Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer portrait by Byrd Williams.

Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale, California) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims.

Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown and since April 2004 has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Shermer was once a fundamentalist Christian. Shermer is now a professed atheist, but prefers to use the term nontheist, and an advocate for humanist philosophy.

Early life and education

Michael Shermer portrait by Byrd Williams.

Michael Shermer received his Bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University in 1976 in Psychology/Biology, his master's degree from California State University, Fullerton in Experimental Psychology two years later, and his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in History of Science in 1991 (with a dissertation entitled "Heretic-Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Evolution of Man: A Study on the Nature of Historical Change").

Shermer wrote, "I became a skeptic on Saturday, August 6, 1983, on the long climbing road to Loveland Pass, Colorado" after months of training under the guidance of a 'nutritionist' with an unaccredited Ph.D. After years of practicing acupuncture, chiropractic and massage therapy, negative ions, rolfing, pyramid power, fundamentalist Christianity, and "a host of weird things" (with the exception of drugs) to improve his life and training, Shermer stopped rationalizing the failure of these practices.

Shermer began his undergraduate studies at Pepperdine University, initially majoring in Christian theology, later switching to psychology. However, his graduate studies in experimental psychology at California State University, Fullerton led to many after class discussions with professors Bayard Brattstrom and Meg White, which is when his "Christian ichthys got away, and with it my religion."

Published works and ideas

Michael Shermer portrait by Byrd Williams.

Shermer is the author of several books that attempt to explain the ubiquity of irrational or poorly substantiated beliefs. In 1997 he wrote Why People Believe Weird Things, which explores a variety of "weird" ideas and groups (including cults), in the tradition of the skeptical writings of Martin Gardner. A revised and expanded edition was published in 2002. From the Introduction:

So we are left with the legacy of two types of thinking errors: Type 1 Error: believing a falsehood and Type 2 Error: rejecting a truth. ... Believers in UFOs, alien abductions, ESP, and psychic phenomena have committed a Type 1 Error in thinking: they are believing a falsehood. ... It's not that these folks are ignorant or uninformed; they are intelligent but misinformed. Their thinking has gone wrong.

— Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things, 1997, 2002, Introduction

In How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, Shermer explored the psychology behind the belief in God. In the introduction Shermer wrote "Never in history have so many, and such a high percentage of the population, believed in God. Not only is God not dead as Nietzsche proclaimed, but he has never been more alive."

In early 2002, Shermer's Scientific American column introduced Shermer's Last Law, the notion that "any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God." Shermer's Last Law is a spin on Clarke's Third Law.

In 2002 Shermer and Alex Grobman wrote Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? which examined and refuted the Holocaust denial movement. The book recounts meeting various denialists and concludes that free speech is the best way to deal with pseudohistory.

In his 2006 book Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, Shermer marshals point-by-point arguments supporting evolution, sharply criticizing Intelligent design. The book also argues that science cannot invalidate religion, and that Christians and conservatives can and should accept evolution.

In June 2006, Shermer, who formerly expressed skepticism regarding the mainstream scientific view on global warming, wrote that, in view of the accumulation of evidence, this position is no longer tenable.

He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium on November 2006. He also spoke at the 2006 TED Conference on "Why people believe strange things."

Media appearances

Shermer made a guest appearance in a 2004 episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, in which he argued that the Bible was "mythic storytelling" from Showtime.Comand that literal interpretation of events described therein would "miss the point of the Bible." His stance was supported by the show's hosts, who have expressed their own atheist beliefs. The episode in question, The Bible: Fact or Fiction?, sought to debunk the notion that the Bible is an empirically reliable historical record. Opposing Shermer was Dr. Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University.

In 1995 Shermer appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to challenge Rosemary Altea's psychic claims, and appeared on Donahue in 1994 to respond to David Cole's Holocaust denial claims.

File:MichaelShermer4.jpg

Michael Shermer, cycling enthusiast.

Shermer is a frequent guest on the skeptical podcast Skepticality.

