How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax, Part 1: The Setup Skeptic 2026-09-26 | How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax, Part 1: The Setup
Science Denial, Distrust, and Skepticism (Nicholas Dirks) Skeptic 2022-11-22 | The Michael Shermer Show # 307Nicholas Dirks is a strong advocate for academic and scientific collaboration across disciplines and recently helped launch the International Science Reserve which compiles technical and human resources scientists to call upon in times of crisis. His work focuses on the critical issues at the intersection of the humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences, including distrust of science and vaccine hesitancy.Shermer and Dirks discuss: vaccine hesitancy • why antibiotics do not generate the same distrust • vaccines and autism • COVID-19 and its differential effects on people • the lab-leak hypothesis vs. the zoonomic hypothesis for the origin of SARS CoV-2 • Anthony Fauci and the CDC • climate denial • how trust in science has changed over the past century • the politicization of science • how to talk to someone who doesn’t trust science or scientists.Nicholas Dirks, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), is an internationally renowned historian and anthropologist. He leads the Academy in promoting science-based solutions to world challenges, including pandemics and global warming. His work at the Academy facilitates the dissemination of scientific information, supports broad access to science education, studies counter bias in academia and the laboratory, and supports scientists across all stages of their careers. He was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has taught at UC Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, and Columbia University. His website is nicholasbdirks.com.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider’s Guide to the Future of Physics (Stephon Alexander) Skeptic 2022-11-15 | The Michael Shermer Show # 306In this important guide to science and society, cosmologist Stephon Alexander argues that physics must embrace the excluded, listen to the unheard, and be unafraid of being wrong. Drawing on his experience as a Black physicist, he makes a powerful case, in his latest book, for diversifying our scientific communities.Shermer and Alexander discuss: his journey from Trinidad to the Bronx to professor of physics • what it’s like being Black in a mostly White and Asian field of science • systemic racism and misogyny • how to be an outsider inside a science • how to tell the difference between revolutionary and worthless new ideas • how do laypeople understand whether something is good science or not? • the double-slit experiment • superposition • connections between quantum physics and Eastern mysticism • creativity • What banged the Big Bang? • Are we living in a matrix? • Deepak Chopra’s mind monism • consciousness and the universe.Stephon Alexander is a professor of theoretical physics at Brown University, an established jazz musician, and an immigrant from Trinidad who grew up in the Bronx. He is the 2020 president of the National Society of Black Physicists and a founding faculty Director of Brown University’s Presidential Scholars program, which boosts underrepresented students. In addition to his academic achievements, he was the scientific consultant to Ava DuVernay for the feature film A Wrinkle in Time. His work has been featured by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WIRED, and many other outlets. He has been a guest on Nova, the Brian Lehrer Show, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk, among much else. The author of Fear of a Black Universe and The Jazz of Physics, Alexander lives in Providence, Rhode Island.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWrenwren.co/shermerSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
On the Future of Books, with Literary Critic and Publishing Insider Bethanne Patrick Skeptic 2022-11-08 | The Michael Shermer Show # 305Shermer and Patrick discuss: her memoir Life B • trends in treatment of depression and other mental diseases • why memoirs by authors who have suffered traumas and stresses in their lives sell so well • non-fiction, fiction, and quasi-nonfictional fiction • censorship and cancel culture in publishing • why the New York Times bestseller list is so influential • the trial over the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House over whether it will lead to a monopsony • the future of publishing and book stores • how writing compares to more accessible forms of content such as film or podcasting • what advice she would give to new would-be authors.Bethanne Patrick is the ultimate literary insider. If you read book reviews, you undoubtedly know Bethanne. Her endorsements in venues like the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and the Boston Globe have moved hundreds of thousands of copies. Check your shelves: chances are you own a book (or three) with a Bethanne blurb on the cover. An influencer in the book world, Bethanne (@TheBookMaven) has over 200K Twitter followers and originated the popular #FridayReads hashtag. The author of two books for National Geographic and editor of an anthology for Regan Arts, Patrick’s debut memoir Life B will be published by Counterpoint in May 2023.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity (Justin Gregg) Skeptic 2022-11-01 | The Michael Shermer Show # 304All our unique gifts like language, math, and science do not make humans happier or more “successful” (evolutionarily speaking) than other species. Our intelligence allowed us to split the atom, but we’ve harnessed that knowledge to make machines of war. We are uniquely susceptible to bullshit; our bizarre obsession with lawns has contributed to the growing threat of climate change; we are sexually diverse like many species yet stand apart as homophobic; and discriminate among our own as if its natural, which it certainly is not. Is our intelligence more of a curse than a gift?Shermer and Gregg discuss: • intelligence • stupidity • dolphins • artificial intelligence • language • rationality • moral systems • comparative thanatology • “causal inference” vs. “learned associations” • humans as “why specialists” • death awareness • why narwhals do not commit genocide • “prognostic myopia” • our “shortsighted farsightedness" as "an extinction-level threat to humanity” • consciousness and sophisticated consciousness: animals and humans • free will • determinism • pleasure vs. happiness vs. purposefulness.Justin Gregg is a Senior Research Associate with the Dolphin Communication Project and an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis Xavier University where he lectures on animal behavior and cognition. Originally from Vermont, Justin studied the echolocation abilities of wild dolphins in Japan and The Bahamas. He currently lives in rural Nova Scotia where he writes about science and contemplates the inner lives of the crows that live near his home.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWrenwren.co/shermerSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational (Michael Shermer) Skeptic 2022-10-25 | The Michael Shermer Show # 303Michael Shermer discusses his new book Conspiracy, out October 25, 2022. In Conspiracy Shermer:• reviews and integrates evolutionary, psychological, social, cultural, political, and economic conditions that fuel conspiracy theories• presents his own original three-tiered theoretical model of Proxy Conspiracism, Tribal Conspiracism, and Constructive Conspiracism• classifies and systematizes conspiracy theories in order to tease apart their different causes (incl. JFK’s assassination, the 9/11 Truth movement, Pizzagate, QAnon, the Big Lie, Project MKULTRA, Operation Paperclip, and the perennial conspiracy theories surrounding UFOs)• offers his Conspiracy Detection Kit on how to tell if a conspiracy theory is true, false, or undecidable• and suggests how to talk to a conspiracy theorist.You can order your copy on Amazon and Audible now.Order the hardcover: amzn.to/3Eza8LfOrder the audiobook: adbl.co/3eGXkaTSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermerSUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Primacy of Doubt: How the Science of Uncertainty Helps Us Understand Our Chaotic World (Tim Palmer) Skeptic 2022-10-18 | The Michael Shermer Show # 302Why does your weather app say “There’s a 10% chance of rain” instead of “It will be sunny tomorrow”? In large part this is due to the insight of Tim Palmer, who made uncertainty essential to the study of weather and climate. Now he wants to apply it to how we study everything else.In The Primacy of Doubt, Palmer argues that embracing the mathematics of uncertainty is vital to understanding ourselves and the universe around us. Whether we want to predict climate change or market crashes, understand how the brain is able to outpace supercomputers, or find a theory that links quantum and cosmological physics, Palmer shows how his vision of mathematical uncertainty provides new insights into some of the deepest problems in science. The result is a revolution—one that shows that power begins by embracing what we don’t know.Shermer and Palmer discuss: doubt and skepticism • when doubt slides into denial • uncertainty as a measurement problem vs. inherent in natural systems • contingency and necessity, randomness and law • the butterfly effect • the geometry of chaos • quantum uncertainty • weather forecasting • climate change • pandemics • economic recessions • human decision making and creativity • free will • consciousness, and God.Tim Palmer, FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society), CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) is a Royal Society Research Professor in the department of physics at the University of Oxford. He pioneered the development of operational ensemble weather and climate forecasting, and in 2007, he was formally recognized as having contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Nobel Peace Prize. Palmer is a Commander of the British Empire, a fellow of the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Institute of Physics’ Dirac Gold Medal. He lives near Oxford, UK.