My aim is to promote awareness and understanding of science and skeptical thinking. It's important for two reasons:<br /><br />1. As a form of intellectual self-defence in a society riddled with attempts to exploit people's poor science literacy. We are far too vulnerable to quacks, deniers, cranks and pseudoscientists of all sorts telling us utterly improbable nonsense in the hope we'll buy into it. I am particularly troubled by deniers of climate change, deniers of evolution and the deniers of the efficacy of vaccines.<br /><br />2. Democracy is enhanced by the spread of accurate knowledge. But who in a democratic society will make good decisions about science if no one is well informed about it?