This is the reason interview with Nick Gillespie. Thanks for tuning in. You've probably heard the saying,

even paranoid have real enemies. That's from the poet Delmore Schwartz, who was both clinically

paranoid and absolutely onto something. My guest today is Michael Shermer, the founder of Skeptic

magazine, a Substack Superstar, and author of many best-selling books about rationalism,

the evolution of morality, and pseudoscience. He quote Schwartz in his latest book,

Conspiracy, why the Rational believe the Irrational, to drive home the point that big world-changing

secret plots happen all the time. But there are reliable ways for us to decide whether,

for instance, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. 9-11 was an inside job where vaccines cause autism.

For the record, Schumer says yes, no, and no on those counts. We talk about whether conspiracy

thinking is on the rise, whether it's coded

left or right, how wokeness poisoned science, and whether the re-election of Donald Trump means

free thought is ascending. This interview was taped at a live event in New York City in January.

Here is the reason interview with Michael Shermer.

Thank you. in January. Here is The Reason Interview with Michael Shermer. This is the Reason interview with Nick Gillespie.

All right. Happy, happy, happy 2025 to everybody.

Tonight we are talking with Michael Shermer.

He has a phenomenal substack that you can dig up called Skeptic.

He's the founder and head of Skeptic magazine, and there are copies of that scattered around.

Please take a look at that.

He did make it, so they weren't.

All right.

That's telling.

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