Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermeris an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer also engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 September 1954
Michael Shermer quotes about
motivation inspiration believe
Belief is the natural state of things. It is the default option. We just believe. We believe all sorts of things. Belief is natural; disbelief, skepticism, science, is not natural.
religious atheist believe
People believe in God because we are pattern-seeking, storytelling, mythmaking, religious, moral animals.
matter sticks stakes
Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.
spiritual thinking doe
How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond oneself. . . . Does scientific explanation of the world diminish its spiritual beauty? I think not. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. (158-159)
truth care i-care
I care what is actually true, even more than what I hope is true.
events mysterious skepticism
I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
motivational stories morality
Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.
beautiful spiritual struggle
Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life--birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths. They took a beautiful story of creation and re-creation and ruined it.
goal tribes members
Since humans are by nature tribal, the overall goal is to expand the concept of the tribe to include ALL members of the species, in a global free society.
mind morality individual
My thesis is that morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait; that is, a human universal.
spiritual religious buddhist
We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.
liberty speech libertarian
The price of liberty is, in addition to eternal vigilance, eternal patience with the vacuous blather occasionally expressed from behind the shield of free speech.
discovery together fields
No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process.
self belief capacity
The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering.