (or should that be two voices and one ‘Strained?) taking part for the Skeptic Zone team. Even though there’s two ways of pronouncing ‘Trebuchet‘ and neither one of us gets it right (I DID IT ON PURPOSE, mind:p).
Do enjoy them all and do zip in a message saying how much you appreciate the Geologic Podcast reaching its 150th episode!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I always enjoy listening to Chris French.
He’s very interesting. And contrary to Wiseman, he doesn’t do 10000 others stuff than parapsychological research (or even worse, Sue Blackmore who doesn’t do any parapsychological research anymore). We need more “Chris French”-like person in skepticism, doing actual research in the field of psychology of anomalous experiences…
I agree! Wonderful person to interview too, I felt very fortunate.
Well, you can look forward to more – Dr Krissie French will be joining the Skeptic Zone podcast and she’s mentioned in the interview too!
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