Steven Paul Novella (born July 29, 1964) is an American clinical neurologist and associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine.

[3] The group began to organize in late 1995, when DeAngelis and Novella noticed a lack of listings for their area in Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

[10] Novella defines a skeptic as: ... one who prefers beliefs and conclusions that are reliable and valid to ones that are comforting or convenient, and therefore rigorously and openly applies the methods of science and reason to all empirical claims, especially their own.

A skeptic provisionally proportions acceptance of any claim to valid logic and a fair and thorough assessment of available evidence, and studies the pitfalls of human reason and the mechanisms of deception so as to avoid being deceived by others or themselves.

In 2007, Novella started a blog, Neurologica, for which he writes on a weekly basis covering subjects generally related to science or skepticism.

[18] In 2008, Novella signed the Project Steve petition,[19][non-primary source needed] a tongue-in-cheek parody of the list of "scientists that doubt evolution" produced by creationists.

Novella is an associate editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine,[20] and writes the monthly Weird Science column for the New Haven Advocate newspaper.

[26] In 2008, he filmed a pilot for a television series called The Skeptologists[27] along with Brian Dunning, Yau-Man Chan, Mark Edward, Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, and Kirsten Sanford.

Novella made the point that herbs are medicinals and have been used that way for thousands of years, but the problem is in re-branding them as alternative, marketing them as natural, and therefore arguing that they don't need evidence that they are safe and effective.

In response to Dr. Oz's complaint that Novella is dismissive of an idea that the "way we think [about acupuncture] in the west is that it can't be possible effective."

[32] Novella co-owned a local live action role-playing (LARP) game for about 5 years, during which time the owners wrote seven D20 System books.

[23] Novella published a reflective evaluation of the autonomous sensory meridian response,[34][35] a low grade euphoria characterized by 'a combination of positive feelings, relaxation, and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin', which begins on the scalp before moving down the spine to the base of the neck, sometimes spreading to the back, arms and legs, often prompted by specific acoustic and visual stimuli including the content of some digital videos, and less commonly by intentional attentional control.

[35][38] On June 9, 2014, Edward Tobinick filed a civil action in Florida Southern District Court naming Steven Novella, Yale University, the Society for Science-Based Medicine, Inc. and SGU Productions, LLC as defendants.

[40][independent source needed] On July 14, 2014, Novella's attorney, Marc Randazza, filed an "Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Temporary and Preliminary Injunctive Relief".

Novella posted a response to the lawsuit on Science-Based Medicine in which he said, "In my opinion he [Tobinick] is using legal thuggery in an attempt to intimidate me and silence my free speech because he finds its content inconvenient".

United States District Judge Robin Rosenberg ordered the case closed on September 30, 2015, and found in judgement for the defendants.

"[73] The subsections of the book ("Neuropsycholological Humility", "Metacognition", "Science and Pseudoscience", and "Iconic Cautionary Tales from History") break the topic into conceptional chunks that are easy for readers with a wide range of backgrounds to digest.

[74] Neil deGrasse Tyson's review says: "Thorough, informative, and enlightening, The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe inoculates you against the frailties and shortcomings of human cognition.