Michael Shermer - Why People Believe Weird Things - Part 1/11

Ever wonder why people believe in UFO abductions, mind-reading, reincarnation, urban legends, not to mention "scientific creationism" and the pernicious myth that the Holocaust never happened? Dr. Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, is a genuine ghost-buster, a relentless crusader against superstition and pseudoscience. Based on his bestselling book, Why People Believe Weird Things, Dr Shermers lecture will debunk junk science, bad science, voodoo science, pathological science, pseudoscience, and plain old nonsense. The event will be filled with humour,insight, and personal anecdotes - a highly entertaining wake-up call that has proved a hit on college campuses.

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Science Lecture Series at Caltech, and Adjunct Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University.

Dr. Shermers latest book is The Mind of the Market, on evolutionary economics. His last book was Why Darwin Matters: Evolution and the Case Against Intelligent Design, and he is the author of Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, about how the mind works and how thinking goes wrong. His book The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share Care, and Follow the Golden Rule, is on the evolutionary origins of morality and how to be good without God. He wrote a biography, In Darwins Shadow, about the life and science of the co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace. He also wrote The Borderlands of Science, about the fuzzy land between science and pseudoscience, and Denying History, on Holocaust denial and other forms of pseudohistory. His book How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, presents his theory on the origins of religion and why people believe in God. He is also the author of Why People Believe Weird Things on pseudoscience, superstitions, and other confusions of our time.

Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University (1991). He was a college professor for 20 years (19791998), teaching psychology, evolution, and the history of science at Occidental College (19891998), California State University Los Angeles, and Glendale College. Since his creation of the Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, and the Skeptics Distinguished Science Lecture Series at Caltech, he has appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Larry King Live, Tom Snyder, Donahue, Oprah, Lezza, Unsolved Mysteries (but, proudly, never Jerry Springer!), and other shows as a skeptic of weird and extraordinary claims, as well as interviews in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Shermer was the co-host and co-producer of the 13-hour Family Channel television series, Exploring the Unknown.

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[Centigonos]

"Is it just me, or are all skeptics extremely arrogant and closed off?"

It's just you.

[Josh111485]

Thank you so much for posting this! You are the best! Greetings from Los Angeles, CA! I support the Center For Inquiry and all other rational thinking organizations!

Keep up the good work!

[SippinonMickeys]

Worst cameraman... ever

[AceofDlamonds]

@socratic1968

I said there is no gigantopithecus living today......as SOMEONE suggested

[socratic1968]

Seriously? He picks the weakest most vulnerable aspect of the greater corpus of data and picks away. When he and Shostack make jokes about people being abducted without even a single prior date its funny.  But yes, it is a, slow for you S T R A WWWW MMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmaaaann.

When has shurmer ever mentioned Edward Ruppelt? The man who coined the term UFO? An AF officer. Never. Shurmer is pushing miasma when the evidence suggests contagion. get it?

[socratic1968]

@pillsareyummy

He uses the cheap strawman and the clowns laugh. Do you seriously believe that nobody has noticed the trillions of blue-green watts reflected minute by minute advertising life on this planet?

Please tell me you've thought of that already.....

[socratic1968]

My point is, we know for an absolute fact that there did exist an ape, probably bipedal that was over 9 feet tall. Yet, there are almost no bones. SO, when someone asks "why are there no bones of "bigfoot", the same question applies, "why are there ALMOST no bones of gigantopithecus? " Maganthropus? What destroyed the bones of this animal which lived for millions of years?

[socratic1968]

@socratic1968

oops, i means jaws not skulls. we have almost no fossil evidence of an animal that existed for millions of years. where are the bones?

[socratic1968]

@AceofDlamonds

There was a gigantic ape that was probably bipedal and far ranging. From India to China to Vietnam we have the bones. What do you do with the fact that it was over 9 feet tall based on the fossil evidence.

So, why don't we have more than a few skulls and teeth of this animal since it lived for several million years and was far ranging? Get my point? We do NOT have much fossil evidence. BUT we know with apodictic certainty that it existed. Why don't we have more bones?

[socratic1968]

@AceofDlamonds

"There is no gigantopithecus......arguing otherwise violates the laws of nature...."

Its a fact that there was a gigantopithecus, we have had the bones since the 1930s to prove it. It existed. It was the largest ape/hominid EVER known to science. This is a fact.

Its a fact that apes migrated from asia via the Bering Straight to the american continent. Ever heard of Native Amerians? If the gigantos followed the same path, we have a scientific explanation.

[AceofDlamonds]

@socratic1968

There is no gigantopithecus.......arguing otherwise violates the laws of nature.......you need a sizable population for reproduction, you need dead bodies at least, and hard evidence..........cryptozoolog­y is just as bad as humanoid aliens, superstition, and others......

[AceofDlamonds]

free-thinking is overrated........I hold Shermer's view that science is the best and most efficient tool to understand the world. You can't just say "I don't trust the government" and build your argument from there.........you build it from the information you have to start.