pseudohistory

During a two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson, Darryl Cooper made sensational claims about the Holocaust and World War II, with Carlson calling him “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” In this solo episode, Michael Shermer takes a critical look at the pseudohistory and historical revisionism presented by Cooper on Carlson’s show.

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.

Holy relics like the Ark of the Covenant, Moses’s Ten Commandment stone tablets, the Holy Grail, the chalice from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper, The Spear of Destiny, and the like, are the stuff of myth, legend, Hollywood movies, and even Nazi villains, but what is the real story behind the myths? In this insightful analysis Skeptic magazine religion editor Tim Callahan reveals what we know and don’t know about these legendary icons.

Michael Shermer and Mary Grabar discuss: communism • capitalism • cancel culture • the 1619 Project • empirical truths vs. mythic truths • historical revisionism vs. denial • pseudohistory • slavery 1619–1776 • reparations, Howard Zinn and the distortion of history • moral equivalency arguments • quotations taken out of context • the Holocaust s • intentionalism vs. functionalism • manipulation and deception, and more…
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.

In this lecture on Holocaust Denial, Dr. Shermer employs the methods of science to history, showing how we can determine truth about the past.
In this lecture on Holocaust Denial, Dr. Shermer employs the methods of science to history, showing how we can determine truth about the past.
Eve Siebert explains how the History Channel’s Vikings depicts both the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons in a stereotypical and pseudohistorical manner, getting some things about Norse raiders right—and some things weirdly wrong.