Quotes by Michael Shermer

About Michael Shermer:

Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer also engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism.
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Yet basically, libertarians are for freedom and liberty for individuals, while recognizing that in order to be free we must also be protected. Your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose.

Michael Shermer

Rather than there being two distinct and unambiguous categories of constrained and unconstrained (or tragic and utopian) visions of human nature, I think there is just one vision with a sliding scale. Let’s call this the Realistic Vision. If you be...

Michael Shermer

Of all the chemical transmitter substances sloshing around in your brain, it appears that dopamine may be the most directly related to the neural correlates of belief. Dopamine, in fact, is critical in association learning and the reward system of th...

Michael Shermer

But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

Michael Shermer

Finally, from what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among the tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy amo...

Michael Shermer

Perceiving the world as well designed and thus the product of a designer, and even seeing divine providence in the daily affairs of life, may be the product of a brain adapted to finding patterns in nature. (38)

Michael Shermer

Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.

Michael Shermer

We do not just blindly concede control to authorities; instead we follow the cues provided by our moral communities on how best to behave.

Michael Shermer

The reason is that in a group, individual errors on either side of the true figure cancel each other out.

Michael Shermer

In comparison, Google is brilliant because it uses an algorithm that ranks Web pages by the number of links to them, with those links themselves valued by the number of links to their page of origin.

Michael Shermer

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

Michael Shermer

We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.

Michael Shermer

In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious.

Michael Shermer

Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.

Michael Shermer

For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.

Michael Shermer

Skeptics question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it.

Michael Shermer

Being deeply knowledgeable on one subject narrows one's focus and increases confidence, but it also blurs dissenting views until they are no longer visible, thereby transforming data collection into bias confirmation and morphing self-deception into ...

Michael Shermer

Mammals are sentient beings that want to live and are afraid to die. Evolution vouchsafed us all with an instinct to survive, reproduce and flourish.

Michael Shermer

The reason people turn to supernatural explanations is that the mind abhors a vacuum of explanation. Because we do not yet have a fully natural explanation for mind and consciousness, people turn to supernatural explanations to fill the void.

Michael Shermer

Conspiracies are a perennial favorite for television producers because there is always a receptive audience.

Michael Shermer

Author Bio

  • NameMichael Shermer
  • DescriptionAmerican science writer
  • BornSeptember 8, 1954
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Scientist