Michael Shermer
Author Giving the Devil His Due, Host Science Salon Podcast, Publisher Skeptic Magazine, Presidential Fellow Chapman University.
Thought Leader
#5 The New Center
Last synced from Twitter 13m ago
Imagine That Donald Trump Has Almost No Control Over Justice
Nytimes.com 34h 3 tweets
Congress should transform the department into an independent agency untouched by the president’s whims.
Michael Shermer "In a free society, dedicated to the rule of law, does it really make sense to say that the attorney general of the United States serves at the president’s whim?" No says Time to separate powers further. 29h
‘1774’ Review: The Year That Changed the World
WSJ 39h 4 tweets
What shocked colonists like George Washington into war? Britain’s imperious actions in Boston.
Michael Shermer “The Bostonians paying the excise-man, or tarring and feathering.” Looks more like waterboarding to me. Fabulous review essay by Gordon S. Wood debunking the NYT's 1619 Project, which was dunce-cap history. 1774 was the key year leading to independence. 29h
Case of missing children tied to doomsday beliefs, 3 deaths
News.yahoo.com 36h 1 tweets
Family members used to describe Lori Vallow as an attentive mother who had her kids’ best interests at heart. Before her children went missing. Seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and his 17-year-old sister, Tylee Ryan, haven’t been seen since...
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Michael Shermer What do you do when you truly believe that you are “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020.”? Abandon (or kill) your kids and move to Hawaii, of course... 36h
Spirituality, Not Just Religion, May Be Declining
Psychology Today 36h 1 tweets
Should we be worried that young adults will lose purpose, meaning and morality?
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Michael Shermer You've heard of Spiritual But Not Religious ("I’m not some kind of cold-hearted atheist but I’m not some kind of moralizing, prudish person, either”) but new data show the rise of Neither Spiritual nor Religious psychiatrist Ralph Lewis documents 36h
Beautiful minds: uncovering the hidden talents in neurodiversity
Positive News - Positive News 6d 17 tweets
Rather than simply accepting people with neurodiverse conditions like autism or dyslexia, what if we recognised their hidden talents? Four neurodiverse people explain how the way their brains work has been key to their success
Michael Shermer Vive la différence! "Beautiful minds: uncovering the hidden talents in neurodiversity" 40h
When in Doubt – A documentary about difficult conversations and the benefits of doubt
Whenindoubtfilm.com 40h 1 tweets
Michael Shermer "When in Doubt" Forthcoming film starring articulates perfectly why we must engage with people who disagree with us, and the author of How to Have Difficult Conversations explains how. Check it out: Trailer: 40h
When in Doubt Teaser
Vimeo 49h 4 tweets
The Signal Productions is making a feature-length documentary film on polarization and how to talk across divides. We are looking for subjects to participate! Check…
Michael Shermer "When in Doubt" Forthcoming film starring articulates perfectly why we must engage with people who disagree with us, and the author of How to Have Difficult Conversations explains how. Check it out: Trailer: 40h
Skepticism 101: How to Think like a Scientist
English 53h 1 tweets
Despite our best efforts, we are all vulnerable to believing things without using logic or having proper evidence—and it doesn’t matter how educated or well read we are. Our brains seem to be hardwired to have our beliefs come first and explanations...
Michael Shermer In case you're interested, my Chapman University course, Skepticism 101, is available in a professionally produced format by The Great Courses in 18 30-minute lectures and is available here: 53h
How Would You Design a Code of Conduct?
Michael Shermer - Skeptic 54h 1 tweets
Carol Tavris avers that organizations’ Codes of Conduct that try to specify each and every possible behavior they wish to prohibit (or encourage), will find themselves in linguistic and psychological quicksand.
Michael Shermer How Would You Design a Code of Conduct? The great psychologist Carol Tavris on what happens when you try to micromanage human relationships. 54h
Racially motivated terror attack that kills nine leaves Germany deeply unsettled
Los Angeles Times 57h 1 tweets
A right-wing racially motivated terror attack on three hookah bars that left nine dead has left Germany deeply unsettled
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Michael Shermer Ideas matter. Beliefs matter. Right-wing conspiratorial ideas that drive violence are especially dangerous when the believer gets a gun. 57h
GENED 1066 on 2/18/2020 (Tue)
Panopto 5d 2 tweets
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Michael Shermer Do you wish you could take a course at Harvard University to learn how to think critically & skeptically but you don't have the SAT scores, grades or $$? Well, now you can, for free: Gen Ed 1066 Rationality taught by Professor PPT slides included 57h
Earliest interbreeding event between ancient human populations discovered
Phys.org 3d 2 tweets
For three years, anthropologist Alan Rogers has attempted to solve an evolutionary puzzle. His research untangles millions of years of human evolution by analyzing DNA strands from ancient human species known as hominins. Like many evolutionary...
