Thanks to Jamie for suggesting this board,

now,

what makes you a sceptic?

For me I was inspired by Richard Dawkins to fight the tide of pseudoscience and promote real science, owever it was the mentalist Derren Brown that sparked my initial interest.

After reading his excellent book I looked at his recommended reading list and found Dawkins and others, and haven't looked back.

What about you guys?

Den.

Many strands led me to scepticism.

I was originally mildly inspired when I was 10 years old by the children's book "The Hamlyn Book of Facts and Fallacies". It interested me how myths and old wives tales could quickly become accepted as fact without much in the way of proof. I always liked mythology and that led me to urban legends, which heavily overlaps with scepticism.

I grew up on a circus, so it began to bug me when I saw people accepting obvious charlatanism I had already seen demonstrated for the sake of entertainment being used to sell religion, martial arts and so on.

I love history and criminology. As time went on my possibly obsessive personality led me to look more deeply into the various "factual" tales I had read. Once I started reading serious historical studies I began to notice how most historians had become debunkers.

Finally studying the more realistic side of martial arts combined with a desire to coach an individualistic method of combat led me to the approach of scientific scepticism.