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWrenwren.co/shermerSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States (Alan Blinder) Skeptic 2022-10-12 | The Michael Shermer Show # 301Shermer and Blinder discuss: serving on Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers • being the Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board • What kind of science is economics? • how one’s political leanings influence cause-and-effect economic theories • the difference between monetary and fiscal policy • a Keynesian approach to economics • inflation, stagflation, recessions, depressions, Bull and Bear markets defined • interest rates • the Federal Reserve • the money supply • What makes money valuable without the gold standard? • how the government can give billions of dollars in COVID relief and other programs • deficit spending • business cycles/boom-and-bust cycles • Reagonomics/trickle-down economics • Is GDP the best measure of an economy’s success? • unemployment and full employment: what’s the right percentage? • income tax: what’s the right percentage? • the best investments to make in the long run • modern monetary theory, and • utility maximizing.Alan S. Blinder is the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, a former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, and a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. A regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal, he is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life (Saleem Ali) Skeptic 2022-10-04 | The Michael Shermer Show # 300Shermer and Ali discuss: • the search for structure in nature • order and randomness • economic laws • natural laws • natural orders: molecular, quantum, crystals, carbonic, nuclear, magnetic • hydrological, organismic, Gaia and Medea • reductionism and holism • Islamic economics • the origin of wealth • Is there an optimal economic order? • how mining rights work in the U.S. and elsewhere • the voter’s paradox • Pareto optimality and why we can’t achieve it • resource nationalism • the resource curse • why India and Pakistan have not used their nukes on each other • social orders • population and sustainability: neo-Malthusianism • How many people can the Earth hold? • why we need nuclear power for sustainability • internationalism and globalism • Trekonomics.Saleem H. Ali was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts but grew up in Lahore, Pakistan until his college years, receiving his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Tufts University, and his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in environmental policy and planning at Yale and MIT, respectively. He currently holds the Blue and Gold Distinguished Professorship in Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware and is Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland (Australia). Dr. Ali’s laurels include being a National Geographic Explorer (having travelled for research to over 150 countries); being chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and serving on the seven-member science panel of the Global Environment Facility (the world’s largest multilateral trust fund for the environment held in trusteeship by the World Bank). His earlier books include Treasures of the Earth: Need Greed and a Sustainable Future. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Geographical Society in the United Kingdom and also serves on the boards of Adventure Scientists and Mediators Beyond Borders International. Along with his wife Maria and sons Shahmir and Shahroze, the family are citizens of Australia, Pakistan and the United States.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWrenwren.co/shermerSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It (Richard Reeves) Skeptic 2022-09-29 | The Michael Shermer Show # 299Shermer and Reeves discuss: • comparison method: U.S. vs. other WERID countries • education • work/labor market • family • marriage • Divorce/custody/spousal support/child support • intersectionality I: Black boys and men vs. White boys and men • intersectionality II: poor boys and men vs. middle class/upper class boys and men • What is a man? (nature and nurture in the making of a male) • what the political left gets wrong about boys and men • what the political right gets wrong about boys and men • solutions: red shirt boys early; men in STEM and HEAL • fatherhood as an independent institutionRichard V. Reeves is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, where he directs the Boys and Men Project and holds the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair. He is the author of Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It (2017) and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateANTARCTICA EXPEDITIONskeptic.com/Antarctica2023SPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization (Neil deGrasse Tyson) Skeptic 2022-09-20 | The Michael Shermer Show # 298Shermer and Tyson discuss: why he decided to write about social, cultural, and political issues now • conflict and resolution in science and society • moral progress in society and why it happens • meatarians and vegetarians • race and gender • law and order • the principle of interchangeable perspectives • conflicting rights and how to resolve them • Rationalia (Neil’s hypothetical country whose laws are based on rationality) • life and death • how long Neil would like to live • the meaning in life.Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and the author of the #1 bestselling Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, among other books. He is the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, where he has served since 1996. Dr. Tyson is also the host and cofounder of the Emmy-nominated popular podcast StarTalk and its spinoff StarTalk Sports Edition, which combine science, humor, and pop culture. He is a recipient of 21 honorary doctorates, the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, and the Distinguished Public Service Medal from NASA. Asteroid 13123 Tyson is named in his honor. He lives in New York City.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World (Andrew Doyle) Skeptic 2022-09-13 | The Michael Shermer Show # 297Shermer and Doyle discuss: terminology of: PC, identity politics, woken, social justice, antifa, BLM, TERF, intersectionality • Critical Social Justice as a witch craze • Satanic Panic (1980s) • Recovered Memory Movement (1990s) • How widespread is the problem: minor skirmishes on social media or mainstream? • Hill-Harris 2021 poll: 32% voters ID as woke and 31% said they don’t know what the term means • new puritanism as a secular religion • Whiteness and White fragility • Implicit Association Test • Postmodernism • Neo-Marxism • Cancel Culture • hate speech • J.K. Rowling • pluralistic ignorance.Andrew Doyle is a writer, satirist and political commentator. He regularly appears on television to discuss current affairs, and is a panelist on the BBC’s Moral Maze. He has written for a number of publications, including the Telegraph, Sun, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Standpoint, Spectator, and Sunday Times. He is the creator of satirical character Titania McGrath, under whose name he has written two books: Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism, both published by Little, Brown. Titania McGrath has over half a million followers on Twitter. He was formerly a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, and a lecturer at Oxford University where he completed his doctorate. His previous book was Free Speech and Why it Matters. His new book is The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Jane Elliott’s Famous Experiment on Race and Brutality (Stephen Bloom) Skeptic 2022-09-06 | The Michael Shermer Show # 296This conversation explores the never-before-told true story of Jane Elliott and the “Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment” she made world-famous, using eye color to simulate racism.Shermer and Bloom discuss: Jane Elliott and how she came to conduct her famous experiment • reactions to it (in the classroom, locally, nationally, internationally) • whether the “experiment” was really more of a demonstration • public interest, from Johnny Carson to Oprah Winfrey • the questionable ethics of the experiment • what it reveals about tribalism, racism, obedience to authority, role playing, social proof • whether the experiment reveals hidden racist attitudes or creates them in children • Does it indicate bad apples or bad barrels? • race sensitivity training programs, then and now (and why they don’t really work) • what drives moral progress • the future of journalism.Stephen Bloom is a professor of journalism at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes: A Cautionary Tale of Race and Brutality (University of California Press, 2021); The Audacity of Inez Burns: Dreams, Desire, Treachery & Ruin in the City of Gold (Regan Arts, 2018); Tears of Mermaids: The Secret Story of Pearls (St. Martin’s Press, 2011); The Oxford Project [with photographer Peter Feldstein] (Welcome Books, 2010); Inside the Writer’s Mind (Wiley, 2002); and Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America (Harcourt, 2000). He has worked for the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Latin America Daily Post, and Field News Service. He especially likes writing about every man/woman: the barista, bartender, baker, butcher, barber — or murderer-turned-prison employee.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWrenwren.co/shermerSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Superabundance: Innovation and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet (Tupy & Pooley) Skeptic 2022-08-30 | The Michael Shermer Show # 295Is it true that the world’s rapidly growing population is consuming the planet’s natural resources at an alarming rate that would require two Earths to satisfy the demand for natural resources by 2030? Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more abundant as the population grew. They also found that resource abundance increased faster than the population. On average, every additional human being created more value than he or she consumed.Shermer, Tupy, and Pooley discuss: why we long for the “good ol’ days” • the Malthusian trap • Ehrlich’s predictions on overpopulation • the birth dearth • the Simon Abundance Index • compound interest • What does it mean for the economy to grow 2–3% a year? • accumulating wealth • what poorer countries need to do to become richer countries • running out of fossil fuels • Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech • inflation • electric vehicles • How many people can the Earth sustain? • post-scarcity trekonomics • the future of religion and other social institutions in a superabundant world.Marian Tupy is the editor of HumanProgress.org, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, and coauthor of the Simon Abundance Index. He specializes in globalization and global well-being and the politics and economics of Europe and Southern Africa. He is the coauthor of Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know: And Many Others You Will Find Interesting (Cato Institute, 2020). His articles have been published in the Financial Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Newsweek, the UK Spectator, Foreign Policy, and various other outlets in the United States and overseas. He has appeared on BBC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, and other channels. Tupy received his BA in international relations and classics from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and his PhD in international relations from the University of St. Andrews in Great Britain.Gale Pooley is an associate professor of business management at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. He has taught economics and statistics at Alfaisal Univerity in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Brigham Young University-Idaho; Boise State University; and the College of Idaho. Pooley has held professional designations from the Appraisal Institute, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the CCIM Institute. He has published articles in National Review, HumanProgress.org, The American Spectator, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Utah Bar Journal, the Appraisal Journal, Quillette, Forbes, and RealClearMarkets. His major research activity has been the Simon Abundance Index, which he coauthored with Marian Tupy.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions (Sabine Hossenfelder) Skeptic 2022-08-23 | The Michael Shermer Show # 294What is time? Does the past still exist? How did the universe begin and how will it end? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Why doesn’t anyone ever get younger? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much can we know? The area of science that is closest to answering these questions is physics. Over the last century, physicists have learned a lot about which spiritual ideas are still compatible with the laws of nature. Not always, though, have they stayed on the scientific side of the debate.Shermer and Hossenfelder also discuss: theories of everything • quantum flapdoodle • Is math all there is? Is math universal? • Uniformitarianism and the laws of nature • theories of aging • Emergent properties, or why we are not just a bag of atoms • Is knowledge predictable? • Free will and determinism from a physicist’s perspective • Do copies of us exist? Could they ever? • Consciousness and computability • Does the universe think? • Why is there something rather than nothing? • What is the purpose of life, the universe, and everything?Sabine Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany, and has published more than eighty research articles about the foundations of physics, including quantum gravity, physics beyond the standard model, dark matter, and quantum foundations. She has written about physics for a broad audience for 15 years and is the creator of the popular YouTube channel “Science without the Gobbledygook.” Her writing has been published in New Scientist, Scientific American, the New York Times, and the Guardian (London). Her first book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, appeared in 2018.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (Konstantin Kisin) Skeptic 2022-08-19 | The Michael Shermer Show # 293Shermer and Kisin discuss: growing up in Russia • “The Talk” Russian parents give their children • What is the “West” and how do Russians view it • Should Whites feel some guilt for slavery, racism, misogyny, bigotry, etc.? • systemic racism: criminal justice, housing, employment, income, wealth • Critical Race Theory (CRT) • immigration • free, private, and public speech • how language is used to distort truth • the origin of “political correctness” • journalism vs. activism • capitalism • and how the West could be lost.Konstantin Kisin is a journalist, comedian, voiceover actor and social commentator. Born in the Soviet Union, where he experienced both untold wealth and grinding poverty, he moved to the UK when he was 13 years old. Now an award-winning performer, he co-presents the popular YouTube series Triggernometry alongside Francis Foster. Together, they’ve interviewed some of the most in-demand intellectuals of our age, such as Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson and many others.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust (Gary Marcus) Skeptic 2022-08-16 | The Michael Shermer Show # 292Despite the hype surrounding AI, creating an intelligence that rivals or exceeds human levels is far more complicated than we have been led to believe. The achievements in the field thus far have occurred in closed systems with fixed sets of rules, and these approaches are too narrow to achieve genuine intelligence. The real world, in contrast, is wildly complex and open-ended. How can we bridge this gap? What will the consequences be when we do?Shermer and Marcus discuss: why AI chatbot LaMDA is not sentient • “mind”, “thinking”, and “consciousness”, and how do molecules and matter give rise to such nonmaterial processes • the hard problem of consciousness • the self and other minds • How would we know if an AI system was sentient? • Can AI systems be conscious? • free will, determinism, compatibilism, and panpsychism • language • Can we have an inner life without language? • How rational or irrational an animal are we?Gary Marcus is a scientist, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. He is Founder and CEO of Robust.AI, and was Founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company acquired by Uber in 2016. He is the author of five books, including The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and the New York Times best seller Guitar Zero, as well as editor of The Future of the Brain and The Norton Psychology Reader. He has published extensively in fields ranging from human and animal behavior to neuroscience, genetics, linguistics, evolutionary psychology and artificial intelligence, often in leading journals such as Science and Nature, and is perhaps the youngest Professor Emeritus at NYU. His newest book, co-authored with Ernest Davis, Rebooting AI: Building Machines We Can Trust aims to shake up the field of artificial intelligence.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWrenwren.co/shermerSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Silent Influence — The Science of Writing, Reading, and Communicating (Rob Ashton) Skeptic 2022-08-09 | The Michael Shermer Show # 291Shermer and Ashton discuss: what it’s like advising Google and Buckingham Palace on how to communicate • what makes writing appealing and effective • how to write better emails and social media posts • why the messages we write often backfire • why emails so often make us angry • How has written communication changed in the last five years? • What makes Donald Trump such a powerful communicator that he can seemingly hypnotize tens of millions of people and dictate entire news cycles with a single statement? • when you should stop writing and pick up the phone to talk instead • How much information is too much?Rob Ashton is a writer, editor, and a former research scientist (a molecular biology researcher who helped develop the first tests for HIV). For the last six years, he’s been on a quest to discover the science of how the words we read and write affect what we think and do. His experience includes 24 years advising some of the biggest names in commerce, such as Google, as well as working with national governments, charities and even the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace, all in an effort to help their people communicate more effectively in writing. He calls writing ‘the invisible medium’. And he believes much of the misunderstanding in the world stems from our increasing reliance on our keyboards and phone screens to ‘talk’ to each other. But he says it’s always frustrated him that so much of the communication advice on the web and pushed by consultants is based on a mixture of pseudoscience, hearsay and wishful thinking. Read more at: robashton.com/influenceSUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Eat like a Pig, Run Like a Horse (Anastacia Marx de Salcedo) Skeptic 2022-08-02 | The Michael Shermer Show # 290Shermer and de Salcedo discuss: her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 27 • her long-term psychological strategy for living with a serious illness • what “eating like a pig” actually means • our 70-year-old “diet detour” • the obesity crisis • how dietary studies are conducted • the baseline health of lab rats • static vs. dynamic metabolism • diseases you can treat, manage, or prevent with exercise • cholesterol and statins • why exercise is more important than diet • how you can have your cake and eat it, too.Anastacia Marx de Salcedo is a food writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Slate, the Boston Globe, and Gourmet magazine and on PBS and NPR blogs. She’s worked as a public health consultant, news magazine publisher, and public policy researcher. She is the author of Combat-Ready Kitchen and lives in Boston, MA. Visit AnastaciaMarxdeSalcedo.com.