Investigative journalist Richard Kreitner takes us on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region. The provocative thesis of Break It Up is simple: The United States has never lived up to its name—and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but the seduction of secession wasn’t limited to the South or the 19th century. It was there at our founding…
In Science Salon # 127, Michael Shermer speaks with William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and Tom Z. Collina, the Director of Policy at Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation in Washington, DC, as they share their firsthand experience on the front lines of the nation’s nuclear history.
In Science Salon # 127, Michael Shermer speaks with William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and Tom Z. Collina, the Director of Policy at Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation in Washington, DC, as they share their firsthand experience on the front lines of the nation’s nuclear history.
In a lecture, Dr. Michael Shermer addresses one of the deepest questions of all: what is truth? Following that, Lee McIntyre and Michael Shermer debate whether we are living in a Post-Truth era of fake news and alternative facts.
Is post-truth the political subordination of reality? Is truth itself any more under threat today that in the past? Have the populists & postmodernists won the day? In response to Dr. Lee McIntyre’s essay, Dr. Michael Shermer asserts that people are not nearly as gullible as some believe.
Are we living in a Post-Truth era of fake news and alternative facts? Dr. Lee McIntyre avers that we must take seriously the threat to truth posed both by those who would subvert the truth for political gain, and also by those who would deny that such a threat actually exists.
Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Matt Ridley argues that we need to think about innovation as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens to society as a direct result of the human habit of exchange, rather than an orderly, top-down process developing according to a plan.
In Science Salon # 117, Michael Shermer speaks with Matt Ridley about his book How Innovation Works: and Why It Flourishes in Freedom.
The Bomb is Fred Kaplan’s definitive history of American policy on nuclear war — and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises — from Truman to Trump. Kaplan takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories — based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents — of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely…
In Science Salon # 107 Michael Shermer speaks with Fred Kaplan about his book The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Sacred History of Nuclear War. PLUS, find out who believes in conspiracies and why, and read real conspiracy theories (and conspiracies with no theories) in the latest issue of Skeptic magazine, available now in print and digital formats.
In Science Salon # 100 Michael Shermer presents a special Ask Me Almost Anything (AMA # 6) on: extraterrestrial intelligence, Generic Subjective Continuity, Trump propaganda, Eliminative Materialism, eyewitness testimony, and more.
In Science Salon # 100 Michael Shermer presents a special Ask Me Almost Anything (AMA # 6) on: extraterrestrial intelligence, Generic Subjective Continuity, Trump propaganda, Eliminative Materialism, eyewitness testimony, and more. PLUS, this weekend only, Skeptic magazine back issues (in print or digital formats) are on sale for only 99 cents each!
In Science Salon # 94 Michael Shermer speaks with David Leiser about his new book: How We Misunderstand Economics and Why it Matters, diving into the mismatch between the complexities of economics and the constraints of human cognition that lie at the root of our misconceptions.
In Science Salon # 94 Michael Shermer speaks with David Leiser about his new book: How We Misunderstand Economics and Why it Matters, diving into the mismatch between the complexities of economics and the constraints of human cognition that lie at the root of our misconceptions.
Shermer speaks with the polymathic polyamorous sapiosexual classically liberal evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller about virtue signaling and why we all do it, how it works, why it’s not a bad thing, how it became a derogatory political meme, the role of virtue signaling in the evolution of the moral sentiments, and more…
In Science Salon # 93 Michael Shermer speaks with evolutionary psychology professor Geoffrey Miller about his book: Virtue Signaling: Essays on Darwinian Politics and Free Speech. Plus, Michel Jacques Gagné examines the reasons shocking events like the Kennedy assassination give rise to conspiracy myths.
In Science Salon # 91 Michael Shermer speaks with James Traub about his new book What Was Liberalism? The Past, Present, and Promise of a Noble Idea.
Shermer and Traub discuss: the changing meaning of “liberalism” • why the first liberals were deeply skeptical of majority rule • how liberalism become the national creed of the most powerful country in the world • Donald Trump as the first American president to regard liberal values with open contempt • identity politics • political correctness • what a potential future for liberalism would look like.
In Science Salon # 57, Dr. Shermer speaks with legendary biologist and primatologist Dr. Frans de Waal about his empirical and theoretical work on animal societies, politics, intelligence, sentience, consciousness and, now, feelings and emotions. PLUS, using two cases as touchstones, Stewart Justman draws an analogy between the extraction of an apology and the extraction of a false confession to a crime of violence.
In Science Salon # 57, Dr. Shermer speaks with legendary biologist and primatologist Dr. Frans de Waal about his empirical and theoretical work on animal societies, politics, intelligence, sentience, consciousness and, now, feelings and emotions. His latest book is called Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves.
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