“The release of dopamine is a form of information, a message that tells the organism “Do that again.” Dopamine produces the sensation… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“Unfortunately, there’s a downside to the dopamine system, and that is addiction. Addictive drugs take over the role of reward signals that… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“Of all the chemical transmitter substances sloshing around in your brain, it appears that dopamine may be the most directly related to… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“There may be a genetic basis to how much dopamine each of our brains produces. The gene that codes for the production… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“The connection between dopamine and belief was established by experiments conducted by Peter Brugger and his colleague Christine Mohr at the University… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“Dopamine enhances the ability of neurons to transmit signals between one another. How? By acting as an agonist (as opposed to antagonist),… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. — Michael Shermer Copy Share
“According to Dembski, for example, “scientific creationism has prior religious commitments whereas intelligent design does not.” — Michael Shermer Copy Share
The first-cause and prime-mover argument, brilliantly proffered by St. Thomas Aquinas in the fourteenth century (and brilliantly refuted by David Hume in the eighteenth… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
“Mind is just a word we use to describe neural activity in the brain. No brain, no mind. We know this because if a… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
Through no divine design or cosmic plan, we have inherited the mantle of life's caretaker on the earth, the only home we have ever… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
I always accepted the libertarian position of minimum regulation in the sale and use of firearms because I placed guns under the beneficial rubric… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
If spirituality is the sense of awe and humility in the face of the creation, what could be more awesome and humbling than the… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
We know evolution happened not because of transitional fossils such as A. natans but because of the convergence of evidence from such diverse fields… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
“Yet basically, libertarians are for freedom and liberty for individuals, while recognizing that in order to be free we must also be protected. Your… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
Scientists like Bjorn Lomborg in The Skeptical Environmentalist have, in my opinion, properly nailed environmental extremists for these exaggerated scenarios. — Michael Shermer Copy Share
When religious believers invoke miracles and acts of creation ex nihilo, that is the end of the search for them, whereas for scientists, the… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what. — Michael Shermer Copy Share
“Neuroscientist David Comings drew out the larger implications of such hallucinations for the relationship between our rational and spiritual brains: The psychedelic drugs like… — Michael Shermer Copy Share
