Skeptics on the Fringe:Stevyn Colgan-The Sceptical Bobby

Speaker

Stevyn Colgan is an author, artist, songwriter and public speaker. He is one of the ‘QI Elves (http://qi.com/people/museum-of-curiosity/steve-colgan)’ who supply the questions for the popular BBC TV series and co-writes its sister show, The Museum of Curiosity (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k3wvk), for BBC Radio 4.

Stevyn joined the police because of a bet with his father. His career in the force was as unconventional as his entry: he spent most of it challenging the efficacy of firmly-entrenched ideas and working practices and keeping a skeptical eye upon whether, as police officers, we were offering the best service for the public … or for us.

He has also, among other things, been a chef, a potato picker, a milkman and a police officer. He has written TV scripts for Gerry Anderson and Doctor Who and briefing notes for two Prime Ministers. He’s helped build dinosaur skeletons for the Natural History Museum and movie monsters for Bruce Willis to shoot at. He has been set on fire twice, been shot at once, and has given hundreds of talks across the UK and USA on a variety of subjects including problem solving, Cornish mythology and why he believes that he wasn’t intelligently designed.

He is the author of Joined-Up Thinking (http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Joined_Up_Thinking/9781447249306) (Pan Macmillan 2008), Henhwedhlow (http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Henhwedhlow/9781899342631): The Clotted Cream of Cornish Folk Tales (Kowethas 2010) and Constable Colgan’s Connectoscope (http://unbound.co.uk/books/constable-colgans-connectoscope)® (Unbound 2013). He is currently writing a comedy crime novel and a book about art, recording an album of his own songs and developing an animated series based on Constable Colgan’s Connectoscope®.

Talk

The main theme is ‘change for the better’; challenging the efficacy of firmly-entrenched ideas and working practices and keeping a skeptical eye upon whether, as police officers, we were offering the best service for the public ... or for us.

Stevyn’s website is: www.stevyncolgan.com (http://www.stevyncolgan.com/)

He blogs: http://colganology.blogspot.com (http://colganology.blogspot.com/)

And is part of the QI team: www.qi.com (http://www.qi.com/)

Follow him on Twitter: @stevyncolgan (http://www.twitter.com/stevyncolgan)

http://www.edinburghskeptics.co.uk/events-2/