Michael Shermer As Stephen Stills said, "if you can't be with the one you love, Love the one you're with" Apparently our hominid ancestors did a lot of that... 57h
Tank Magazine
Tank Magazine 58h 1 tweets
A thing of beauty and permanence in an age of transience. Since 1998.
Michael Shermer Religious scholar & historian Diana Pasulka, who I just taped a podcast episode about her new book American Cosmic, considers the rise of the nones (no religious affiliation) & belief in UFOs as "a spirituality of the people & for the people." Great read. 58h
Camera falls from airplane and lands in pig pen--MUST WATCH END!!
YouTube 4d 1 tweets
Camera falls from a sky diving airplane and lands on my property in my pig pen. I found the camera 8 months later and viewed this video. For licensing/usage ...
Tolerance, openness and secularism in society are the first steps to economic prosperity, study finds
Newsweek 11d 6 tweets
In recent history, societies have become wealthier, healthier and more democratic but also more secular, more open and more tolerant.
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Michael Shermer "secular-rationality and cosmopolitanism was found to predict future growth in GDP per capita as well as increases in democratization and enrollment in secondary education." As I argued in The Moral Arc, moral progress stems primarily from secular forces. 4d
Inside the Pentagon's Secret UFO Program
Popular Mechanics 10d 4 tweets
The government can't keep its story straight about its involvement with UFOs. After a yearlong investigation, we reveal the staggering truth.
Michael Shermer Are the UAPs investigated by BAASS's NID program part of the DoD's and DIA's AATIP or their AAWSAP or both? According to a OUSDI spokesperson “neither AAWSAP nor AATIP were UAP related.” Ok then. Sounds like Completely Ridiculous Aerial Phenomena to me. 5d
Michael Shermer with Judith Finlayson — You Are What Your Grandparents Ate: What You Need to Know About Nutrition, Experience, Epigenetics and the Origins of Chronic Disease
Skeptic 6d 2 tweets
In Science Salon # 104 Michael Shermer speaks with Judith Finlayson about her book You Are What Your Grandparents Ate: What You Need to Know About Nutrition, Experience, Epigenetics and the Origins of Chronic Disease.
Michael Shermer Science Salon #104 Judith Finlayson You Are What Your Grandparents Ate What You Need to Know About Nutrition, Experience, Epigenetics and the Origins of Chronic Disease 6d
Michael Shermer What should you eat this weekend? has some answers from her new book Give it a listen as we talk: —epigenetics & epidemiology —determining causality in medicine —poverty & epigenetics —fruits & vegetables or meat & fat? 3d
Bloomberg Flunks the Wokeness Test
John McWhorter - The Atlantic 9d 13 tweets
Stop-and-frisk was awful. But to disqualify the former New York mayor from the presidency on that basis is to risk something more destructive: a second term for Trump.
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Michael Shermer Democrats who think is not woke enough read & the old adage: "if your opponent brings a knife, bring a gun; if he sends you to the hospital, send him to the morgue." It may take a NY billionaire to beat a NY billionaire. 8d
The 2020 Disinformation War
McKay Coppins - The Atlantic 18d 115 tweets
Deepfakes, anonymous text messages, Potemkin local-news sites, and opposition research on reporters—a field guide to this year’s election and what it could do to the country
Michael Shermer On Trump's assertions: "When I asked him if it mattered whether those things were true, he thought for a moment before answering. 'He tells you what you want to hear,' Willnow said. 'And I don’t know if it’s true or not—but it sounds good, so fuck it.'” 9d
Are We Alone? J. Allen Hynek & UFOs
Michael Shermer - Skeptic 12d 1 tweets
Michael Aisner presents a vintage slice of history, science, and skepticism about UFOs in this interview he recorded in 1966 with UFOlogist Dr. J. Allen Hynek, his photo analyst cohort Fred Beckman, and then repackaged in the early 1970s with...
Michael Shermer Are We Alone? J. Allen Hynek & UFOs Vintage radio interview by Michael Aisner with the real character behind the History Channel's (mostly fictional) Project Blue Book series. Fascinating listen. 12d