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PODCAST

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

The Michael Shermer Show is a series of long-form conversations between Dr. Michael Shermer and leading scientists, philosophers, historians, scholars, writers and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.

science natural sciences

All Episodes

02:03:28

343. Timothy Redmond — Political Tribalism in...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/25

The democratic ideal demands that the citizenry think critically about matters of public import. Yet many Democrats and Republicans in the United States have fallen short of that standard because political tribalism motivates them to acquire, perceive and evaluate political information in a biased manner. The result is an electorate that is more extreme, hostile and willing to reject unfavorable democratic outcomes. Shermer and Redmond discuss: why we have political duopoly (Duverger’s law) •

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02:02:21

342. Valerie Fridland — Like, Literally, Dude:...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/22

Paranoid about the “ums” and “uhs” that pepper your presentations? Bewildered by “hella” or the meteoric rise of “so”? Can the word “dude” help people bond across social divides? Why are we always trying to make our intensifiers ever more intense? Are these language tics, habits, and developments in our speech a sign of cultural and linguistic degeneration? Fridland weaves together history, psychology, science, and laugh-out-loud anecdotes to explain why we speak the way we do today, and how that

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01:46:24

341. Secret Scientists & Real Conspiracies — John...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/18

In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D.C. When he arrived, he was led to a barren room where he waited to meet the man who had summoned him. Lovell became the head of a secret group of scientists who developed dirty tricks for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Their inventions included bat bombs, suicide pills, fighting knives, silent pistols, and camouflaged explosives. Moreover, they

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01:40:54

340. Ben Alderson-Day — Presence: The Strange Science...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/15

Shermer and Alderson-Day discuss the psychologist’s journey to understand the phenomenon of sensed-presence: the disturbing feeling that someone or something is there when we are alone. Using contemporary psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and philosophy, Alderson-Day attempts to understand how this experience is possible. Is it a hallucination, a change in the brain, or something else? The journey to understand takes us to meet explorers, mediums, and robots, and step through real, imagined, and

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01:52:43

339. Gerald and Patricia Posner on Evil

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/11

Shermer and the Posners discuss: the nature and banality of evil • Are we all potential Nazis? • Mengele, Eichmann, Himmler, Hitler • The Pharmacist of Auschwitz • the Holocaust • the Stanford Prison Experiment • Milgram’s shock experiments on obedience to authority • Abu Ghraib and other war crimes • restorative justice • the opioid crisis • the Vatican and the future of Catholicism. Gerald Posner is an award-winning journalist who has written twelve books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist

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01:36:48

338. AI SciFi — Physicist, Science Fiction Author,...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/08

Shermer and Brin discuss: AI and AGI • are they existential threats? • the alignment problem • Large Language Models • ChatGPT, GPT-4, GPT-5, and beyond • the Future of Life Institute’s Open Letter calling for a pause on “giant AI experiments” • Asilomar AI principles • Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Time OpEd: “Shut it All Down” • laws and ethics. David Brin earned a Bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Caltech, a Master’s in electrical engineering from UC San Diego, and a PhD in astronomy from UC San Diego

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01:25:31

337. On the Origin of Time — Thomas Hertog on Stephen...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/04/01

Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the Big Bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse — countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to harbor life. Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge,

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01:38:19

336. The Sacred Depths of Nature — Ursula Goodenough...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/28

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age — the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity — point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. Shermer and Goodenough discuss: origins of her personal beliefs • origins life, RNA, DNA, consciousness, language,

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01:35:49

335. Jennifer Michael Hecht on How to Find Meaning,...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/25

We have calendars to mark time, communal spaces to bring us together, bells to signal hours of contemplation, oﬃcial archives to record legacies, the wisdom of sages read aloud, weekly, to map out the right way to live ― in kindness, justice, morality. These rhythms and structures of society were all once set by religion. Now, for many, religion no longer runs the show. So how then to celebrate milestones? Find rules to guide us? Figure out which texts can focus our attention but still oﬀer space

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01:42:24

334. The End of the World: Bart Ehrman on What the...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/21

You’ll find nearly everything the Bible has to say about the end in the Book of Revelation: a mystifying prophecy filled with bizarre symbolism, violent imagery, mangled syntax, confounding contradictions, and very firm ideas about the horrors that await us all. But whether you understand the book as a literal description of what will soon come to pass, interpret it as a metaphorical expression of hope for those suffering now, or only recognize its highlights from pop culture, what you think

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01:45:01

333. Kevin Kelly — ChatGPT, OpenAI, and Excellent...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/18

On his 68th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. To his surprise, Kelly had more to say than he thought, and kept adding to the advice over the years, compiling a life’s wisdom into the pages of his book: Excellent Advice for Living. Shermer and Kelly discuss: protopian progress • ChatGPT • artificial intelligence; an existential threat? • evolution • cultural progress • self-driving cars •

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57:23

332. Wrongfully Convicted, Ultimately Acquitted —...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/14

Amanda Knox spent four years in an Italian prison for a crime she did not commit. In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment. After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she returned home to the U.S., where she remained silent until she released the memoir of

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01:49:17

331. Paul Zak — Immersion: The Science of the...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/11

The world is rapidly transforming into an experience economy as people increasingly crave extraordinary experiences. Experience designers, marketers, entertainment producers, and retailers have long sought to fill this craving. Paul Zak says there’s a scientific formula to consistently create extraordinary experiences, and that the data show that those who use this formula increase the impact of experiences tenfold. Shermer and Zak discuss: neuroeconomics, neuromanagement, and neuromarketing • Zak’s

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01:47:21

330. Jim Davies — How to Be a Better Person

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/07

Why do we feel like in order to be productive, happy, or good, we must sacrifice everything else? Is it possible to feel all three at once? Without even knowing it, we’re doing things everyday to sabotage ourselves and our societies, habits that prevent us from optimizing long term happiness. Where most books imagine solutions that, when enacted, fail to fundamentally improve our lives, Jim Davies grounds his research in cognitive science to show you not only what works, but how much it works. Being

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01:51:20

329. Marc Schulz — The Good Life: Lessons from the...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/03/04

Shermer and Schulz discuss: an operational definition of the “good life” or “happiness” or “well being” • the reliability (or unreliability) of self-report data in social science • relative roles of genes, environment, hard work, and luck in how lives turn out • personality and to what extent it can be scientifically measured and studied • factors in early childhood that shape mental health in mid and late life • generational differences: • the impact of loneliness • misconceptions about happiness •

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02:01:14

328. Paul Bloom — Psych: The Story of the Human Mind

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/02/28

How does the brain — a three-pound gelatinous mass — give rise to intelligence and conscious experience? Was Freud right that we are all plagued by forbidden sexual desires? What is the function of emotions such as disgust, gratitude, and shame? Renowned psychologist Paul Bloom answers these questions and many more in Psych, his riveting new book about the science of the mind. Shermer and Bloom discuss: neuroscience • human nature • religion • souls • consciousness • Freud • sex and desire • Skinner

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01:29:21

327. Rachel Moran on Her Years in Prostitution, How...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/02/25

Shermer and Moran discuss: her dysfunctional family background • her boyfriend who pimped her • the women who sell sex and the men who buy it • why other prostitutes have attacked her • agency and volition in prostitution: women and men • why “prostituted” as something done to women (instead of choosing it)? • what she thought about when having prostituted sex • drugs, depression, and suicide as responses to prostitution • the myths of prostitution • feminism and prostitution • how she got out of

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01:54:16

326. Naomi Oreskes — The Big Myth: How American...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/02/21

Shermer and Oreskes discuss: the myth of market magic • market fundamentalism • market absolutism • market essentialism • capitalism and democracy • well-regulated vs. poorly regulated capitalism • U.S. Constitution and capitalism • what the founding fathers believed about markets • what Adam Smith really said about markets and capitalism and how economists rewrote Adam Smith • why markets need regulation in the same way sports need rules and referees • rhetorical fallacies of market fundamentalists

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01:28:09

325. Heinrich Päs — The One: How an Ancient Idea...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/02/18

Shermer and Päs discuss: monism vs. dualism • What is time? • What is a field? • Is math all there is? Is math universal? • the double-slit experiment • superposition • metaphors in science • limitations of models and theories of reality • limitations of analogies between western physics and eastern mysticism • What banged the Big Bang? • Are we living in a matrix? • the Second Laws of Thermodynamics and directionality in nature • Model Dependent Realism • string theory, the multiverse,

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02:16:13

324. Andrew Gold on Exorcism, Abortion, Pedophilia,...

The Michael Shermer Show ·

2023/02/14

Shermer and Gold discuss: diversity, equity, and inclusion in the media • social justice movements and their motivations • bias in STEM fields • why people believe weird things • exorcisms • UFOs • faith healers • Derren Brown and how magic works on minds • hypnosis • sex and where to have an affair • Ashley Madison • female/male differences in sexual preferences and choices • non-offending pedophiles in Berlin • the curious case of Jimmy Seville: why didn’t anyone notice his pedophilia? Andrew Gold

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608 results

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