“...Spinoza’s Conjecture:“Belief comes quickly and naturally, skepticism is slow and unnatural, and most people have a low tolerance for ambiguity. The scientific… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
The reason is that in a group, individual errors on either side of the true figure cancel each other out. — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive.… — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
The reason people turn to supernatural explanations is that the mind abhors a vacuum of explanation. Because we do not yet have… — 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 Image
“According to Dembski, for example, “scientific creationism has prior religious commitments whereas intelligent design does not.” — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
Scientists like Bjorn Lomborg in The Skeptical Environmentalist have, in my opinion, properly nailed environmental extremists for these exaggerated scenarios. — Michael Shermer Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
