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The person Bjørn Lomborg
Bjørn Lomborg was born on January 6 1965. Both his parents were engaged in alternative religious/philosophical thinking (theosophy). After a few years, they divorced, and Lomborg moved with his mother from Copenhagen to Aalborg in North Jutland. Here, his mother worked as a healer. She became acquainted with a man who was a musician and the priest of a new-age type of Catholic community, and they moved into his house, where the church room of "Philosophical Society" occupied the first floor. His mother and stepfather brought him up to respect for all living beings, and he has remained a vegetarian to this day. His mother´s and stepfather´s "very alternative" way of thinking made Lomborg used to have and defend points of view very different from those of others.
     In 1983, he graduated from the mathematical branch of the Danish "gymnasium" (senior high school) with a very high average grade. After that, he had a one year study visit in USA during 1983-84.
    After returning to Denmark, Bjørn studied political science at the University of Aarhus, where he graduated in 1991. Next, he carried out a Ph.D. project within the discipline of game theory, which led to a paper in American Sociological Review on "the iterated prisoner´s dilemma"*. This seems to be the only paper from his hand in a scientific journal. He was then appointed to a scientific position (adjunkt = "assistant professor" (USA) "lecturer"(GB)) at the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, and from 1997 onwards he was promoted to the rank of lektor (= "associate professor"(USA) "senior lecturer" (GB)). In his position at Aarhus University he taught courses in statistics, and he became very popular among the students because of his lively, untraditional way of teaching. It should be noted, however, that he has no formal qualification as a statistician.

*Lomborg´s paper has been scrutinized by two students at De Montfort University in Britain, under supervision by Peter Meissner. They conclude that Lomborg´s computer model would hardly be able to yield the results that Lomborg claims it has given, and that Lomborg´s conclusion disagrees with other existing literature. This information was given by Stuart Pimm to Aarhus University in January 2002.

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