Michael Shermer

In science , all conclusions are provisional, subject to new evidence and better arguments, the very antithesis of religious faith.

— Michael Shermer

“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

But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.

— Michael Shermer

In order to displace a prevailing theory or paradigm in science, it is not enough to merely point out what it cannot…

— Michael Shermer

One of the features of a democracy is the disentanglement of the sacred from the secular because in religiously pluralistic countries, no…

— Michael Shermer

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition—thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does…

— Michael Shermer

...evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual…

— Michael Shermer

In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself…

— Michael Shermer

The case for exploiting animals for food, clothing and entertainment often relies on our superior intelligence, language and self-awareness: the rights of…

— Michael Shermer

“There is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal. There is only the natural, the normal, and mysteries we have…

— Michael Shermer

The principal barrier to a general acceptance of the monist position is that it is counterintuitive.

— Michael Shermer

But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.

— Michael Shermer

“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

Plato wove historical fact into literary myth.

— Michael Shermer

Dualists hold that body and soul are separate entities and that the soul will continue beyond the existence of the physical body.

— Michael Shermer

It is sad that while science moves ahead in exciting new areas of research, fine-tuning our knowledge of how life originated and…

— Michael Shermer

In the long run, it is better to understand the way the world really is rather than how we would like it…

— Michael Shermer

There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that…

— Michael Shermer

The reason is that in a group, individual errors on either side of the true figure cancel each other out.

— Michael Shermer

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

— Michael Shermer

Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance.

— Michael Shermer

“The evidence from behavior genetics and twin studies indicating that 40 to 50 percent of the variance among people in temperament, personality,…

— Michael Shermer

Mammals are sentient beings that want to live and are afraid to die. Evolution vouchsafed us all with an instinct to survive,…

— Michael Shermer

For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.

— Michael Shermer

Conspiracies are a perennial favorite for television producers because there is always a receptive audience.

— Michael Shermer