Luke Freeman
For his day job, Luke Freeman works in Digital Marketing at the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). This is the part where he must state that his views are his own and not that of his employer. Unlike most of the other writers here, he does not have a professional or academic background in science, just a lifelong love of it - largely thanks to Wallace & Gromit's Techno Quest and the works of Douglas Adams.
Luke's background is in communications and marketing which is why he is well versed in the dark arts of deception... well, at least knowing how easily people are manipulated. He spent his childhood home-schooled on a hobby farm, heavily involved with the local church and competing internationally as a rower.
His skepticism started by the critical thinking required for the self-directed learning that was encouraged by his parents when home-schooling. An upbringing as an evangelical Christian was a foundation of his skepticism towards the faiths of others, which eventually led him to direct that same scrutiny to his own beliefs. The nail in the coffin was in part due to the abundance of pseudoscience being peddled to elite athletes to "get that extra 1%".
In 2011, Luke discovered that there was a word for his lifestyle and a community surrounding it by stumbling upon The Skeptics Guide to the Universe on iTunes. This revelation let to a slight addiction to skeptical podcasts (including The Pseudo Scientists), blogs, tweeps, books and skeptics in the pub.
When he's not at work you'll probably find him playing pub music, brewing beer, cycling around the streets, getting out into nature, listening to podcasts, stuck into some book about science and trying to squeeze in some healthy skepticism (and hopefully activism on that front).
You can find "παν μέτρον άριστον" tattooed to his back, meaning that there truly is a good reason to ask him to take his shirt off.
His favourite quote is: "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so" by the late, great Douglas Adams.
Posts by Luke Freeman:
With 72 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, you would really be hoping to that there is more to life than cat videos! Well if that is what you are hoping, then you have some seriously good luck because if…
Okay, now shut your eyes (well not really, because you need them to read) and imagine this following scenario. You’re cruising around on Facebook during your lunch break and your friend shares something from a Facebook page called “Burzynski, The…
‘A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.‘ – Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water It is well established that us Homo sapiens like to seek out information that supports our beliefs, interpret any ambiguity as a confirmation…
There were over twelve million views per hour of the English language Wikipedia website during December 2012. Wikipedia is the sixth most visited site on the web and often the first result for most search queries (as high as 99%…
A while back I stumbled across this fantastic series of videos on critical thinking. They are an essential crash course in basic logic, critical thinking and great for explaining what logical fallacies are. Although they are a great resource for all…
Who here started off skeptical the first time they heard of anthropogenic global warming (AGW)? I certainly did. It was a big bombshell that had huge consequences and I felt I needed more evidence. So I looked at the arguments for…
When most people think of skeptics, the last thing they would think of is weddings, romance and poetry. My lovely wife, Joni, and I got married back in July. My brother did the honours as he is a Baptist minister. I asked…
Have you ever been cut off by a car with a What Would Jesus Do sticker and thought “Jesus would use his damn turn signals”? If you are a Christian, you might wish that this person didn’t have the sticker…
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