The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

In The Michael Shermer Show # 168, Dr. Shermer moderates an entertaining, rigorous, and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue between two leading thinkers: Daniel Dennett and Gregg Caruso, based on their book Just Deserts.

In The Michael Shermer Show # 168, Dr. Shermer moderates an entertaining, rigorous, and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue between two leading thinkers: Daniel Dennett and Gregg Caruso, based on their book Just Deserts.

After his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast # 961 with Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson, Michael Shermer devoted a special issue of Skeptic magazine (22.3) to Hancock’s theory that an ancient lost civilization predates by tens of thousands of years all other known ancient civilizations. The follow is Dr. Shermer’s account of the show and a refinement of his notes for why he is skeptical of Hancock’s theory.

In this AMA special, Dr. Michael Shermer conducts a postmortem on his debate with the evangelical Christian theologian Luuk van de Weghe, elaborating on his notes from the debate, and suggesting ways to think about miracles from a scientific or naturalistic perspective.

In this week’s eSkeptic: Tour of the Emerald Isle in our 2018 Grand Irish Odyssey; Science Salon # 14: Dr. Nancy Segal on Twin Mythconceptions; Sept. 15 Debate: Is God a Figment of Our Imagination? Shermer v. McGrath; Promotional Offer: Save 25% off the Reasons to Believe film on Vimeo; Oct. 19 Debate: Solving Moral Dilemmas: How Do We Know What’s Right?.

Why are we so bad at spotting deception? In this week’s eSkeptic, we present an excerpt from The Confidence Game: Why We Fall For It…Every Time, by Maria Konnikova, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2016 by Maria Konnikova. This excerpt appeared in Skeptic magazine 21.1 (2016).

In this week’s eSkeptic, Raymond Barglow & Margret Schaefer discuss the issue of vaccination of school children, the subject in California of a prolonged and bitter debate which led to California Senate Bill 277 which eliminated the personal belief exemption that allowed unvaccinated children to attend school. The bill became law in California on the last day of June 2015.

How Science Makes Us Better People: Now Available in Paperback; Scientific American: Left Behind: Political Bias in the Academy; New Episode: The God Distraction Chapter Two: The Unknowable; Chapman University Debate March 7: God vs. Science Smackdown (Keith Ward vs. Michael Shermer)

In this week’s eSkeptic, scientist and historian, Michael Shermer, responds to evolutionary biologist and anthropologist, David Sloan Wilson, about ancient warfare and the notion the blank slate.

On September 30, 2015, Michael Shermer and Larry Taunton debated the question “Do We Need God?”. In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Michael Shermer’s notes for the debate: “10 Reasons Why We Do Not Need God.”

In this week’s eSkeptic, Harriet Hall examines the statements about vaccines made by four candidates in the recent GOP debate. They all demonstrated a poor grasp of vaccine science, and advocated delays in the vaccine schedule that would represent a danger to the young, the immunocompromised, and to the herd immunity that is a mainstay of our public health.

Skeptic Digital Back Issues: on Cryonics, Carl Sagan, and Conspiracies; Follow Michael Shermer: Forensic Pseudoscience: Can Tests be Trusted?; Daniel Loxton on INSIGHT at Skeptic.com: A Rope of Sand; Debate: Do We Need God? Michael Shermer v. Larry Taunton

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

Donald Prothero considers the diverging fortunes of Bill Nye the Science Guy and creationist Ken Ham in the wake of their "Great Debate."

In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Robert Sheaffer’s rebuttal to George Michael’s review of UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record that we published in last week’s eSkeptic. This rebuttal, republished here with permission, originally appeared on April 2, 2012 in Sheaffer’s blog Bad UFOs: Skepticism, UFOs, and The Universe.