Griffith University Society for Skeptics and Freethinkers Weblog

My name is Jayson D Cooke and I am the founder and President of the Griffith University Society for Skeptics and Freethinkers. I am 27 years of age and am the proud parent of a beautiful 2 year old girl named Charlie. I am a student of Psychological Science at Griffith University and am also undertaking a Bachelor of Philosophy from Macquarie University by distance education. I work fulltime at a financial firm and occasionally help out at the local hospital as an assistant nurse. Somehow between all this I manage with the help of our members and friends to run this group as well as report on all things in need of a healthy dose of skepticism for the brilliant Tank Vodcast as their QLD reporter. http://tankvodcast.wordpress.com/

Since forming this group I have been absolutely flat out researching and promoting critical thinking and scientific skepticism and have been having an absolute blast along the way meeting too many great people to mention (you all know who you are). I have also been awarded the runner-up Australian Skeptics Prize for Critical Thinking and was invited to give a talk at the first ever Colloquium of Australian Skeptics held in Wagga Wagga, NSW. I was also fortunate enough to attend the Australian University Quality Agency (AUQA) luncheon at Griffith University Gold Coast Campus to discuss future directions of university education. Also I have now been interviewed on local ABC Coast FM, have just been a guest on ABC Brisbane’s Evenings with Katrina Davidson, and along with Dr Martin Bridgstock, have been featured in a great article in the Courier Mail http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23351326-5013016,00.html and of course have been featured in the terrific Australian Skeptic Journal. Writing this I have just returned from ‘The Ultimo Science Festival” as part of our National Science Week, where I had the pleasure of spending time with Dr Michael Shermer, Dr Paul Willis, Mystery Investigators Richard Saunders and Rachael Dunlop, and a huge group of the best and brightest Sydney has to offer!

I have allot I would like to achieve with this group and I can already see so much progression with interest growing everyday, more great members and heaps going on with weekly events/presentations as well as meetings and discussion groups..

Thank you for taking the time to read this and feel free to leave a comment or send me something you would like to contribute to jayson_cooke@hotmail.com and as always all suggestions and/or feedback is greatly appreciated!

Jayson D Cooke