The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

Nathan H. Lents reviews The Equations of Life: How Physics Shapes Evolution by Charles S. Cockell, and The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will by Kenneth R. Miller.

Did you miss Science Salon # 23 with Dr. Ken Miller last month? The recording is now available for free viewing on skeptic.com. Or, if you prefer to listen on your commute, download the podcast audio via iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Soundcloud.

Dr. Miller presents a radical, optimistic exploration of how humans evolved to develop reason, consciousness, and free will, contra scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris who tell us that our most intimate actions, thoughts, and values are mere byproducts of thousands of generations of mindless adaptation.

In his most ambitious work yet—a scientific exploration into humanity’s obsession with the afterlife and quest for immortality—bestselling author and skeptic, Michael Shermer, sets out to discover what drives humans’ belief in life after death, focusing on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality along with utopian attempts to create heaven on earth.

Today is #GivingTuesday. Please read the letter from the Executive Director, Michael Shermer, and support our mission by donating to the Skeptics Society, your 501(c)(3) non-profit science education organization. Your ongoing patronage will help ensure that sound scientific viewpoints are heard worldwide.

This week, we present a recording of Michael Shermer’s article, “Scientific Naturalism: A Manifesto for Enlightenment Humanism,” originally published in the journal Theology and Science in July 2017, being read by the author, and introduced by David Smalley.

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?.

What would happen if you stopped watching online pornography for a few months? In this week’s eSkeptic, the debate about pornography addiction and its effects concludes with this response to Marty Klein by Philip Zimbardo, Gary Wilson, and Nikita Coulombe.

In this provocative and compelling talk—that includes brief histories of freedom rights, women’s rights, gay rights, and animal rights, along with considerations of the nature of evil and moral regress—Shermer explains how scientific ways of thinking have moved us ever closer to a more just world.

In this week’s eSkeptic, Donald R. Prothero, reviews Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason, by Seth Andrews.

Michael Shermer’s speech given at the Reason Rally in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2012: the world’s largest gathering of skeptics, atheists, humanists, nonbelievers, and “nones” (those who tick the “no religion” box on surveys).

In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Dahlen examines Dinesh D’Souza’s Immanuel Kant-inspired philosophy that “reality as a whole is, in principle, inaccessible to human beings” and that “it is in no way unreasonable to believe things on faith that simply cannot be adjudicated by reason.”

Michael Shermer wrote this article while researching cults. He is not the first to point out the cult-like qualities of Ayn Rand and her “inner circle” of loyal followers. And, it is certainly nothing like Scientology or other cults that exploit and use other people. But, as you shall see there are enough links to the list of cult characteristics to give one pause. Herein, Shermer analyzes the behavior, attitudes and personality egos of Rand and her followers (not the…

In this week’s eSkeptic, Chris Edwards provides some much-need maintenance on the fallacious reasoning found in Robert Persig’s ever-popular Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

IN THIS REVEALING TALK based on her compelling new novel, the award-winning writer and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Rebecca Goldstein (Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton and author of The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light, and studies of Kurt Gödel and Baruch Spinoza), reads from her new novel and speaks about how she uses her characters to explore the tension between belief and skepticism.

In this controversial lecture based on his new book, the world-renowned complexity theorist Dr. Stuart Kauffman argues that people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality, and that those who do believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief…