UFO Skeptic Michael Shermer Interview | "Larry King Now" | Ora TV

Larry King interviews Michael Shermer. Skeptic Shermer discusses UFOs, aliens, extraterrestrial sightings, anecdotes versus data, and reliability of scientific evidence against eyewitness testimony.

Michael Shermer is an American science writer, science historian, and founder of The Skeptics Society. Shermer is also Editor in Chief of Skeptic magazine which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer also engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he promotes the need for scientific skepticism.

Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the Fox Family (now ABC Family) television series "Exploring The Unknown." Since April 2001, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Shermer states he was once a fundamentalist Christian, but converted from a belief in God during his graduate studies and has described himself as an agnostic, nontheist, atheist, and advocate for humanist philosophy as well as the science of morality. He has expressed reservations about such labels, however, as he sees them being used in the service of pigeonholing and prefers to simply be called a skeptic.

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• Category

  Science & Technology

[cocacoda]

Shermer is awesome :D

[frank serpico]

"If he's not denying evidence he's never researched, he's ridiculing cases he's never studied and or the data of researchers who've actually done field work"

oh oh, dude shermer has dedicated his life to address these phenomena. He wrote about UFO sightings numerous times.

I dont know why you would call shermer arrogant or clueless, he simply takes the position that without positive evidence you cant make usefull and serious assertions. There are indices of UFOs, yes but thats about all we have

[Zar Doz]

He may write about the UFO phenomena, but that's all he does, no research, no interviews, no field work, it's just his predetermined Argument from Ignorance and ridiculing opinion and that's not science or even skepticism, it's intellectually dishonest and laughable.

He's just trying to peddle his magazine.

[tetilt]

This guy is not the type that will advance science, he's pretty worthless.

[Da2faan]

shermer is psuedo skeptic full stop.

[actsnfacts]

You may call Shermer a pseudo-anything, but not a pseudo-skepctic! He is "the" Mega-Skeptic! And a great doses of skepticism is key to the development REAL science!

[Da2faan]

the plural anecdotes is not data blah blah blah,shermer allways start off splurting the same shit

[Da2faan]

psuedo skeptics like shermer are the biggest obstacles to science in this day and age

[Jackkevlar]

I should also add that a French group called GEIPAN (part of CNES, the French equivalent of NASA) continues to do UFO research and publishes it online. They have a pie chart of their home page that says 22% of their cases defy explanation. I just wish other countries would be this honest and open-minded in discussing/ researching UFOs, rather than pretending there's simply no data. You seem like a rational and intelligent person. Look into the Lonnie Zamora case, or JAL flight 1628. Solid data..

[Jackkevlar]

You're right - there are lots of ufologists who take things too far. Steven Greer and Jim Marrs are good examples. But the good ones consider the "extraterrestrial hypothesis" to be exactly that - a hypothesis - which can only be confirmed or denied with further research. I just bothers me that people like Shermer, who do almost no research whatsoever, claim that there's nothing left to be explained, in spite of the fact that numerous studies have suggested otherwise. That's not scientific.

[kissfan7]

"[The] unexplained are nothing more than that, until shown to be otherwise. That's why they need to be investigated further, which is all ufologists ask."

I don't think a lot of UFOlogists are simply doing that. There are some, but a lot just assume that the unexplained ones are aliens who traveled for years, possibly decades or centuries, to show off their flight skills to a few humans and abduct a few more. Not all UFOlogists are like that, of course, but at least a sizable minority are