The reason I began this blog is also the reason I've barely been writing in it as of late. Back in April of 2001, I was still at Northwestern University, beginning my final rotation looking for a lab to do my doctorate thesis in. I couldn't find one that I liked: none of them studied anything that I felt contributed significantly to biology as a field. My occupational future looked bleak. I didn't want to dead end into an insignificant lab and I was struggling with the idea of transferring here to Wisconsin. There was a void in my life: I had no purpose.

To fill that void, back in February of 2001 I had picked up at Barnes & Nobles a copy of what looked like a fringe but legitimate magazine called Skeptic. Over the next couple months I had read a number of books by Carl Sagan, Martin Gardner, and Michael Shermer, all major advocates of skepticism. Now here was an epic battle: well-regarded, established scientists fighting the crowd of charlatans and self-decievers hawking their particular brand of ignorance. I felt enlivened, and I wanted to join in the war, to have a start to what could be my true calling as a scientist. But I knew I was just a beginner, looking up at the giants of the field and feeling like I had come to the party too late.

Enter the internet. Anyone can publish whatever they like, whenever they like, and I had free space on the Northwestern server. So I fired up this blog and began my amateur foray into the world of skepticism. For the first time at Northwestern, I felt like I had a purpose. This, I thought, is what I would do with my life. It may not have been what I always wanted, but if I was truly to be delegated to the bottom of the biology barrel, I at least had science philosophy to fall back on.

September of 2001 saw a twist in my character. I had begun to rotate in my current lab and the Madison community -- much more casual and far-flung than Evanston -- made me feel comfortable for a change. As I began to look through the tinted glass of mouse genetics and well-focused cancer research, I could see an actual future for me in biology. As the months passed, I knew I was out of the cul-de-sac of insignificance and a new and much more cutting-edge world opened up before me. And so skepticism fell by the wayside. It wasn't needed anymore; it had been merely a steward of my intellectual pursuits.

I think about cancer all the time now. Even for the past week, when I vacationed back home, I thought of more experiments. But they don't make for interesting articles. And so, in much the same way as it has been for the past year, The Wandering Skeptic will continute to make only occaisional updates with book reviews or the odd idea. I hope these reach some audience and does what little good it can do.  ¶ 9:17 PM