CollinMaessen

Collin MaessenCollin Maesssen 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, and particularly his YouTube videos, make an effort to cite the most up to date and best research as possible from the scientific literature. And where necessary he consults scientists and experts on the subject matters he covers.

His interest in covering scientific subjects, and countering pseudo-scientific nonsense, 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 him to 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.

His other major interests, and the subject of most of his videos and articles, are the environment, climate change and the politics surrounding them. This started as a hobby in 1994 by 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.

You can find out more about Collin on his website Real Sceptic.