Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermeris an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer also engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 September 1954
religious believe reality
...evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. Just as one would not say 'I believe in gravity," one should not proclaim 'I believe in evolution.
fall ideas brain
We want to be open-minded enough to accept radial new ideas when they occasionally come along, but we don't want to be so open-minded that our brains fall out.
cynical principles curious
In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious.
god two soul
'Are science and religion compatible?' It's like [asking]: 'Are science and plumbing compatible?' They're just two different things.
school native-american intelligent
Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life-yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.
intelligent design historical
As Karl Marx once noted: 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.' William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial was a tragedy. The creationists and intelligent design theorists are a farce.
past rejection religion
Science is a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomenon, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.
emotional religion atheism
Remember always that we are pattern-seeking primates who are especially adept at finding patterns with emotional meaning.
television conspiracy producers
Conspiracies are a perennial favorite for television producers because there is always a receptive audience.
errors sides groups
The reason is that in a group, individual errors on either side of the true figure cancel each other out.
soul body entity
Dualists hold that body and soul are separate entities and that the soul will continue beyond the existence of the physical body.
survival enlightenment democracy
Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.
science patterns recognition
But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.
nonlinear unpredictable humans
Human history is highly nonlinear and unpredictable.