Besides having this column for Skeptical Inquirer online, I occasionally write articles for the website AIPTcomics.com. I am not into comic books myself, so why would I do that? Because despite the URL, the site is about much more than just comics. Its subject matter includes almost everything pop-culture and entertainment related. And, as you will hear in this interview, Russ Dobler runs the section of AIPT called “AIPT Science,” which publishes articles that blend skeptical and scientific topics with pop-culture themes.
The goal is to make these articles appealing to the fans of the fun material that drew them to the site in the first place. As the website says: “AIPT Science isn’t just the physics of Superman-we like the methods of science, too. So come to check out the reality behind your favorite fantasies, but stay for the skeptical angle on pop culture, from box office to Bigfoot.”
The fans of AIPTComics are not likely the same people reading Skeptical Inquirer. They will not have seen my interview with Robert Bartholomew discussing mass psychogenic illness and social contagion as they relate to Havana Syndrome and other real-world events. However, when AIPT Science publishes my new article “Were the Crew of ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Victims of Mass Psychogenic Illness?,” which compares what the crew of the USS Enterprise experienced in a recent Star Trek episode (forced singing and dancing!) to actual social contagion outbreaks, that will be a huge sci-comm (and skep-comm, as Dobler puts it) opportunity. (You will find that article here, along with my seven others.)
I hope that watching this interview gives you the inspiration to join me, along with Kenny Biddle, JD Sword, Ben Radford, Stephanie Kemmerer, Mitchell Lampert, Craig Foster, Adrienne Hill, Evan Bernstein, and the many other well-known skeptics who have written for AIPT Science.
This particularly goes for anyone who would love to become a skeptical author but has never published an article before and just doesn’t know where to begin. You will learn in this video that AIPT Science has no problem publishing first-time writers. Dobler is an accomplished science journalist and editor, and he can make anyone’s writing-even mine-well, shiny. (Sorry … for those reading this who are not the typical AIPTComics fan, shiny is a reference to the Sci-Fi TV series Firefly; that is exactly the kind of thing done for fun in AIPT Science articles.) Lastly, let me note that every February, AIPT Science and Dobler go into overdrive to celebrate Skepticism Month, when they attempt to publish an article (or two) every day. Here is the Facebook post requesting input for February 2024. Give it a go!