The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine


climate change

Michael Shellenberger — Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

Shermer and Shellenberger discuss: the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism • Environmental Humanism as a replacement worldview • problems and shortcomings of climate computer models • how much warmer it’s going to get, what the consequences will be, and what we can do about it? (hint: nuclear), why people fear nuclear power • renewables, solar, wind, geothermal, and why they are not nearly as efficient as nuclear, and more…

eSkeptic for August 11, 2020

In Science Salon # 128, Michael Shermer speaks with Michael Shellenberger about his new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. PLUS, save 40% on new digital subscription via PocketMags.com, now thru August 15, 2020.

Bjorn Lomborg — False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet

Bjorn Lomborg argues that climate change is real, but it’s not the apocalyptic threat that we’ve been told it is. Projections of Earth’s imminent demise are based on bad science and even worse economics, he claims. Lomborg attempts to convince us that everything we think about climate change is wrong — and points the way toward making the world a vastly better, if slightly warmer, place for us all.

eSkeptic for July 21, 2020

In Science Salon # 125 Michael Shermer speaks Bjorn Lomborg about his new book False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.

Politics of Belief

Dr. Michael Shermer explains how we arrived at the Left-Right spectrum, both historically and evolutionarily, and the numerous metaphors used to wrap our minds around such complex systems as politics and economics.

eSkeptic for April 17, 2020

Dr. Michael Shermer explains how we arrived at the Left-Right spectrum, both historically and evolutionarily, and the numerous metaphors used to wrap our minds around such complex systems as politics and economics. This Chapman University lecture is based on chapters in his books The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc, and Giving the Devil His Due, along with the books of Christian Sith, George Lakoff, Alan Fiske, Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Sowell, and Steven Pinker.

Robert Frank — Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work

Shermer and Frank discuss: luck and circumstances • peer pressure • free will • self-control • happiness vs. purpose • utilitarianism vs. natural rights theory • abortion, capital punishment, polygamy, prostitution, and the selling of organs • behavioral contagions: smoking, problem drinking, obesity, tax cheating, bullying, and wasteful energy use • same-sex marriage • climate change • Universal Basic Income, and more…

eSkeptic for February 11, 2020

In Science Salon # 103 Michael Shermer speaks with Robert Frank about how social environments profoundly influence our behavior. This conversation is based on Frank’s new book: Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work. PLUS: 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 contributions from Sherman J.…

eSkeptic for September 17, 2019

We are pleased to announce Dr. Michael Shermer’s brand new 12-lecture Audible Original Course: Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories — What We Should and Shouldn’t Believe — and Why, available now from audible.com. PLUS, in Science Salon # 83, Michael Shermer speaks with Peter Boghossian about his new book How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide.

Peter Boghossian — How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide

In our current political climate, it seems impossible to have a reasonable conversation with anyone who has a different opinion. Everyone seems to be on a hair trigger. This conversation is a guide to straightforward, practical, conversational techniques necessary for every successful conversation — whether the issue is climate change, religious faith, gender identity, race, poverty, immigration, or gun control.

eSkeptic for August 27, 2019

In Science Salon # 80, Michael Shermer speaks with Bryan Walsh about his brand new book End Times in which he provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.

Bryan Walsh — End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World

In Science Salon # 80, Michael Shermer speaks with Bryan Walsh about his brand new book End Times in which he provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.

eSkeptic for December 26, 2018

In this wide-ranging dialogue Michael Shermer talks with Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees — a leading astrophysicist as well as a senior figure in UK science and a public intellectual in England and America.

Sir Martin Rees — On the Future: Prospects for Humanity

In this wide-ranging dialogue Michael Shermer talks with Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees — a leading astrophysicist as well as a senior figure in UK science and a public intellectual in England and America.

eSkeptic for September 2, 2015

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

eSkeptic for July 22, 2015

In this essay, as a follow-up to his book, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us (in which he showed that, based on our knowledge of this universe alone, divine fine-tuning claims are without merit), Victor J. Stenger brings the arguments up-to-date with a discussion of the eternal multiverse hypothesis. This article was published in Skeptic magazine issue 19.3 in 2014.

A New Ice Age? No, Bad Journalism Run Amok

Donald Prothero reveals that headlines about a "coming ice age" are just so much hot air.

Science Affirmers

Donald Prothero describes encouraging science-based developments on the California political stage.

Dr. Donald Prothero — On the Future of Life on Earth

Geologist and paleontologist, Donald R. Prothero — an expert in ancient climates — turns his acumen to current environmental problems that must be solved before our civilization can move forward. The obstacles are considerable but not insurmountable. First and foremost we must deal with climate change and its consequences for our immediate future.

The Eruption that Created Frankenstein

Donald Prothero considers the 200th anniversary of a momentous event in geology, and in human affairs: the eruption of Mount Tambora.

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