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In episode 235, Michael Shermer speaks with Jason Riley about Maverick — the first-ever biography of Thomas Sowell, one of the great social theorists of our age.
TAGS:
affirmative action,
antiracism,
black lives matter,
civil rights,
identity politics,
income inequality,
moral progress,
political correctness,
race and IQ,
racism,
reparations,
socialism,
universal basic income
Skeptic 26.4 is here: Havana Syndrome Hysteria. Instantly download the digital edition or pre-order the print edition today. Plus, Michael Shermer speaks with Matt Ridley about his research investigating the origin of COVID-19.
TAGS:
coronavirus,
COVID-19,
COVID-19 vaccine,
electromagnetic hypersensitivity,
epidemic,
evidence,
Havana Syndrome,
pandemic,
SARS-CoV-2,
Science Salon,
The Michael Shermer Show,
vaccination,
virology,
virus
Michael Shermer shares his thoughts on life and death in an emotional remembrance of his friend and business partner of 30 years, Pat Linse (1947–2021), the co-founder of the Skeptics Society and Art Director of Skeptic magazine.
In episode 232, Michael Shermer speaks with neuroscientist and professor of psychology, Amishi Jha, about how to achieve Peak Mind, based on her book Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day.
TAGS:
attention bias,
brain,
inattentional blindness,
mental health,
mind,
mindfulness,
multitasking,
negativity bias,
neuroscience,
rationality,
social media,
stress,
thinking,
thought flooding
In episode 231, Michael Shermer has a conversation with Jason Hill based on his book What do White Americans Owe Black People? Racial Justice in the Age of Post-Oppression. Shermer probes the philosopher on the arguments for and against reparations.
In episode 230, Michael Shermer speaks with renowned biblical scholar and historian Bart Ehrman about how Jesus became God and how Christianity grew from a few dozen followers at the time of Jesus’s death to over two billion followers today.
In episode 229, Michael Shermer speaks with Fritjof Capra on Patterns of Connection. PLUS for the next 12 days, now through December 4, 2021, shop our biggest sale ever! Get 40% off digital subscriptions via pocketmags.com, and get 25% off everything at shop.skeptic.com including magazine print subscriptions and back issues!
TAGS:
consciousness,
environmentalism,
free will,
metaphor,
mysticism,
nuclear energy,
philosophy,
physics,
quantum mechanics,
quantum physics,
sale,
science,
spirituality,
ultimate nature of reality
In episode 228, Michael Shermer speaks with Steven Koonin about what climate science tells us, what it doesn’t, and why it matters, based on his book Unsettled. Plus, we annouce a 6-hour seminar with Bart Ehrman on Dec 5, and recap Michael Shermer’s Substack posts this week.
In this essay, published on Substack today, Dr. Shermer addresses several recent articles in Scientific American of a distinctly unscientific nature related to progressive woke politics, perhaps in obedience to the British historian and Sovietologist Robert Conquest’s eponymous law that “any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
Michael Shermer is now writing on Substack with a new, weekly column called Skeptic: Examining the World Through a Scientific Lens. PLUS in a wide-ranging conversation Shermer and Richard Nisbett discuss Nisbett’s research showing how people reason, how people should reason, why errors in reasoning occur, and how much you can improve reasoning.
TAGS:
antiracism,
black lives matter,
cultural relativity,
emotions,
feelings,
intelligence,
metoo,
Milgram's Shock Experiment,
postmodernism,
psychology,
rationality,
reason,
religion,
replication crisis,
Science Salon,
social justice,
substack,
The Michael Shermer Show,
truth,
wokeness,
Zimbardo's Prison Experiment
In episode 226, Michael Shermer speaks with a leading voice in support of free expression, Suzanne Nosel, on defending free speech for all, based on her book Dare to Speak. Nossel delivers a vital, necessary guide to maintaining democratic debate that is open, free-wheeling but at the same time respectful of the rich diversity of backgrounds and opinions in a changing country.