• Coast to Coast AM (September 1, 2007)
• The Colbert Report (August 21, 2007)
• Larry King Live (2007)
• Skepticality (May 15, 2007)
• The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe's October 4th, 2006 episode
• The Eyes of Nye on "Pseudoscience" (2005)
• Penn & Teller's Bullshit! on "The Bible: Fact or Fiction?" (2004)
• Dennis Miller (May 19 & May 20, 2004)
• The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis (2004)
• 20/20 (ABC News) (with John Edward) (December 5, 2003)
• Exploring the Unknown (1999) TV Series
• The Power of Belief (ABC News) (1998)
• Politically Incorrect (unknown date)

Caltech Lecture Series

Shermer is the founder and organizer of the Caltech Lecture Series which offers speakers on a wide range of topics relating to science, psychology, social issues, religion/atheism, sketicism, etc. Past speakers include Julia Sweeney, Richard Dawkins, Philip Zimbardo, Dinesh D'Souza, Steven Pinker, Carol Tavris, and Sam Harris. The lectures occur on Sunday afternoons, and are open to the public for a nominal fee.

Personal life

Shermer lives in Altadena, California, on the edge of a cliff in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains atop which Mount Wilson stands. He was born and raised in Southern California, graduated from Crescenta Valley High School in 1972. He earned a B.A. degree in psychology from Pepperdine University in 1976, an M.A. degree in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton in 1978, and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University in 1991. Shermer's academic career was interrupted by a ten-year career racing bicycles long distances, helping to found the 3,000-mile nonstop transcontinental bicycle Race Across America (along with Lon Haldeman and John Marino), in which he competed five times (1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1989), was Assistant Race Director six years, and Executive Race Director seven years. He has also produced several documentaries on cycling.

Criticism

Though Shermer presents himself as a defender of science against pseudo-science, his version of what constitutes science seems to derive from beliefs that dominated scientific thinking between the 17th and early 20th centuries. As a result, some of what he considers pseudo-science is actually in keeping with trends in scientific thinking. In contrast to Galileo, Decartes, Newton, Kant, Laplace, etc., who believed that causation is deterministic, today's science is fundamentally probabilistic. According to Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine, science is no longer a quest for certainty in a mechanistic universe but the attempt to explain the probabilistic operations of complex systems. As complexity theory has entered biology, it has become clear that organisms are not determined by contact mechanics but can only be comprehended according to their goals and the obstacles they encounter on their way to goal-fulfillment. We can no longer dismiss the possibilities of long-range memory in organisms as well as long-range or field-like coordination of activities both within and among organisms. For more detailed criticism of Dr. Shermer from a scientific perspective, see Evilution and The End of Reductionism.

List of published works

• Sport Cycling: A Guide to Training, Racing, and Endurance 1985 ISBN 0-8092-5244-9
• Cycling: Endurance and Speed (Sportsperformance) 1987 ISBN 0-8092-4775-5
• Teach Your Child Science 1989 ISBN 0-929923-08-1
• Teach Your Child Math and Mathemagics 1999 ISBN 0-7373-0134-1
• The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense 2001 ISBN 0-19-514326-4
• How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science 2001 ISBN 0-613-35413-3
• The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience (ed.) 2002 ISBN 1-576-07653-9
• Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? 2002 ISBN 0-520-23469-3
• In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History 2002 ISBN 0-19-514830-4
• Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. (2nd Revision edition) 2002 ISBN 0-8050-7089-3
• The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule 2004 ISBN 0-8050-7520-8
• Science Friction : Where the Known Meets the Unknown 2005 ISBN 0-8050-7708-1
• Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks 2006 ISBN 978-0307338402
• Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design 2006 ISBN 978-0-8050-8121-3
• The Mind of The Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics 2007 ISBN 978-0805078329

