Michael Shermer Quotes

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

  Michael Shermer

  Smart, Believe, People

  Michael Shermer (2002). “Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time”, p.297, Holt Paperbacks

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• 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 and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.

  Michael Shermer

  Funny, God, Atheist

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• Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.

  Michael Shermer

  Thinking, Verbs, Way

  "Why people believe weird things". TED conference, www.ted.com. 2006.

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• I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

  Michael Shermer

  Believe, Differences, Want

  Michael Shermer (2011). “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths”, p.2, Macmillan

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• 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

  Animal, Stories, Patterns

  "Out of This World" by Michael Shermer, www.washingtonpost.com. November 21, 1999.

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• Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.

  Michael Shermer

  Faith, Religious, Emotional

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

  Michael Shermer

  Faith, Religious, Argument

  Michael Shermer (2010). “Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown”, p.197, Macmillan

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• Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

  Michael Shermer

  Science, Thinking, Training

  Michael Shermer (2011). “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths”, p.63, Macmillan

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

  Michael Shermer

  Running, Long, World

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• The whole point of faith, in fact, is to believe regardless of the evidence, which is the very antithesis of science.

  Michael Shermer

  Atheist, Believe, Facts

  Michael Shermer (2003). “How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God”, p.407, Macmillan

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• There is a significant difference between having no belief in a God and believing there is no God.

  Michael Shermer

  Believe, Differences, Belief

  Michael Shermer (2003). “How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God”, p.271, Macmillan

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• Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance.

  Michael Shermer

  Morality, Intolerance, Absolutes

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• Remember always that we are pattern-seeking primates who are especially adept at finding patterns with emotional meaning.

  Michael Shermer

  Emotional, Religion, Atheism

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• Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life--birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science. In attempting to do this, creationists have missed the significance, meaning, and sublime nature of myths. They took a beautiful story of creation and re-creation and ruined it.

  Michael Shermer

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Struggle

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• Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.

  Michael Shermer

  Soul, Doe, Evidence

  Michael Shermer (2016). “Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye”, p.260, Henry Holt and Company

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• People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer--a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer--a government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.

  Michael Shermer

  Intelligent, Simple, Hard Times

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• Skepticism is not a position; skepticism is an approach to claims, in the same way that science is not a subject but a method.

  Michael Shermer

  Way, Claims, Method

  Michael Shermer (2002). “Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time”, p.17, Holt Paperbacks

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• Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

  Michael Shermer

  Motivational, Stories, Morality

  Michael Shermer (2016). “Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye”, p.111, Henry Holt and Company

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• To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

  Michael Shermer

  Agents, Principles, Moral

  Michael Shermer (2005). “The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule”, p.16, Macmillan

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• I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

  Michael Shermer

  Believe, Want, Skeptic

  Michael Shermer (2011). “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths”, p.2, Macmillan

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• Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.

  Michael Shermer

  Heart, Science, Thinking

  Michael Shermer (2002). “Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time”, p.124, Macmillan

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• Play hard, work hard, love hard. . . .The bottom line for me is to live life to the fullest in the here-and-now instead of a hoped-for hereafter, and make every day count in some meaningful way and do something-no matter how small it is-to make the world a better place.

  Michael Shermer

  Meaningful, Atheist, Live Life

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• Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works.

  Michael Shermer

  Understanding, Tools, World

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• A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral.

  Michael Shermer

  Glasses, Light, Space

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• Humans evolved brains that are pattern-recognition machines, adept at detecting signals that enhance or threaten survival amid a very noisy world. ... But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.

  Michael Shermer

  Brain, Survival, Machines

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