TAGS:
censorship,
compelled speech,
discrimination,
free speech,
hate speech,
human rights,
insurrection,
libel,
marginalization,
rational debate,
self-censorship,
social media,
violence
In episode 225, Michael Shermer speaks with Nancy Segal about deliberately divided twins and what they tell us about human nature, based on her book Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart.
TAGS:
adoption,
behavio,
behavioral genetics,
epigenetics,
genetics,
intelligence,
Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart,
personality,
psychiatric disorders,
psychiatry,
Science Salon,
The Michael Shermer Show,
twins
Boomers are narcissists. Millennials are spoiled. Gen Zers are lazy. We assume people born around the same time have basically the same values. But, do they? In episode 224 Michael Shermer speaks with social researcher Bobby Duffy who has spent years studying generational distinctions. In The Generation Myth, he argues that our generational identities are not fixed but fluid, reforming throughout our lives.
TAGS:
Baby Boomers,
belief,
environmentalism,
Generation X,
Generation Z,
generational identities,
happiness,
human values,
Millennials,
politics,
religious beliefs,
social media
Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? In episode 223, Michael Shermer speaks with professor of psychology Paul Bloom about the pleasures of suffering and the meaning of life, based on his book The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning.
TAGS:
emotions,
empathy,
immortality,
meaning of life,
morality,
motivational pluralism,
negativity bias,
pleasure,
purpose,
religion,
suffering,
violence
In episode 222, Michael Shermer speaks with award-winning Irish neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan about her work exploring the complexity of psychogenic illness affecting people all around the world. Her book The Sleeping Beauties, documents her investigation of psychosomatic disorders as she traveled the world visiting communities suffering from these so-called mystery illnesses.
TAGS:
cognitive neuroscience,
false memories,
Havana Syndrome,
mass hysteria,
mystery illnesses,
neurological disorders,
psychogenic illness,
psychogenic phenomena,
psychological phenomena,
psychosomatic disorders,
sleep paralysis,
witches
In episode 221, Michael Shermer speaks with Antonio Damasio about recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines that have given rise to new understandings of consciousness.
TAGS:
artificial intelligence,
brain,
Charles Darwin,
cognitive neuroscience,
consciousness,
determinism,
emotions,
evolution,
free will,
human behavior,
knowing,
memory,
philosophy,
psychology,
self
In episode 220, Michael Shermer speaks with Charles Foster about his book Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, natural history, agriculture, medical law and ethics, Charles Foster makes an audacious attempt to feel a connection with 45,000 years of human history.
TAGS:
agriculture,
belief,
Christianity,
communication,
consciousness,
empirical truths,
enlightenment,
ethics,
hard problem of consciousness,
human behavior,
human cognition,
metaphor,
natural history,
paranormal,
psychology of human interactions,
supernatural
In episode 219, Michael Shermer speaks in person with Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker about his new book Rationality, about how today humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding — and also appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing?
TAGS:
belief,
cognitive bias,
consciousness,
conspiracy theories,
correlation and causation,
COVID-19,
critical thinking,
empirical truths,
fake news,
free will,
human behavior,
irrational belief,
is-ought fallacy,
logic,
logical fallacies,
medical quackery,
motivated reasoning,
rationality,
reason,
science,
subjective/objective truths
In episode 218, Michael Shermer speaks with Craig Whitlock about his book The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War which contains startling revelations from people who played a direct role in the war, from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines.
TAGS:
Afghanistan Papers,
Donald Rumsfeld,
drone strikes,
George W. Bush,
Iraq,
Islam,
Obama,
Osama bin Laden,
Pentagon Papers,
sanctions,
Taliban,
terrorism,
war
In episode 217, Michael Shermer speaks with Mary Grabar about her books Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America and Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America.
TAGS:
1619 Project,
American history,
Black Panthers,
cancel culture,
civil rights,
empirical truths,
historical revisionism,
independence,
liberty,
propaganda,
pseudohistory,
race,
reconciliation,
slavery
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