Hi, I’m Jason. A biologist by training, my happiest hours are spent herping, entomologizing, and generally just being outdoors with my wife, kids, and good friends. For a living, I teach college-level biology. I’m somewhat obsessed with photography, particularly of the in situ multiple light-source macro variety. I’ve spent several (non-consecutive) years traveling and camping around in various jungles of the world, and some of my fondest memories (and most important life lessons) come from these periodic fugues.
As a community college biology instructor, I interact with a lot of people from very different backgrounds. Certainly not an even demographic slice, to be sure, but I see people from about sixteen to sixty years of age, with remarkably variable socioeconomic backgrounds and histories of education. One near-universal commonality I’ve noticed among incoming students is that they seldom grasp how much science can offer them. Oh sure, they usually get that science is responsible for developing new medicines and such – that’s pretty easy to see. But they have trouble seeing how the application of scientific rigor, critical thinking, logic, and a healthy respect for the natural world (i.e., thinking like a scientist) can actually apply to – and greatly improve – their own lives.
Furthermore, this initial disconnect among my students suggests to me that there’s a heck of a lot of people wandering haphazardly through life, relying on rumors, superstitions, and unquestioned assumptions (i.e., NOT thinking like a scientist) to make even their most important life decisions – even when misinformation flies in the face of logic and common sense. This strikes me as weird and sad. Of course, it takes time and effort to thoroughly evaluate the information that we receive, and time is always in short supply – I completely understand that. But the dividends that come from thinking like a scientist are truly worth it: a better understanding of how the world works (especially as it pertains to you) and the satisfaction that comes from the thoughtful analysis and directed improvement of every part of your life that you choose to apply these concepts to.
This brings me to the main purpose of this website. My hope is that this site can help anyone learn to think like a scientist, and in doing so make their life better. While the topics I write about range widely – from lifestyle optimization, to happiness and aesthetics, to nerdy biology things, to the methodologies of flash photography of small critters in the jungle – the undercurrent remains constant: all aspects of our lives really are better with science. I hope that reviewing the examples I provide on this website give you some new perspectives that you can benefit from. I’d like to engage you to participate in this journey, brainstorming and troubleshooting with me, offering comments, suggestions, and corrections, and reaping the benefits with me. Shall we begin?
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