List of Skeptic columns published in Scientific American

2001-04 Colorful Pebbles and Darwin's Dictum 2001-05 The Erotic-Fierce People 2001-06 Fox's Flapdoodle 2001-07 Starbucks in the Forbidden City 2001-08 Deconstructing the Dead 2001-09 Nano Nonsense and Cryonics 2001-10 I Was Wrong 2001-11 Baloney Detection 2001-12 More Baloney Detection 2002-01 Shermer’s Last Law 2002-02 The Gradual Illumination of the Mind 2002-03 Hermits and Cranks 2002-04 Skepticism as a Virtue 2002-05 The Exquisite Balance 2002-06 The Shamans of Scientism 2002-07 Vox Populi 2002-08 Why ET Hasn’t Called 2002-09 Smart People Believe Weird Things 2002-10 The Physicist and the Abalone Diver 2002-11 Mesmerized by Magnetism 2002-12 The Captain Kirk Principle 2003-01 Digits and Fidgets 2003-02 Psychic Drift 2003-03 Demon-Haunted Brain 2003-04 I, Clone 2003-05 Show Me the Body 2003-06 Codified Claptrap 2003-07 Bottled Twaddle 2003-08 The Ignoble Savage 2003-09 The Domesticated Savage 2003-10 Remember the Six Billion 2003-11 Candle in the Dark 2003-12 What’s the Harm 2004-01 Bunkum! 2004-02 A Bounty of Science 2004-03 None So Blind 2004-04 Magic Water and Mencken’s Maxim 2004-05 The Enchanted Glass 2004-06 Death by Theory 2004-07 God’s Number Is Up 2004-08 Miracle on Probability Street 2004-09 Mustangs, Monists and Meaning 2004-10 The Myth Is the Message 2004-11 Flying Carpets and Scientifi c Prayers 2004-12 Common Sense

2005-01 Quantum Quackery 2005-02 Abducted! 2005-03 The Fossil Fallacy 2005-04 The Feynman-Tufte Principle 2005-05 Turn Me On, Dead Man 2005-06 Fahrenheit 2777 2005-07 Hope Springs Eternal 2005-08 Full of Holes 2005-09 Rumsfeld’s Wisdom 2005-10 Unweaving the Heart 2005-11 Rupert’s Resonance 2005-12 Mr. Skeptic Goes to Esalen 2006-01 Murdercide 2006-02 It’s Dogged as Does It 2006-03 Cures and Cons 2006-04 As Luck Would Have It 2006-05 SHAM Scam 2006-06 The Flipping Point 2006-07 The Political Brain 2006-08 Folk Science 2006-09 Fake, Mistake, Replicate 2006-10 Darwin on the Right 2006-11 Wronger Than Wrong 2006-12 Bowling for God 2007-01 Airborne Baloney 2007-02 Eat, Drink and Be Merry 2007-03 (Can't Get No) Satisfaction 2007-04 Free to Choose 2007-05 Bush's Mistake and Kennedy's Error 2007-06 The (Other) Secret 2007-07 The Prospects for Homo economicus 2007-08 Bad Apples and Bad Barrels 2007-09 Rational Atheism 2007-10 The Really Hard Science 2007-11 Weirdonomics and Quirkology 2007-12 An Unauthorized Autobiography of Science 2008-01 Evonomics 2008-02 The Mind of the Market 2008-03 Adam's Maxim and Spinoza's Conjecture 2008-04 Wag the Dog 2008-05 A New Phrenology? 2008-06 Expelled Exposed 2008-07 Sacred Science 2008-08 Wheat Grass Juice and Folk Medicine

External links

• MichaelShermer.com – Official website of Dr. Michael Shermer
• Skeptic.com – Official website of The Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine
• Skepticality – Official podcast of The Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine
• "Nano Nonsense and Cryonics: True believers seek redemption from the sin of death", Scientific American, September 2001
• Multimedia files featuring Michael Shermer
• Video of Michael Shermer at the 2006 TED Conference, February 23, 2006
• Real Detroit Weekly Interview, February 7, 2007
• Skeptiko Audio Interview: Darwin, Evolution and Creativity, February 14, 2007
• Is Christianity Good for the World? – Debate with Dinesh D'Souza at the Oregon State University Socratic Club on October 15, 2007, part 1
• Is Christianity Good for the World? – Debate with Dinesh D'Souza at the Oregon State University Socratic Club on October 15, 2007, part 2
• An interview with Michael Shermer on The Marketplace of Ideas
• Michael Shermer interviewed about "The Mind of the Market" on The Polyschizmatic Reprobates Hour