A Post-Truth World Is Not Acceptable, with Michael Shermer
The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum
Meghan Daum
4.7 • 855 Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Meghan talks with science writer and professional skeptic Michael Shermer about his new book Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters, and about why agreeing on basic facts has become so difficult, even when everyone is looking at the same video. They discuss Minneapolis, ICE raids, viral "exposé" culture, the transgender movement, the lab leak theory, the Jeffrey Epstein case, the way activism distorts institutions that are supposed to care about evidence, and why humans are much better at defending beliefs than revising them.
Note that this episode was recorded on January 20, four days before the killing of Alex Pretti during ICE protests in Minneapolis. We discuss the killing of Renee Good.
Guest Bio
Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show. For 30 years he taught college and university courses in critical thinking, and for 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American. He is the author of Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, The Moral Arc, Heavens on Earth, Giving the Devil His Due, and Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational. His new book is Truth: What it is, How to Find it, Why it Still Matters. Follow him on X @michaelshermer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there. Before we get to the episode, this is just a quick reminder that if you enjoy this podcast, |
| 0:13.3 | you can enjoy it even more by becoming a paying subscriber at the substack, especially at the founding |
| 0:20.0 | member level, because I am hosting |
| 0:22.0 | monthly Zoom hangouts on the last Sunday of every month at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. This is for |
| 0:29.7 | founding members. We talk about the podcast, anything on your minds. This is off the record, |
| 0:34.7 | unrecorded. It's a great opportunity to meet your fellow listeners, talk with me, |
| 0:41.2 | find out all kinds of things about the podcast. |
| 0:42.8 | So go to megandamp.substack.com or the unspeakable podcast.com. |
| 0:49.7 | Also, the unspeak-ezy community is now officially a co-ed enterprise. |
| 0:55.3 | We are focusing on in-person retreats and events, and we have them going on in various places in the country this year. |
| 1:03.0 | Go to the unspeakeasy.com to find out what we are doing. |
| 1:08.1 | I'm really excited about it. |
| 1:10.1 | And now, enjoy the episode. And thanks again so much for being |
| 1:14.0 | here. Well, of course, you're not seeing the videos of them arresting the child predators |
| 1:24.3 | and sex abusers and so on on because they are doing that too. |
| 1:28.5 | You know, so again, this is one of these messy areas. |
| 1:31.1 | You know, we have, all countries have borders. |
| 1:33.7 | All countries have border policies and patrols and they have immigration policy and so on. |
| 1:38.6 | And they enforce them. |
| 1:43.2 | Welcome to the Unspeak Easy podcast, the podcast, formerly known as the unspeakable for conversations that are surprising and thought-provoking without being rage-baitie, the most nuanced podcast in all of podcast land. |
| 2:03.0 | I am your host, Megan Down. |
| 2:05.3 | My guest, Michael Shermer, is a science writer and historian of science and historian of science, best known for his work on skepticism, belief formation, and the psychology of why people |
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