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington (James Kirchick) Skeptic 2022-07-26 | The Michael Shermer Show # 289SPONSORThis episode is sponsored by Wren. Signup at wren.co/shermer and Wren will plant 10 trees in your name. Start a monthly subscription to fund climate solutions.EPISODE DESCRIPTIONShermer and Kirchick discuss: archives and secret sources of secret histories • the cause of homophobia, and how and why homosexuality was thought of as a “contagious sexual aberrancy” • why there is no lesbian history of Washington • J. Edgar Hoover, Clyde Tolson and gay mythmaking • FDR and Sumner Welles • why at the height of the Cold War, it was safer to be a Communist than a homosexual • Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss • the McCarthy hearings and how the Lavender Menace became inextricably linked with the Red Menace • astronomer Franklin Kameny and the Mattachine Society • JFK and his tolerance of homosexuality • Richard Nixon’s notorious homophobia • Ronald Reagan’s conflicting attitudes toward homosexuality • George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and real progress in acceptance of homosexuality • the trans movement and its homophobic consequences.ABOUT THE GUESTJames Kirchick has written about human rights, politics, and culture from around the world. A columnist for Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, he is the author of The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age. Kirchick’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the New York Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement. A graduate of Yale with degrees in history and political science, he resides in Washington, DC.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
On the Female of the Species (Lucy Cooke) Skeptic 2022-07-19 | The Michael Shermer Show # 288Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted. In her new book Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same — sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us a new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as males. This isn’t your grandfather’s (or Darwin’s) evolutionary biology. It’s more inclusive, and truer to life.Shermer and Cooke discuss: the definition of male and female across the animal kingdom • male bias in the history of science • genes involved in sex determination and how they work • natural selection • sexual selection • adaptationism vs. non-adaptationism in evolutionary theory • Why do men have nipples? • Why do women have orgasms? • why female animals are just as promiscuous, competitive, aggressive, dominant and dynamic as males • what humans can learn from non-human animals • maternal and paternal instincts • patriarchy and matriarchy across the animal kingdom • and why the sexes are far more alike than they are different.Lucy Cooke is the author of The Truth About Animals, which was short-listed for the Royal Society Prize, and the New York Times bestselling A Little Book of Sloth. She is a National Geographic explorer, TED talker, and award-winning documentary filmmaker with a master’s degree in zoology from Oxford University. She lives in Hastings, England.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Life, the Universe, and Cosmic Complexity (Bobby Azarian) Skeptic 2022-07-12 | The Michael Shermer Show # 287In this conversation based on his new book, The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains how for centuries the question Why do we exist? was the sole province of religion and philosophy. According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and the emergence of life is an accident devoid of meaning. But Azarian argues that out of complexity science and the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight, and that life is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness. Carl Sagan was right when he said of humanity that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”Shermer and Azarian discuss: laws of thermodynamics and directionality • how complexity formed after the Big Bang • laws of nature: discovered or created or both? • Stephen Jay Gould and contingency vs. necessitating laws of nature • convergent evolution and directionality in evolution • the left wall of simplicity • leading theories for the origin of life • complexity theory and emergence • consciousness, the self, and other minds • free will, determinism, compatibilism, panpsychism • Is there purpose in the cosmos?Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist (PhD, George Mason University) and a science journalist. He has written 100+ articles — many reaching millions of views — about science, technology, and philosophy for publications including The Atlantic, New York Times, BBC Future, Scientific American, Slate, Huffington Post, Quartz, Daily Beast, Aeon, among others. Azarian has authored numerous academic papers, published in peer-reviewed journals such as Human Brain Mapping, Cognition & Emotion, and Acta Psychologica. His blog “Mind in the Machine,” hosted by Psychology Today, has received over 8 million views. Azarian worked with The Atlantic and Huffington Post to create viral videos, which he helped write the scripts for and narrated.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
How Societies Change and Why (Kevin McCaffree) Skeptic 2022-07-09 | The Michael Shermer Show # 286Since the dawn of social science, theorists have debated how and why societies appear to change, develop and evolve. Today, this question is pursued by scholars across many different disciplines and our understanding of these dynamics has grown markedly. Yet, there remain important areas of disagreement and debate: what is the difference between societal change, development and evolution? What specific aspects of cultures change, develop or evolve and why? Do societies change, develop or evolve in particular ways, perhaps according to cycles, or stages or in response to survival necessities? How do different disciplines — from sociology to anthropology to psychology and economics — approach these questions? After 10,000 years of history, what does the future hold for culture and society?Shermer and McCaffree discuss: McCaffree’s experience being trained as a cop, his research on crime, and his thoughts on the recent spike in crime and violence • Is there any way to solve the problem of gun violence? • how sociologists think about human and social action • diversity, equity, and inclusion • Is the current political polarization really worse than it’s been? • cultural evolution vs. biological evolution • horizontal/equalitarian vs. vertical/hierarchical societies • human selfishness and the problem of altruism • between-group and within-group competition and cooperation • fission-fusion in primate bands • Oscillation-Infrastructural Theory of Cultural Evolution • and what the future holds for humanity and society, and more…Dr. Kevin McCaffree is a professor of sociology at the University of North Texas. He is the author or co-author of five books, co-editor of Theoretical Sociology: The Future of a Disciplinary Foundation and series co-editor (with Jonathan H. Turner) of Evolutionary Analysis in the Social Sciences. In addition to these works, he has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and handbook chapters on a variety of topics ranging from cultural evolution to criminology to the sociology of empathy. His two books include Cultural Evolution: The Empirical and Theoretical Landscape, and The Dance of Innovation: Infrastructure, Social Oscillation, and the Evolution of Societies. Along with Anondah Saide, he is one of the two chief researchers for the Skeptic Research Center, and Michael Shermer had the honor of serving on his dissertation committee for his Ph.D. thesis on the rise of the Nones — those who hold no religious affiliation.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (Helen Joyce) Skeptic 2022-07-05 | The Michael Shermer Show # 285Biological sex is no longer accepted as a basic fact of life. It is forbidden to admit that female people sometimes need protection and privacy from male ones. In an analysis that is at once expert, sympathetic and urgent, Helen Joyce offers an antidote to the chaos and cancelling.Shermer and Joyce discuss: What is a woman? What is a man? • conflicting rights: trans vs. women • sex vs. gender; who you identify as vs. who you are attracted to • cross-sex identification • gender dysphoria • social contagions • gender affirming care • puberty blockers, testosterone, hormone treatment • detransitioning • top surgery, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty • preferred pronouns: compelled speech ≠ free speech • trans sports • exclusive spaces, and more…Helen Joyce is a senior staff journalist at The Economist, where she has held several positions, including Britain editor, Finance editor and International editor. Before joining The Economist in 2005 she edited Plus, an online magazine about mathematics published by the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in mathematics from University College London. On Twitter, she is @HJoyceGender.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Traditional Conservatism vs. Enlightenment Liberalism (Yoram Hazony) Skeptic 2022-06-28 | The Michael Shermer Show # 284In this conversation based on his new book, political theorist Yoram Hazony argues that the best hope for Western democracy is a return to the empiricist, religious, and nationalist traditions of America and Britain, a distinctive alternative to divine-right monarchy, Puritan theocracy, and liberal revolution. After tracing the tradition from the Wars of the Roses to Burke and across the Atlantic to the American Federalists and Lincoln, Hazony describes the rise and fall of Enlightenment liberalism after World War II and the present-day debates between neoconservatives and national conservatives over how to respond to liberalism and the woke left.In response, Shermer makes the case for Enlightenment liberalism, with its focus on science and reason, as the primary driver of moral progress over the centuries. Hazony criticizes the modern left with its focus on identity politics, while Shermer counters that while the illiberalism of the left can be problematic, a far greater threat to individual liberty and personal autonomy—the bedrock of Enlightenment liberalism—comes from religious and nationalist conservatism on the right.Yoram Hazony, an award-winning political theorist, is the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation in Washington and the president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem. His previous book, The Virtue of Nationalism (Basic Books, 2018), was named Conservative Book of the Year for 2019 by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and has been translated into half a dozen languages. He appears frequently in the U.S. media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fox News, CNN, NPR, Time, The New Republic, The Ben Shapiro Show, and the Rubin Report. A graduate of Princeton University (B.A.) and Rutgers (Ph.D.), Hazony lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
