Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

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DR. ANDERS CARLSON’s research involves the interaction of ice sheets, oceans and the climate system on orbital to centennial time-scales.He is interested in the effects of deglaciation on climate, constructing paleoclimate records, and the role of the ocean in modulating the climate response between hemispheres. He also conducts research in paleo-glaciology looking at the influence of till and the substrate on ice sheet motion, and the development of basal drainage systems. He currently is working on the Laurentide and Greenland Ice Sheets, addressing the behavior of these ice sheets and their effects on climate over multiple glacial cycles. His approach to research uses a combination of dating methods (cosmogenic dating, radiocarbon), analytical techniques (isotope and trace element analysis, geochemistry), field geology, and conceptual and analytical models. He believes a holistic approach is required to place data into the global picture and vice versa for the applicability of models.

RANDALL DUNCAN is an expert on emergency management and FEMA planning for climate change. He teaches trainees at FEMA and in the state emergency management system, and is an Adjunct Faculty member teaching emergency management at Park University in Missouri. He is the Director of Emergency Management in Sedgwick County (Wichita), Kansas, and is a past President and now Government Affairs Chair of the International Association of Emergency Managers (where he provides testimony to Congress). He has also served as Emergency Management Director for Cowley County Kansas, and Director of Public Safety in Ponca City, OK, and prior to that he was a reporter and a radio news director. He has received many awards in the emergency management field and published numerous papers and reports. In 2000, he was sent by the US government to Turkey to develop a National Emergency Management Institute for the Republic of Turkey.

DR. BRUCE MOLNIA, a research geologist at the USGS, Reston, VA, has conducted marine, coastal, glacial, and remote sensing research for more than 35 years. From 1999–2003, Molnia served as a Senior Legislative Fellow in the Office of Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA), operating the House Oceans Caucus. Previously, Molnia served as the USGS Chief of International Programs. Molnia is currently a Research Affiliate at the Prince William Sound Science Center, Cordova, AK and an Affiliate Professor at the University of Idaho, Department of Geology, Moscow ID. Most of Molnia’s research has been in Alaska. Molnia has authored, coauthored, or edited more than 200 articles, abstracts, maps, and books, as well as several CD-ROMs. In his capacity as the Forum Editor of GSA Today, the newspaper of the Geological Society of America, Molnia wrote more than 100 monthly columns. Books that Molnia has authored include: Glaciers of Alaska, Glacial-Marine Sedimentation, Alaska’s Glaciers, and the Alaska chapter of the Satellite Image Atlas of the Glaciers of the World.

DR. DONALD R. PROTHERO is Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University in 1982, and a B.A. in geology and biology (highest honors, Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of California, Riverside. He is currently the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 25 books and over 250 scientific papers, including five leading geology textbooks and three trade books as well as edited symposium volumes and other technical works. He is on the editorial board of Skeptic magazine, and in the past has served as an associate or technical editor for Geology, Paleobiology and Journal of Paleontology. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, and the Linnaean Society of London, and has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Science Foundation. He has served as the Vice President of the Pacific Section of SEPM (Society of Sedimentary Geology), and five years as the Program Chair for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. In 1991, he received the Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society for the outstanding paleontologist under the age of 40. He has also been featured on several television documentaries, including episodes of Paleoworld (BBC), Prehistoric Monsters Revealed (History Channel), Entelodon and Hyaenodon (National Geographic Channel) and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts (BBC). Check out Donald Prothero’s page at Shop Skeptic.

DR. MICHAEL SHERMER is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and editor of Skeptic.com, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and an Adjunct Professor at Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Shermer’s latest book (to be released in May 2011) is The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Then as Truths. Dr. Shermer’s previous book is The Mind of the Market, on evolutionary economics, and prior to that he released Why Darwin Matters. He is the author of The Science of Good and Evil and of Why People Believe Weird Things. Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University (1991). He was a college professor for 20 years, and since his creation of Skeptic magazine he has appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, Leeza, Unsolved Mysteries, and Larry King Live. He has also done interviews in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Check out Michael Shermer’s page at Shop Skeptic.

SATIRIST/SONGWRITER ROY ZIMMERMAN What’s funny about war, poverty, ignorance, bigotry, neo-conservatism, homophobia, greed, lust and fear? Ask Roy Zimmerman. He’s been writing satirical songs for twenty years. Zimmerman has played clubs across the US, and shared the stage with George Carlin, Bill Maher, Kate Clinton, Dennis Miller, Sandra Tsing Loh, kd lang, Andy Borowitz and Paul Krassner. His up-to-the-moment topical songs are featured on American Public Media’s syndicated broadcast “Weekend America” and Sirius Radio’s “West Coast Live.” He’s currently touring a one-man show called “Faulty Intelligence.” There’s a decidedly lefty slant to his lyrics. “We used to have a name for Right Wing satire,” he says. “We called it ‘cruelty.’” He has written for theater productions and founded and wrote all the material for the comedy folk quartet The Foremen, who recorded four albums, two of them for Warner/Reprise Records. They sang Zimmerman’s Oliver North lampoon, “Ollie Ollie Off Scot Free” directly to the colonel himself on North’s own syndicated show. “Friends,” said North, “this is a very weird group.” He has released a number of CDs including “Faulty Intelligence,” “PeaceNick,” “Homeland” and ”Security,” and most recently. “Real American.” Zimmerman lives in Marin County with his wife and frequent co-writer Melanie Harby and their two boys.

The Los Angeles Times says, “Zimmerman displays a lacerating wit and keen awareness of society’s foibles that bring to mind a latter-day Tom Lehrer.” Tom Lehrer himself says, “I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs. And the rhymes actually rhyme, they don’t just ‘rhyne.’” Joni Mitchell says, “Roy’s lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection.”