Michael Shermer
Author Giving the Devil His Due, Host Science Salon Podcast, Publisher Skeptic Magazine, Presidential Fellow Chapman University.
Thought Leader
#9 The New Center
Last synced from Twitter 10m ago
The Purity Posse pursues Pinker
Jerry Coyne - Why Evolution Is True 38h 20 tweets
The Woke are after Pinker again, and if he’s called a racist and misogynist, as he is in this latest attempt to demonize him, then nobody is safe. After all, Pinker is a liberal Democrat who&…
Michael Shermer "The people who are deceitful and who misrepresent the facts are the signatories of this screed, not Pinker. I hope that the LSA doesn’t take it seriously, but if they do, the organization should be mocked and derided." Perfectly said 30h
Here’s What Cancel Culture Looked Like in 1283
NYTimes.com - Video 230d 2 tweets
The internet didn’t invent the angry mob.
Michael Shermer It's time to re-watch this brilliant and funny send-up of cancel culture circa 1283 C.E. (or is C.E. now politically incorrect? Maybe W.E.? Woke Era?) 58h
Open Letter to the LSA
Google Docs 59h 3 tweets
Dear Linguistic Society of America, This is an open letter by members of the linguistics community calling for the removal of Dr. Steven Pinker from both our list of distinguished academic fellows and our list of media experts. We, the undersigned,...
Michael Shermer Dear professional linguists who wrote, fact-checked, and/or edited this document removing (but "not cancelling") : In #4 it's spelled "misogyny" not "mysogyny". You should try the newfangled spell-check programs: all the kids are using them now! 57h
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Michael Shermer Pure lunacy: Liberals continue devouring their own, purging fellow liberals like who do not perfectly align with woke standards (established last Tuesday), scraping social media for any violations. Time to cancel the LSA. 59h
Giving the Devil his Due
YouTube 3d 2 tweets
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Michael Shermer Talking free speech with Kushal Mehra on The Cārvāka Podcast. I can't decide what looks better behind talking heads: a faux brick wall or an overly-busy and self-promoting book case. In either case, it was a good convo... 3d
eSkeptic for July 3, 2020
Michael Shermer - Skeptic 4d 1 tweets
In this, the final lecture of his Chapman University Skepticism 101 course, Dr. Michael Shermer pulls back to take a bigger picture look at what science and reason have done for humanity in the realm of moral progress. Watch The Moral Arc: How...
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Michael Shermer The Moral Arc: How thinking like a scientist makes the world more moral. The final lecture of my Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist course here: Watch any or all 15 lectures here for free: 4d
This Should Be Biden’s Bumper Sticker
Thomas L. Friedman - Nytimes.com 6d 14 tweets
He will need a simple, clear message to counter Trump’s “Make America Great Again” trope.
Michael Shermer “I believe in the Enlightenment, Newtonian physics and the Age of Reason. The other guy doesn’t.” —Joe Biden That this even needs to be said in 2020 reveals one factor (among many) in our divisive culture: a lot of people don't believe in reason & science 5d
Wear a Mask, But Act as If It Doesn’t Work
Michael Shermer - Skeptic 7d 2 tweets
Masks have been proven to reduce the spread of COVID-19, but instead of believing the evidence and following public health guidelines, many people have turned mask wearing into a political statement. They are refusing to wear masks for reasons that...
Michael Shermer Harriet Hall M.D., aka the SkepDoc and a regular columnist for Skeptic, on how and why we should wear masts. As a PSA please forward this link far and wide: 7d
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Michael Shermer Responses to our article on the science behind masks is truly stunning. No wonder the EU has banned Americans from traveling there. Wear a mask! To those making a case for "freedom"—freedom doesn't mean, for example, that you can drive drunk & kill people 6d
Michael Shermer with Walter Scheidel — Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
Michael Shermer - Skeptic 7d 1 tweets
In Science Salon # 122 Michael Shermer speaks with Walter Scheidel as he recounts the gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world.
Michael Shermer Science Salon #122 with Walter Scheidel Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity —Why Rome fell & Europe rose —Why other parts of world lagged —How empires are built & why they fail —America as an empire —Future of civilization 7d
The transgender cult is damaging our daughters | Spectator USA
Spectator USA 8d 1 tweets
As one transgender adolescent, ‘Kyle’, put it to me: ‘Arguably, the internet is half the reason I had the courage to come out’
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Michael Shermer If you're interested here's an excerpt from Irreversible Damage... 8d
Amazon Enforces ‘Trans’ Orthodoxy
WSJ 14d 7 tweets
The company won’t allow a publisher’s ads for my skeptical book.
