Robert Todd Carroll (May 18, 1945 – August 25, 2016) was an American author, philosopher and academic, best known for The Skeptic's Dictionary.

Carroll earned his PhD in philosophy in 1974 at the University of California, San Diego, writing his doctoral thesis under the direction of Richard H. Popkin on the religious philosophy of Edward Stillingfleet,[6] who had defended the Anglican church passionately against Catholics, deists and atheists before becoming Bishop of Worcester.

The new family moved to Susanville, California, where he started teaching philosophy at Lassen Community College.

After leaving the seminary he became intrigued by eastern religions and, inspired by Alan Watts, started looking at their holy books.

Carroll became interested in Paramahansa Yogananda and attended meetings of his Self-Realization Fellowship to do yoga and chanting.

Carroll took up Kierkegaard's idea that religious beliefs require a leap of faith because they cannot be rationally proven.

[3] In 2003 John Wiley & Son published a paperback edition of The Skeptic's Dictionary, derived from Carroll's website of the same name.

In 2013, it came out as a book under the title Mysteries and Science: Exploring Aliens, Ghosts, Monsters, the End of the World and Other Weird Things.

Carroll also wrote Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Science Exposed!, which was published as an e-book in 2011 by the James Randi Educational Foundation.

[3] In 2013 Carroll also self-published The Critical Thinker's Dictionary, which features short articles about cognitive biases and logical fallacies.

In 2003 he spoke at the first Amaz!ng Meeting and at a conference of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal on frauds and hoaxes.

In 2011 he led a discussion on "Five Myths About Skeptics" at the second annual SkeptiCalCon event, held in Berkeley, CA.

He said that skeptics' meetups and conferences, as well as the positive feedback he received on his work, were his main motivations.

[29] Carroll charged that when calculating the statistical significance of the parrot's responses, Sheldrake had omitted 60 percent of the data.