Shermer and McHenry discuss: how organisms get to islands from mainlands • how lemurs get to Madagascar • rafting sweepstakes vs. land bridges. • Alfred Russel Wallace and Island biogeography • Zoologist Philip Sclater • Ernst Haeckel to Hitler • Alexander von Humboldt • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Land of Mu and Atlantis • Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis • Madame Blavatsky • Hermes Trismegistus and Hermeticism, Rosicrucians • pseudohistory, pseudoarchaeology and mythology.
Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins discuss: conversations with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, and Christopher Hitchens • Popperian falsification vs. Bayesian reasoning • evolutionary adaptationism • the myth of natural selection as a “force” • E.O. Wilson and group selection, multilevel selection, and other misunderstandings about evolutionary theory • metaphors and analogies in science: artificial selection • convergent evolution • ETIs • Trumpism, and more…
In episode 205, Michael Shermer speaks with Richard Dawkins about evangelizing for evolution, science, skepticism, philosophy, reason, and rationality, based on his new book Books Do Furnish a Life: Reading and Writing Science.
In this lecture on Evolution and Creationism (Part 1), Dr. Michael Shermer takes viewers to the Galápagos Islands to retrace Darwin’s footsteps and show that, in fact, Darwin did not discover natural selection when he was there in September of 1835. He worked out his theory when he returned home, and Shermer shows exactly how Darwin did that, along with the story of the theory’s co-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace.
In this lecture on Evolution and Creationism (Part 1), Dr. Michael Shermer takes viewers to the Galápagos Islands to retrace Darwin’s footsteps and show that, in fact, Darwin did not discover natural selection when he was there in September of 1835. He worked out his theory when he returned home, and Shermer shows exactly how Darwin did that, along with the story of the theory’s co-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace.
Learn more about Alfred Russel Wallace—seeker, believer, heretic, scientist, skeptic—in the latest issue of of Skeptic magazine (20.3), available now in digital format; Debate: Do We Need God? Michael Shermer v. Larry Taunton (September 30, 2015, Seattle); INSIGHT at Skeptic.com: Resolving Conflicts in Findings: Vaccine Promotion is Tricky (by Barbara Drescher), and The Problematic Process of Cryptozoologification (by Daniel Loxton); Skepticality: Future Climate Thoughts: Interview with Donald Prothero
Daniel Loxton wins a Victoria Book Prize; Donald Prothero considers claims that the future of publishing belongs exclusively to pixels over paper; Blake Smith defends the value of the examination of monster beliefs; Katherine Freese lectures on Dark Matter; MonsterTalk interviews Richard Sugg about vampires; and UCLA celebrates Alfred Russel Wallace.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Shermer celebrates the 150th anniversary of the 1858 discovery of natural selection by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
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