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Michael Shermer This is what I call the new backfire effect: Amazon declines ad for new book skeptical of "The Transgender Craze" and it ends up a story in the Wall Street Journal and its 2.8 million readers. Censorship backfire. 8d
History by the Numbers: Confederate Monuments in the U.S.
IQ2US Debates 8d 1 tweets
In the U.S., there are an estimated 1,747 public Confederate symbols, and 52 percent of Americans think they should come down. But it isn’t only the U.S. that is having a reckoning with a divisive past – Britain, Belgium, and New Zealand are just a...
Michael Shermer Of 1,747 public Confederate statues most were put up in early 20th century & not just to honor soldiers. Meant also to reinforce policies behind Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise & remove political/economic gains made by blacks during Reconstruction. 8d
The Meaning of a Monument
YouTube 15d 6 tweets
Part of the 2019 exhibition "Addressing the Statue" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, "The Meaning of a Monument” includes intervie...
Michael Shermer The American Museum of Natural History has posted a thoughtful video on the Teddy Roosevelt statue & why they're moving it. It's a model for reasoning through which statues should be moved & why (vs. crazed protesters with ropes & spray paint). 11d
Clip - 20 Strange Fruit, Nina Simone (00.02.58).mp4
YouTube 13d 1 tweets
My Daily Art ... Nina Simone discussing her classic, Strange Fruit
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Michael Shermer FBI determines that the NASCAR "noose" was just a garage door open rope. Good. I see some online are politicizing it—that the massive support for Bubba Wallace was over a silly thing like a rope. There's a reason captured in the moving song "Strange Fruit" 13d
Michael Shermer with Maria Konnikova — The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
Michael Shermer - Skeptic 14d 1 tweets
In Science Salon # 121 Michael Shermer speaks with Harvard Psychologist and high-stakes poker player Maria Konnikova about her book The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win — the ultimate master class in learning to...
Michael Shermer Science Salon #121 with Maria Konnikova The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win —balance of luck, skill, intelligence & emotions —real meaning of marshmallow test —time discounting —rapid cognition —human nature, BLM etc. 14d
Shooting in Seattle protest zone leaves 1 dead, 1 injured
Richard Read - Los Angeles Times 16d 1 tweets
The Seattle Police Department said a "violent crowd" blocked safe access to a protest zone after a shooting early Saturday that left one man dead and another critically injured. A video posted on Facebook shows anger expressed by some members of a...
Michael Shermer "no cops" zone in Seattle turns deadly. Protesters now upset police/fire/EMTs didn't get there in time. Now the Proud Boys are organizing a July 18 rally there. What could go wrong? Antifa vs. Proud Boys + no police = anarchy & chaos. Not. Good. 16d
Op-Ed: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it — even when it's offensive
Los Angeles Times 18d 7 tweets
People love to claim the 1st Amendment to protect speech they favor, but resist similar safeguards for expression they dislike.
Michael Shermer This is one reason (among many) why the left needs to defend free speech as a foundational right... "this one-sided conservative approach to free speech has had the unfortunate effect of fueling doubts about the value of free speech on the left." 16d
Bob Dylan, a Genius Among Us
Peggy Noonan - WSJ 18d 9 tweets
Amid America’s cultural upheaval, some things remain constant.
Michael Shermer “Back there, America was put on the cross, died and was resurrected. There was nothing synthetic about it. The godawful truth of that would be the all-encompassing template behind everything that I would write.” —Bob Dylan, on the Civil War 17d
Looking Forward to the End of Humanity
WSJ 17d 5 tweets
Covid-19 has spotlighted the promise and peril of “transhumanism,” the idea of using technology to overcome sickness, aging and death.
Michael Shermer Connectome: "If those pathways could be completely mapped & translated into digital 0s and 1s, the data could be uploaded to a computer, where it could survive indefinitely" Until data is erased, lost not transferred Not you—just a copy Not your whole self 17d
‘The Before Time’: A Sci-Fi Idea That Has Made Its Way to Real Life
Ben Zimmer - WSJ 18d 6 tweets
The shorthand phrase for an era before a catastrophe has now become part of our pandemic vocabulary
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Michael Shermer A phrase from Star Trek 1966 episode "Miri" (one of my favorites) has gone viral: "the before time": “That was when they started to get sick in the Before Time. We hid, then they were gone.” A brief history traces it back centuries: 17d
Charter Schools’ Enemies Block Black Success
WSJ 18d 13 tweets
Teachers unions are gaining in their fight to stop students and resources from moving toward what works.
Michael Shermer "Charter school results undermine theories of genetic determinism, claims of cultural bias in the tests & assertions that racial integration is necessary for blacks to reach educational parity with whites" writes based on his forthcoming book 18d