Through no divine design or cosmic plan, we have inherited the mantle of life's caretaker on the earth, the only home we… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
The concept of God is generated by a brain designed by evolution to find design in nature (a very recursive idea). — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
We are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency. — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Since humans are by nature tribal, the overall goal is to expand the concept of the tribe to include ALL members of… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“The almost universal nature of within-group amity and between-group enmity, wherein the rule-of-thumb heuristic is to trust in-group members until they prove… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
I say you don't need religion, or political ideology, to understand human nature. Science reveals that human nature is greedy and selfish,… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Belief is the natural state of things. It is the default option. We just believe. We believe all sorts of things. Belief… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Perceiving the world as well designed and thus the product of a designer, and even seeing divine providence in the daily affairs… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Humans are, by nature, pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns whether they exist or not. — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
You have to know evolution to understand the natural world. And that cannot be a threat to people of faith. There's a… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Machine intelligence of a human nature could be a century away, and immortality is at least a millennium away, if not unattainable… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“The Realistic Vision recognizes the need for strict moral education through parents, family, friends, and community because people have a dual nature… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
We want to be special. We want our place in the cosmos to be central. We want evolution-even godless evolution-to have been… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
“7. The principle of reciprocal altruism—I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine”—is universal; people do not by nature give generously unless… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Science operates in the natural, not the supernatural. In fact, I go so far as to state that there is no such… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
The natural inclination in all humans is to posit a force, a spirit, outside of us. That tendency toward superstitious magical thinking… — 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