How Irrationality Created Modern Science (Michael Strevens) Skeptic 2022-06-25 | The Michael Shermer Show # 283Shermer and Strevens discuss: irrationality and how it drives science • the scientific method • the knowledge machine • irrationality • the replication crisis, what caused it, and what to do about it • verification vs. falsification • the iron rule of explanation • Bayesian reasoning vs. falsification • climate/evolution skeptics • model dependent realism • morality • humanism • theistic arguments for: God, origin of life, morality, consciousness • known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns • Why should we believe Anthony Fauci? • how to evaluate media sources of science.If is science so powerful why did it take so long — two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics — for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? Philosopher of science Michael Strevens argues that science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Using a plethora of vivid historical examples, Strevens demonstrates that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature.Michael Strevens, a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, is a professor of philosophy at New York University. He was born in New Zealand and has been writing about philosophy of science for twenty-five years. He lives in New York.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Hard Problem of Consciousness, the Self, and the Essence of Volition (Anil Seth) Skeptic 2022-06-21 | The Michael Shermer Show # 282Shermer and Seth discuss: “mind” and “consciousness” in context of understanding how molecules and matter give rise to such nonmaterial processes • controlled hallucinations • the hard problem of consciousness • the self and other minds • consciousness and self-awareness as emergent properties • Where does consciousness go during general anaesthesia? After death? • Star Trek TNG episode 138 “Ship in a Bottle”: a VR inside a VR that is indistinguishable from reality • Are we living in a simulation that itself is inside a simulation? • Does Deep Blue know that it beat the great Gary Kasparov in chess? • Does Watson know that it beat the great Ken Jennings in Jeopardy!? • Is Data on Star Trek sentient, conscious, and with feelings? • Can AI systems be conscious? • free will, determinism, compatibilism, and panpsychism.Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he co-directs of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. Dr. Seth is Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press) and he sits on the Editorial Board of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and on the Advisory Committee for 1907 Research and for Chile’s Congreso Futuro. His new book is Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Moneyball For Your Life: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz on Using Data to Get What You Really Want Skeptic 2022-06-18 | The Michael Shermer Show # 281Most people rely on their gut instinct to decide how to date, who to marry, where to live, what career path to take, how to find happiness, but what if our gut is wrong? Biased, unpredictable, and misinformed, our gut, it turns out, is not all that reliable. Data from hundreds of thousands of dating profiles have revealed surprising successful strategies to get a date; data from hundreds of millions of tax records have uncovered the best places to raise children; data from millions of career trajectories have found previously unknown reasons why some rise to the top.Hard facts and figures consistently contradict our instincts and demonstrate self-help that actually works — whether it involves the best time in life to start a business or how happy it actually makes us to skip a friend’s birthday party for a night of Netflix on the couch. From the boring careers that produce the most wealth, to the old-school, data-backed relationship advice so well-worn it’s become a literal joke, Stephens-Davidowitz unearths the startling conclusions that the right data can teach us about who we are and what will make our lives better.Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times, a lecturer at The Wharton School, and a former Google data scientist. He received a BA from Stanford and a PhD from Harvard. His research has appeared in the Journal of Public Economics and other prestigious publications. His previous book, Everybody Lies, was a New York Times bestseller and an Economist Book of the Year. He lives in Brooklyn and is a passionate fan of the Mets, Knicks, Jets, and Leonard Cohen.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Party Polarization in the Postwar United States (Sam Rosenfeld) Skeptic 2022-06-14 | The Michael Shermer Show # 280Shermer and Rosenfeld discuss: why we have a duopoly • gerrymandering • voting restrictions • how we know all elections are not rigged • abortion • immigration • US foreign policy • the rise of conservative and liberal think tanks • ideology • political polarization • political leanings of industrialists vs. tech billionaires and rural poor vs. urban poor • Trump and 2016, 2020, and 2024 (are we facing civil unrest as never seen before?), and more…Sam Rosenfeld is Associate Professor of Political Science at Colgate University, specializing in party politics and American political development. His research interests include the history of political parties, the intersection of social movements and formal politics, and the politics of social and economic policymaking. His book, The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (University of Chicago Press, 2018), offers an intellectual and institutional history of party polarization in the postwar United States. With Daniel Schlozman at Johns Hopkins University, he is currently writing a book on party development since the Founding, provisionally titled The Hollow Parties. His writing has also appeared in The American Prospect, Boston Review, Democracy, The New Republic, The New York Times, Politico, The Washington Post, and Vox.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate SPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Deep Time and Big History with Ian Morris Skeptic 2022-06-11 | The Michael Shermer Show # 279In this conversation on deep time and big history, Shermer and Morris discuss the history of Big History, the future of energy and civilization, China and the future of energy and political power, what Britain was like 8000 years ago, the major transitions in British history, counterfactual history, slavery and the abolition of the slave trade, the role of ideas in history (civil rights, rule of law, justice, etc.), reparations and making right the wrongs of the past.Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Professor in History at Stanford University and the author of the critically acclaimed Why the West Rules — for Now, as well as The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations; Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve; and War! What is it Good For? He has published many scholarly books and has directed excavations in Greece and Italy. His new book is Geography is Destiny: Britain’s Place in the World: A 10,000-Year History.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Transhumanism, Interstellar Migrations, the Fate of Our Species, the End of Time (David Christian) Skeptic 2022-06-07 | The Michael Shermer Show # 278The future is uncertain, a bit spooky, possibly dangerous, maybe wonderful. We cope with this never-ending uncertainty by telling stories about the future: future stories. How do we construct those stories? Where is the future, the place where we set those stories? Can we trust our future stories? And what sort of futures do they show us? David Christian is renowned for pioneering the emerging discipline of Big History, which surveys the whole of the past. In this conversation, he reveals what he thinks the future holds for our species.Shermer and Christian discuss: past patterns projected into the future • What is time and when do the past and future begin? • How long is the present “now”? • A-Series Time and B-Series Time • time as the 4th dimension • chaos theory and predicting the future • entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the direction of time • general relativity and time • how we experience time psychologically and anthropologically • likelihood of outcomes and Bayesian probabilities • how organisms manage the future • how human organisms manage the future • how futurists think about the future • how people in the past thought about the future • the next 100, 1,000, and 10,000 years • the next million years, and the end of time.David Christian is a Professor Emeritus at Macquarie University, where he was formerly a Distinguished Professor of History and the director of the Big History Institute. He cofounded the Big History Project with Bill Gates, his Coursera MOOCs are popular around the world, and he is cocreator of the Macquarie University Big History School. He has delivered keynotes at conferences around the world, including the Davos World Economic Forum, and his TED Talk has been viewed more than 12 million times. He is the author of numerous books and articles, as well as the New York Times bestseller Origin Story.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer #skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
