ANNOUNCING
MICHAELSHERMER.COM
The Work of Michael Shermer
Happy New Year 2008! We are pleased to start the year off with an announcement of our new website: www.MichaelShermer.com . Dr. Michael Shermer is the Publisher and Editor of Skeptic magazine and the co-founder of the Skeptics Society. This site features the writings and work of Michael Shermer, including FREE posts of:
- his lecture schedule & touring information
- his monthly Scientific American column
- excerpts & reviews from his 11 books, plus how to order
- essays & book reviews that have appeared in Skeptic magazine, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Science, Scientific American, Toronto Globe & Mail, American Scientist, and elsewhere
- video from his many media appearances, including clips from his 13-hour TV documentary series on science and the unknown
Comment
Each column, article, book review, essay, video is available to leave a comment on or to discuss online. Please do leave your thoughts on the topics — we’d like to hear them.
Check Back Weekly!
We’ve started off by posting content in reverse chronological order (oldest to newest) and will continue to add three new FREE items (articles, columns, videos) every week throughout the year!
Link to Us
Support the work of Michael Shermer, an activist and essayist, much of whose work is available free online. Link to us using these resources we’ve created for you.
Subscribe
You can also subscribe to the website’s RSS feed which will be automatically updated with all new additions, or to our eSkeptic newsletter which will also list the new additions of the week.
Announcing
Michael’s latest book
The Mind of the Market
How did we evolve from ancient hunter-gatherers to modern consumer-traders? Why are people so emotional and irrational when it comes to money and business decisions? Bestselling author Michael Shermer believes that evolution and evolutionary psychology provides an answer to both of these questions through the new science of evolutionary economics.
Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. Employing research from complexity theory, Shermer shows how evolution and economics are both examples of a larger and still somewhat mysterious phenomenon of emergence, where one plus one equals three.
Along the way, Shermer answers such provocative questions as, Do our tribal roots mean that we will always be a sucker for brands? How is the biochemical joy of sex similar to the rewards of business cooperation? How can nations increase trust within their borders? Finally, Shermer considers the consequences of globalization and what will happen if nations allow free trade across their borders.
Throughout this entertaining and surprising book Shermer considers the morality of markets in a discussion of what he calls virtue economics. Although we are selfish and altruistic, cooperative and competitive, peaceful and bellicose, in the main the balance is heavily on the side of good over evil. For every random act of violence that makes the evening news, there are 10,000 nonrandom acts of kindness that go unrecorded every day. Markets are moral and modern economies are founded on our virtuous nature. The Enron model of business is the exception and the Google motto of “Don’t Be Evil” is the rule. The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life.
Get it autographed!
Michael is happy to personally autograph your copy of the book. Simply, place your order in Shop Skeptic and in the “comments” section of the checkout process, tell us you’d like it signed. If you want the autographed personalized, just say so!
Announcing
Michael’s North American book tour
for The Mind of the Market
- Cambridge, MA
- January 8, 2008 at 7 pm
- New York, NY
- January 9, 2008 at 6 pm
- Washington, DC
- January 11, 2008 at 12 pm
- Washington, DC
- January 12, 2008 at 7 pm
- Chicago, IL
- January 14, 2008 at 6:30 pm
- Philadelphia, PA
- January 15, 2008 at 7:30 pm
- Denver, CO
- January 17, 2008 at 7:30 pm
- Portland, OR
- January 21, 2008 at 7:30 pm
- Seattle, WA
- January 23, 2008 at 7:30 pm
- Mountain View, CA
- January 25, 2008 at 7:30 pm
- Menlo Park, CA
- January 29, 2008 at 7:30 pm
- Los Angeles, CA
- January 30, 2008 at 12 pm
- Pasadena, CA
- January 30, 2008 at 7 pm
- Del Mar, CA
- January 31, 2008 at 7 pm
