Phil Plait is a writer, astronomer, and all round lovely man. The two of us have often spoken on the same bill at The Amazing Meeting, and lots and lots and lots of people make jokes about us looking like one another. But is that really the case? It is time to subject this burning issue to a scientific test, and so get it settled once and for all (plus it gives me an excuse to try out a poll in the blog). So, take a look at the photographs, and feel free to vote and comment.
Phil and Richard
Richard…..
Phil….
Vote and comment now!
And Richard looks younger, too!
Do you guys share wardrobe too?
Quite a few similarities but not identical, and you both shop at the same clothes store.
It’s just the hairstyle and glasses. A hat and a pair of contacts would dilute the similarity quite a bit. Perhaps a big bushy beard…
Difficult to tell from a few photos, but seems that you both wear similarly colored clothing (particularly the first photo! was there a dress code?) – may be what some people are responding to.
Did you swap names on the individual photos? If not, then you look more alike than I thought, because it looks an awful lot like Phil in the second photo and Richard in the third.
I think the names are backwards. I didn’t know what Phil looked like til I got to this sit, however I just read Quirkology last week and I could swear that second picture is Richard.
Okay, Phil Plait, Richard Wiseman, and George Hrab walk into a bar…who gets the first nuggie?
Phil Plait, Richard Wiseman, George Hrab, and Moby walk into a bar. . .
Have you just confused yourself for him or is that a typo?
But er anyway, you’re both balding, wear glasses, have similar skin colour and stubble but as for any real similarities, you have completely different eyes, mouth etc.
You look like him in the same sense that nearly every anglo male with dark hair looked like George Harrison during the ’70s.
You people are blind. Clearly the better-looking guy is Pilchard.
I actually saw them, at TAM3. I was sitting at a nearby table, where my view was partially blocked by another person. That’s where they’re at in the first photo, where they’re standing together.
They were sitting with Andrew Mayne between them, having lunch. From the perspective I had, I wasn’t sure if I was looking at the same man, twice… and kept peeking around trying to figure out if I was somehow looking at a mirror next to Mayne…
The similarities appear to be all in style rather than looks from what I can tell from these photos.
Psychology and Astronomy on the same bill, that’s my kind of heaven! Richard, are you doing any of these Amazing Meetings in the south west (UK) in the next few months?
Since I’m one of those thinking the photos aren’t correctly captioned, is this really one of your Quirkology experiments?
The whole topic reminds of an interview Malcolm Glladwell once gave on his puzzlement about other people he kept being mistaken for.
Clearly the vanguard of Adam Savage’s clone army.
Soon they’ll be everywhere, and their rationalism will be overwhelming.
I, for one, welcome our new bespectacled overlords!
I’d imagine the swapped photo captions is a nod towards Private Eye’s “Separated at Birth” column (which now seems to be called Lookalikes)
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=lookalikes
You really should add Adam Savage to the voting options though!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/badastronomy/366667795/
Richard has much better looking ears.
Since I found both of you through the SGU, picked up the books Bad Astronomy and Quikology and read them in the same month, and this and bad astronomy are the only two blogs I read…
I keep the ideas straight, but I do find it odd.
Private Eye got it from Viz though…
Richard, you have better shades of purple.
Yeah the Tam skit you guys did where you switched places was great.
I attended TAM 6 last year and was shocked…It was more like a Really-Handsome-Bald-Guys-With-Glasses Convention than a Skeptics Conference. It was nice for once to blend-in…
You share the same types of features but do not actually look alike. Your heads are shaped differently and when Phil smiles his mouth turns down at the corners and your turn up. Those are the most obvious differences I see in the above photos.
[...] Plait & Wiseman: You Decide! Phil Plait is a writer, astronomer, and all round lovely man. The two of us have often spoken on the same bill at The [...] [...]
[...] my first poll, examining whether Phil ‘Bad Astronomer’ Plait and I looked identical (here). The results are [...]