How to Think About Conspiracy Theories, JFK Assassination (Michel Gagné) Skeptic 2022-06-04 | The Michael Shermer Show # 277As we approach the sixtieth anniversary of the violent public assassination of President John F. Kennedy, over half of all Americans surveyed continue to believe that he was killed by a conspiracy involving multiple assassins.Shermer and Gagné discuss: conspiracies and conspiracy theories • what role conspiracy theories play in society • who believes conspiracy theories and why • why conspiracy theorists rewrite the past • paranoid skepticism as a role in conspiracism • Oliver Stone’s “alternative version of history” • scapegoat theory of conspiracism (Rene Girard) and the military industrial complex • Marx’s dialectical materialism and conspiracism: all life is a battle between rival tribes • stolen future theory of conspiracism: there but for the conspiracy… • common themes in conspiracy theories like JFK, 9/11 Truth, Obama Birtherism, QAnon, Rigged Election and many others • JFK: the lone-gunman theory vs. hundreds of conspiracy theories • the nostalgic myth of “Camelot” and balancing the ledger of moral outrage • when Jack Became Jesus: JFK as a crucified Jesus • who was Lee Harvey Oswald and why did he kill Kennedy? • Cuba, Castro, the Bay of Pigs debacle, and Operation Northwoods • the CIA and why it is rational to be skeptical of their activities • how to determine if a conspiracy theory is true, false, or uncertain • epistemology, truth claims, how to evaluate evidence, knowledge as justified true belief • knowing vs. believing: I don’t want to believe in anything that must be believed in to be true • empirical truths vs. mythic truths • Did the resurrection of Jesus really happen or is it a mythological narrative with moral meaning.Michel Jacques Gagné teaches courses in critical thinking, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and ethics in the Humanities Department of Champlain College Saint-Lambert, located near Montreal, Canada. His podcast is called Paranoid Planet and his latest book under discussion is Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Andrew Yang — Not Left. Not Right. Forward. Skeptic 2022-05-31 | The Michael Shermer Show # 276Michael Shermer speaks with Andrew Yang about the Forward Party, the future of politics in a party duopoly, political partisanship, and how to bring about the change we need. This conversation is based on Yang’s new book Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy.Shermer and Yang discuss: why we have a political duopoly, instead of, say, 7 parties like in Germany • ranked-choice voting and open primaries • gerrymandering and voting restriction laws and policies • the Rational Public • fairness doctrine • local journalism, newspapers, and TV stations • term limits • nonpartisan primaries • data as a property right • Department of Technology • Universal Basic Income (UBI) • reparations • abortion • the polarization of radio, television, and social media • ideology and political polarization • Trump in 2016, 2020 … and 2024? • what it’s like to run for President • what his fellow politicians are really like in person • what he learned on the campaign trail • how his many failures in life prepared him for political campaigning • why market solutions to social media polarization won’t work • why you should join the Forward Party even if you don’t agree with all their points.Andrew Yang was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and a 2021 candidate for mayor of New York City. Named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship, he is the founder of Humanity Forward and Venture for America. Yang’s New York Times bestselling book The War on Normal People helped introduce the idea of universal basic income into the political mainstream. Yang is a graduate of Brown University, where he graduated with degrees in economics and political science, and Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He lives with his family in New York.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
What Happens to Identity When the Brain Is Assaulted by Disease and Injury? (Noga Arikha) Skeptic 2022-05-28 | The Michael Shermer Show # 275Shermer and Arikha discuss: what it means for a mind to be disrupted • dementia, senility, and Alzheimer’s disease • mental illness and the labeling problem • the social construction of mental illness • neurology and psychiatry • agency and volition • memory and amnesia • autobiographical memory • self and embodied self • brain modularity • brain as a machine • emotions and cognition: bodily changes first then the awareness of the emotion • conversion disorder/hysteria • depression • metacognition: thinking about thinking • exteroception and interoception.Noga Arikha is a philosopher and historian of ideas. The author of Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours, she is associate fellow of the Warburg Institute and honorary fellow of the Center for the Politics of Feelings, London, and research associate at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris. She is based in Florence, Italy.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Sex and Gender Across the Primate Spectrum (Frans De Waal) Skeptic 2022-05-24 | The Michael Shermer Show # 274What is gender? How different are men and women? Are differences due to biological sex or to culture? How do they compare with what is known about our fellow primates? Do apes also culturally learn their sex roles or is “gender” uniquely human?Shermer and de Waal discuss: sex and gender in humans, primates, and mammals • who you identify as vs. who you’re attracted to • binary vs. nonbinary vs. continuum: how fuzzy can human sex categories be for a sexually reproducing species? • gender differences in physical and mental characteristics • why would homosexuality evolve? • chimpanzees and bonobos • what is the “purpose” of orgasms in women, nipples in men? • myths of the demure female • rape in humans and other primates: what is the purpose — sex, power or both? • murder, and human violence: how do men and women differ? • dominance and power • rivalry, friendship, competition and cooperation • maternal and paternal care of the young • same-sex sex • monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, etc. in humans, primates & mammals • grandmother hypothesis • primates & primatologists, humans & anthropologists: bias in science • the future of primates and primatology.Frans de Waal has been named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. The author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? among many other works, he is the C. H. Candler Professor in Emory University’s Psychology Department and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
The Russian Riddle Wrapped in a Ukrainian Mystery Inside an American Enigma (Cathy Young) Skeptic 2022-05-21 | The Michael Shermer Show # 273Shermer and Young discuss: Florida’s “Don’t say ‘gay’” law • What is the appropriate age to discuss sex and gender issues with children? • sex, gender, and trans matters • Critical Race Theory, race and racism, and age appropriate discussions • white privilege and racial profiling • social media and political polarization • Putin, Russia, and Ukraine • Is there a Russian character that differs from that of Europeans or Americans? • What is Putin’s character and what does he want? • Aleksandr Dugin: Putin’s Rasputin and the drive to make Russia great again • What happens if Putin succeeds in Ukraine? What if he fails? • How should the west treat Russia and Putin in the future? • Should Putin be put on trial for war crimes? • U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and its consequences • Could the conflict escalate from armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine to NATO and the U.S. and result in the use of tactical nuclear weapons and in the end global thermonuclear war? • What should NATO do now or in the near future? • From Soviet USSR to post-1990 Russia to Putin-Russia • Russian invasion of Ukraine moral equivalent to U.S. invasion of Iraq? • The moral equivalency between American foreign policy and Russian aggression.Cathy Young is a writer at The Bulwark. She is also a cultural studies fellow at the Cato Institute, a columnist for Newsday, and a contributing editor to Reason. Previously, she was an associate editor at ArcDigital and a columnist for the Boston Globe, the Detroit News, and RealClearPolitics. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Week, Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, Quillette, the New Republic, and elsewhere. Young was born in Moscow and came to the United States with her family in 1980 and is the author of two books: Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality (Free Press, 1999) and Growing Up in Moscow: Memories of a Soviet Girlhood (Ticknor & Fields, 1989). She has a B.A. in English from Rutgers University. Follow her on Twitter @CathyYoung63SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Benefits of Delusion (Stuart Vyse and Michael Shermer) Skeptic 2022-05-17 | The Michael Shermer Show # 272Shermer and Vyse discuss: What is a delusion? • veridical perception • perceptual illusions and irrationalities • Kahneman vs. Gigerenzer: rationality, irrationality, and bounded rationality • Rational Choice Theory and Homo economicus • William Clifford v. William James: When is it ok to believe anything upon insufficient evidence? • pragmatic truths, 3 conditions: living hypothesis, forced question, momentous • death and delusion: Is it useful to believe death is not the end of consciousness and self? • paradoxical behavior and the search for underlying reasons for our actions • rational irrationalities • self delusions — that is, delusions about the self • optimism and overoptimism • depressive realism • bluffing self and others • lies vs. bullshit • self-control, will power, and time discounting • status quo bias • superstitions, rituals and incantations • faith and religion • delusion in love and marriage • brainwashing and influence (Stockholm Syndrome, etc.) • conformity, role playing, obedience to authority, and the banality of evil • the core of personality and the constructed self • free will and determinism.Psychologist Stuart Vyse’s new book, The Uses of Delusion, is about aspects of human nature that are not altogether rational but, nonetheless, help us achieve our social and personal goals. In his book, and in this conversation, Vyse presents an accessible exploration of the psychological concepts behind useful delusions, fleshing out how delusional thinking may play a role in love and relationships, illness and loss, and personality and behavior. Throughout, Vyse strives to answer the question: why would some of our most illogical beliefs be as helpful as they are? Vyse also suggests that evolutionary pressures may have led to the ability to fool ourselves in order to survive.Stuart Vyse is a behavioral scientist, teacher, and writer. He taught at Providence College, the University of Rhode Island, and Connecticut College. Vyse’s book Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition won the 1999 William James Book Award of the American Psychological Association. He is a contributing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, where he writes the “Behavior & Belief” column, and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever (Peter Ward) Skeptic 2022-05-14 | The Michael Shermer Show # 271 Shermer and Ward discuss: religious immortality • Church of Perpetual Life in Florida • what it means to live forever • why lives have doubled in length the past century • Stein’s Law: things that can’t go on forever won’t • Why do we age and die? • how to live to 100, 1000, 10,000 years • escape velocity to reach immortality • Aubrey de Grey’s program • tech billionaires programs • transhumanists/extropians • diet, exercise, supplements, stem cells, telomeres, and other aging hacks • Ray Kurzweil • cryonics • nanotechnology • brain preservation • mind uploading and digital immortality • Ernest Becker and Terror Management TheoryPeter Ward is a British business and technology reporter whose reporting has taken him across the globe. Reporting from Dubai, he covered the energy sector in the Middle East before earning a degree in business journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in Wired, The Atlantic, The Economist, GQ, BBC Science Focus, and Newsweek.SUPPORT THE PODCAST If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrationality (Moshe Hoffman and Erez Yoeli) Skeptic 2022-05-10 | The Michael Shermer Show # 270Shermer, Hoffman, and Yoeli discuss: the problems game theory was developed to solve • How rational or irrational an animal are we? • the evolutionary logic of game theory • Alan Fiske’s four relationships • kin selection, altruism and reciprocal altruism • deception and self-deception • costly signaling theory • pirate rationality • virtue signaling • Putin, Russia, and Ukraine • Israeli-Palestinian conflict • justice, self-help justice, norms and laws • chemical weapons/nuclear weapons taboos/norms • dueling: what problem did it solve? • beliefs: first-order vs. second-order.Moshe Hoffman is a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, a research fellow at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and a lecturer at Harvard’s department of economics. His research focuses on using game theory, models of learning and evolution, and experimental methods to decipher the motives that shape our social behavior, preferences, and ideologies. He lives in Lubeck, Germany.Erez Yoeli is a research scientist at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the director of MIT’s Applied Cooperation Team (ACT), and a lecturer at Harvard’s department of economics. His research focuses on altruism: understanding how it works and how to promote it. Yoeli collaborates with governments, nonprofits, and companies to apply the lessons of this research towards addressing real-world challenges. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution (Richard Dawkins) Skeptic 2022-05-07 | The Michael Shermer Show # 269Do you sometimes dream you can fly like a bird? Gliding effortlessly above the treetops, soaring and swooping, playing and dodging through the third dimension. Computer games, virtual reality headsets, and some drugs can lift our imagination and fly us through fabled, magical spaces. But it’s not the real thing. No wonder some of the past’s greatest minds, including Leonardo da Vinci’s, have yearned for flying machines and struggled to design them.Shermer and Dawkins discuss: nationalism • Russian revanchism • the recent rise of authoritarianism and autocracies: worrying trend or temporary stumble in the arc of the moral universe? • U.S. acceptance of the theory of evolution finally breaks the 50% barrier • woke attacks on E. O. Wilson: why? • why Dawkins dedicated his book to Elon • What good is half a wing? • What is flight good for? • Why do some animals lose their wings? • Why flying is easier if you are small • physics of flying • unpowered flight: parachuting and gliding • powered flight and how it works • weightlessness • aerial plankton • winged plants • the difference between evolved and designed flying machines.Richard Dawkins is one of the world’s most eminent writers and thinkers, and a major contributor to the public understanding of the science of evolution. The award-winning author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion and a string of other bestselling science books, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
The War on the West: Race, Politics, and Culture (Douglas Murray) Skeptic 2022-05-03 | The Michael Shermer Show # 268Shermer and Murray discuss: • what it takes to become a successful writer • Is this “war” on Western civilization just a necessary course correction from the sins of the past? • Is at least some of the criticisms of Western civilization a form of revenge for past wrongs? • CRT: If racism is not the explanation for the present Black/White differences in income, wealth, home ownership, and representation in professional careers, what is? • Racism and Antiracism • 1619 Project • BLM movement • White privilege • Colonialism and decolonizing cultural things • Monuments • If Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln should be cancelled, what about Marx? • Anti-Semitism • Objectivity and the search for truth: is this a Western tradition only? • Reparations: don’t we have a moral obligation to right a wrong?Douglas Murray is an associate editor of The Spectator. His previous book, The Madness of Crowds, was a bestseller and a book of the year for The Times and The Sunday Times. His previous book, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, was published by Bloomsbury in May 2017. It spent almost twenty weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list and was a number one bestseller in nonfiction. His new book is The War on the West in which Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Louis Theroux on Neo-Nazis, Jimmy Savile, UFO Cults, and Scientology Skeptic 2022-04-30 | The Michael Shermer Show # 267Shermer and Theroux discuss: how documentary films are made • religious fanaticism and why people believe • UFO cults, end-times sects, and cognitive dissonance • Scientology: religion or cult? • neo-Nazis and anti-Semitism • prisons, pornography, and prostitution • Jeffrey Epstein and Jimmy Savile • self-help movements and gurus • deception and self-deception • social proof and human conformity • are humans naturally rational, irrational, or both? Louis Theroux is a genre-defining documentary filmmaker best known for his explorations of controversial and complex topics. Using a gentle questioning style and an informal approach, Louis has shone light on intriguing beliefs, behaviors, and institutions by getting to know the people at the heart of them — from the officers and inmates at San Quentin prison to the extreme believers of the Westboro Baptist Church; from male porn performers in California to young women with eating disorders in London.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Why Fad Psychology Can’t Cure Our Social Ills (Jesse Singal) Skeptic 2022-04-26 | The Michael Shermer Show # 266Michal Shermer and Jesse Singal discuss: how social scientists determine causality • Primeworld: cognitive priming and how it works (and doesn’t work) • The Malcolm Gladwell-effect (named after the 10,000-hour effect, by Anders Ericsson) • the self-esteem and self-help personal-empowerment movements • power posing and positive psychology • New Age self-help movements • Grit (stick-to-itiveness) (Darwin’s “dogged as does it.”) • Persistence is task specific and context dependent • Big 5 personality as determiners: Grit = Conscientiousness • Implicit Association Test and racism, misogyny, and bigotry • the replication crisis, what caused it, and what to do about it • choice architecture and the nudging of human behavior • race, gender, class, I.Q. and other radioactive topics in group differences • free will and determinism • nature/nurture and how lives turn out • abortion • and U.S. foreign policy.Jesse Singal is a contributing writer at New York and the former editor of the magazine’s Science of Us online vertical, as well as the cohost of the podcast Blocked and Reported. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Slate, The Daily Beast, The Boston Globe, and other publications. He is a former Robert Bosch Foundation fellow in Berlin and holds a master’s degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace (Chris Blattman) Skeptic 2022-04-23 | The Michael Shermer Show # 265Shermer and Blattman discuss: Putin, Russia, and Ukraine • game theory and violent conflict • 5 Reasons for conflict and war • common elements of conflict in Medellin, Chicago, Sudan, Somalia, etc. • U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere, and its consequences • human nature and conflict: are we wired to fight or do environments push us into conflicts? • cooperation vs. competition / selfish genes vs. collection action problems • inner demons and better angels • violence and wars in our paleolithic ancestors • why violence has declined over the centuries • Chicago as a test case for theories of conflict and peace • why gangs, groups, and even nations mostly avoid conflict and war because of its consequences • and whether international aid and economic development attenuate violence.Dr. Christopher Blattman is the Ramalee E. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies (University of Chicago), where he coleads the Development Economics Center and directs the Obama Foundation Scholars program. His work on violence, crime, and poverty has been widely covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, Slate, Vox, and NPR.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Identity Theft — How to Protect Yourself from Scammers, Phishers, and Fraudsters (Adam Levin) Skeptic 2022-04-18 | The Michael Shermer Show # 264Increasingly, identity theft is a fact of life: from fake companies selling “credit card insurance”; criminal, medical, and child identity theft; catphishers, tax fraud, fake debt collectors who threaten you with legal action; and much more. We might once have hoped to protect ourselves from hackers with airtight passwords and aggressive spam filters, and those are good ideas as far as they go. But with the breaches of huge organizations like Target, AshleyMadison.com, JPMorgan Chase, Sony, Anthem, and even the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, more than a billion personal records have already been stolen, and chances are good that you’re already in harm’s way. This doesn’t mean there’s no hope. Your identity may get stolen, but it doesn’t have to be a life-changing event.In this conversation, Shermer speaks with Adam Levin, a consumer advocate with more than 30 years’ experience in personal finance, privacy, real estate and government service. A former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, Levin is Chairman and founder of CyberScout. A longtime consumer advocate and identity fraud expert, Levin provides a method to help you keep hackers, phishers, and spammers from becoming your problem. As Levin shows, these folks get a lot less scary if you see them coming.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Left, Right, and Woke: Don’t Burn This Country (Dave Rubin) Skeptic 2022-04-16 | The Michael Shermer Show # 263 According to Dave Rubin, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that something dark is happening in America. Just look around: Massive corporations monitor our every move. The Thought Police stand ready to cancel any who dare think for themselves. Brainwashed activists openly attack the American experiment. the dystopian future we've been warned of is here. Dave Rubin has been on the front lines of the culture wars for years. Now, he offers tactics you can use to protect yourself from today’s authoritarian rule—from resisting the grip of Big Tech to staying sane in a post-truth world.What’s more, he offers a vision for the next generation of patriots who will need to face the future head-on, holding fast to their values and creating a meaningful life no matter how frenzied and fabricated the news of the day is. Dave Rubin is the creator and host of The Rubin Report, the most-watched talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube. He is the author of Don’t Burn This Book, which was a New York Times bestseller, and the co-founder of the community building platform Locals.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Oliver Stone on Ukraine, Putin, and the Military-Industrial Complex Skeptic 2022-04-12 | The Michael Shermer Show # 262Oliver Stone studied at Yale University, taught English in South Vietnam, and served in the Vietnam War in the U.S. Army where he earned two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. He then attended film school at NYU and studied under the acclaimed director Martin Scorsese.Stone won his first Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978) and won his second and third as Best Director for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Stone also wrote the screenplay for Scarface, which went on to become one of the most iconic films in history. His directed several documentary films, including Comandante (2003), the Putin Interviews (2017), and the controversial JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass (2021).Shermer and Stone discuss:• The relationship with truth in dramatic films vs. documentary films• How the world would be different if JFK were not assassinated• Why diplomacy and trade agreements are necessary with Russia, even now after the invasion of Ukraine• The Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and Nikita Khrushchev’s response• Putin’s justifications for Soviet/Russian actions in Hungary, Afghanistan, Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, and Crimea• What he thinks Putin would say to justify the invasion of Ukraine• Why he thinks we can’t trust Western media• U.S. foreign policy and how he thinks it is just as aggressive as Russia’s• His moral equivalency argument for American vs. Russian aggressionSUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
The Joy of Science (Jim Al-Khalili) Skeptic 2022-04-09 | The Michael Shermer Show # 261In this conversation with quantum physicist, New York Times bestselling author, and BBC host Jim Al-Khalili reveals how 8 lessons from the heart of science can help us all get the most out of our lives.Today’s world is unpredictable and full of contradictions, and navigating its complexities while trying to make the best decisions is far from easy. In this brief guide to leading a more rational life, acclaimed physicist Jim Al-Khalili invites readers to engage with the world as scientists have been trained to do. The scientific method has served humankind well in its quest to see things as they really are, and underpinning the scientific method are core principles that can help us all navigate modern life more confidently. Discussing the nature of truth and uncertainty, the role of doubt, the pros and cons of simplification, the value of guarding against bias, the importance of evidence-based thinking, and more, Al-Khalili shows how the powerful ideas at the heart of the scientific method are deeply relevant to the complicated times we live in and the difficult choices we make.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy (Batya Ungar-Sargon) Skeptic 2022-04-05 | The Michael Shermer Show # 260Something is wrong with American journalism. Long before “fake news” became the calling card of the Right, Americans had lost faith in their news media. But lately, the feeling that something is off has become impossible to ignore. That’s because the majority of our mainstream news is no longer just liberal; it’s woke. Today’s newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including “antiracism,” intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be? It all has to do with who our news media is written by — and who it is written for.Michael Shermer speaks with Batya Ungar-Sargon about her new book Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy in which she reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century — from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession. As a result, journalists shifted their focus away from the working class and toward the concerns of their affluent, highly educated peers.Ungar-Sargon avers that, in abandoning the working class by creating a culture war around identity, our national media is undermining American democracy.Batya Ungar-Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, the New York Review of Books Daily, and other publications. She has appeared numerous times on MSNBC, NBC, the Brian Lehrer Show, NPR, and at other media outlets. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos (Ogi Ogas) Skeptic 2022-04-02 | The Michael Shermer Show # 259Why do you exist? How did atoms and molecules transform into sentient creatures that experience longing, regret, compassion, and even marvel at their own existence? What does it truly mean to have a mind―to think? Science has offered few answers to these existential questions until now.Michael Shermer speaks with computational neuroscientist, Ogi Ogas, about his unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, self-awareness, and civilization arose incrementally out of chaos, and how leading cities and nation-states are developing “superminds,” and perhaps planting the seeds for even higher forms of consciousness.SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donate#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
Putin & Power Transition Theory: China, Russia, and Ukraine (Jacek Kugler) Skeptic 2022-03-29 | The Michael Shermer Show # 258Michael Shermer speaks with Professor of International Relations, Dr. Jacek Kugler, about his Power Transition Theory which states that an even distribution of political, economic, and military capabilities between contending groups of states is likely to increase the probability of war; peace is preserved best when there is an imbalance of national capabilities between disadvantaged and advantaged nations; the aggressor will come from a small group of dissatisfied strong countries; and it is the weaker, rather than the stronger power that is most likely to be the aggressor.Shermer and Kugler discuss: Power Transition Theory and how it applies to Putin and Russia today; the relationship between a nation’s economic strength and its political power; where China figures into the future of the new world order; what happens if Putin succeeds in Ukraine? What if he fails?; What should the U.S. should have done in response to the annexation of Crimea, intervention in Syria, the destruction of Georgia and Chechnya, the imprisonment and murder of Russian dissidents?; What should NATO do now or in the near future?; and more…SUPPORT THE PODCASTIf you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.skeptic.com/donateSPONSORWondriumwondrium.com/shermer#michaelshermer#skepticListen to The Michael Shermer Show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show
