\u201cWell,\u201d I said, and I slipped into the supercilious tone that I sometimes use when answering questions in my biology classes, and which undoubtedly annoys the absolute hell out of my students, \u201cI think that the main reason is that I am aware that my books are sorted into the \u2018Fiction\u2019 section on Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they?\u201d she said, in a \u201cYou wanna watch that attitude, bub?\u201d sort of way.\u00a0\u00a0 Then she frowned thoughtfully.\u00a0 \u201cBut, you know, that doesn\u2019t really explain anything.\u00a0 Because let\u2019s face it.\u00a0 For a guy who doesn\u2019t believe in all that stuff, you give every evidence of being obsessed by it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not obsessed,\u201d I said, bristling a little.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh?\u201d she said sweetly.\u00a0 \u201cWould you mind telling me what poster you have on your classroom wall?\u201d<\/p>\n
I mumbled something inaudible into my wine glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am referring, of course,\u201d she said, \u201cto the one with the large picture of the UFO, that is captioned, \u2018I Want To Believe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Slam-dunk.\u00a0 Buzzer sounds.\u00a0 End of game.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Dammit.\u00a0 I hate it when she\u2019s right.\u00a0 Which, unfortunately, seems to be most of the time.<\/p>\n The problem, of course, is that if my glib one-liner won\u2019t do as an answer, I\u2019m thrown back to the original question: why would<\/em> a guy who is a 26-year veteran science teacher, who teaches (amongst other things) a Critical Thinking class, who writes daily on a blog that has as its prime purpose poking fun at weird, counterfactual beliefs, write a short story about a guy whose life is in danger because he just had wild sex with a vampiric ghost he met while exploring an abandoned house?<\/p>\n Oh, and that\u2019s just the last<\/em> thing I wrote.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a brief sampling of other topics from my fiction:<\/p>\n So, anyway, you get the idea.\u00a0 My wife\u2019s use of the word \u201cobsession\u201d is actually pretty apt.\u00a0 But the question is, why?\u00a0 When the subject of the \u201cI Want To Believe\u201d poster came up, my wife asked me, \u201cDo you really<\/em> want to believe?\u201d\u00a0 And I said, \u201cHell yeah.\u201d\u00a0 Do you have any idea how cool it\u2019d be if that stuff existed?\u00a0 Bigfoot?\u00a0 UFOs?\u00a0 Psychic stuff?\u00a0 Ghosts?\u00a0 Man, it\u2019d be awesome.<\/em>\u00a0 Of course, being (not to put too fine a point on it) a great big weenie, the first time I saw Bigfoot I\u2019d probably piss my pants and then have a stroke.\u00a0 But still<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0There\u2019s the inevitable problem, of course, of the huge revision in my worldview that would have to take place if even one<\/em> of those things turned out to be real.\u00a0 For one thing, I can\u2019t even begin to estimate the number of retractions I\u2019d have to write in Skeptophilia<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 (\u201cI hereby apologize to all of the psychics and mediums I\u2019ve insulted over the past four years\u2026\u201d)\u00a0 But still, and in all seriousness:\u00a0 isn\u2019t that what being a skeptic means<\/em>?\u00a0 If you are honestly a skeptic \u2013 and not just a professional scoffer \u2013 you revise your opinion based upon the facts and evidence at hand, regardless of how uncomfortable that revision might be for your pride.\u00a0 On some level, honest skeptics are always<\/em> waiting for evidence, because they are never quite sure they have the complete picture.<\/p>\n Of course, in the meantime, the real reason I write all this stuff is: it\u2019s fun.\u00a0 How would I react if suddenly confronted with Slender Man?\u00a0 How would I handle it if every time I turned around, everything had changed \u2013 and the only one who realized it was me?\u00a0 It\u2019s a rush creating a new world, a world whose rules are different from the ones science has uncovered.\u00a0 It\u2019s a blast to try to come up with a self-consistent scheme by which the universe could<\/em> work\u2026 and then send some characters in to play inside it.<\/p>\n Or scream in terror.\u00a0 Or get chased by monsters.\u00a0 Or get eaten.\u00a0 You know how it goes.\u00a0 Not all universes result in a happy ending.\u00a0 Which, now that I think of it, would also<\/em> make a great caption for a poster.<\/p>\n So, tonight I was chatting with my wife over a lovely dinner of t-bone steaks and red wine, and I mentioned to her in an affectedly offhand way that I\u2019d been asked to guest post on a blog. “What about?\u201d she asked. \u201cWell, the idea was to look at how a complete skeptic can write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2254,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions\/2254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/i_want_to_believe-300x225.jpg\" "\\"i_want_to_believe\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/Bigfoot-420x405-300x289.jpg\" "\\"Bigfoot-420x405\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ajaalto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/GordonKauai.jpg\" "\\"GordonKauai\\"")
<\/a>(editor’s note: Gordon Bonnet is a\u00a0writer, musician, teacher, and scuba diver, and currently lives in upstate New York. Also: he’s awesome. That’s not opinion, that’s scientifically proven. On the Electro-Badassery Scale, he registers at 35.7K volts of Awesome, which is why his hair sometimes does that thing at the top, and why when his socks land on the laundry pile they make that snap-sizzle noise. Author of Skeptophilia<\/a>, as well as 15 delightful works of fiction, he blogs at, shockingly enough, Skeptophilia<\/a>, where you can find his charming wit and big science-licious brains at work…<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"