About Collin Maessen
Real Sceptic is run and maintained by Collin Maesssen who is a long time advocate of sound environmental policies, renewable energy advocate and proponent of scepticism. He studied Software Engineering and works as a programmer for a Dutch firm. As such he is not a scientists and doesn’t publish research on the subjects covered by him. However the articles, particularly his YouTube videos, make an effort to cite the most up to date and best research as possible from the scientific literature. Where necessary he consults scientists and experts on the subject matters he covers.
His interest in covering scientific subjects, and countering pseudo-scientific nonsense that has a tendency to spread, comes from his search to better understand the disease he has: X-ALD. The cause of this disease is a genetic mutation which can have severe neurological consequences. His wish to better understand this disease in search for a higher quality of life led to him reading the scientific literature on the subject.
This combined with his sheer practical experience in dealing with the consequences caused him to be recruited as a volunteer for the NVACP. A Dutch patient support group which represents the interests of Addison, Cushing, Conn and AGS patients. During patient meetings of the association he often helps fellow patients with coping with a life with Addison. He’s also active in the Dutch X-ALD support group, which has strong tries to the Dutch medical research community. Currently he is still available as a volunteer, and visits the meetings when possible, but due to time constraints he isn’t as active any more.
Nowadays his time is, among other things, being taken up by his work for SkepticTV. Where he lends his technical expertise for maintaining the site and providing the technical facilities for their broadcasts. With him working behind the scenes during a broadcast to keep everything running smoothly. Which entails keeping an eye out for callers, moderating the BlogTV chat when possible, running images/video to help underline topics and generally helping the hosts run a great show.
The show itself is well worth a watch for anyone who is interested in listening to hosts debunking popular myths live on air. The show is very similar to the Magic Sandwich Show and the League of Reason Show, but broadens its scope beyond the confines of organised religion and its implications. Topics that are discussed include climate change, conspiracy theories, genetic modification, superstitions, religious ideology, vaccine health scares and so much more.
His other major interests, and the subject of most of his videos and articles, are the environment, climate change and the politics surrounding it. This started as a hobby in 1994 with simple meteorological measurements and observations. Which over the years led to him to reading the scientific literature, and many other sources, on the subjects of Anthropic Global Warming (climatology) and related palaeoclimatology subjects.
Collin Maessen has no affiliations with any organisations or political groups. His sites are run at personal expense, the only funding being YouTube video advertisements and contributions from site visitors.