Rationally Speaking #134 - Michael Shermer on: "Science drives moral progress"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2015

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Common wisdom holds that the world is getting more violent, but is that really true? Leading skeptic Michael Shermer, professor and author of many books on science, morality and skepticism, argues to the contrary. Shermer's thesis in his recent book, "The Moral Arc: How Science Leads Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom," is that as science has advanced our understanding of the world, we have become more willing to expand our circle of empathy beyond our own provincial "tribes," and more able to design our societies to encourage human flourishing.

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, a regular contributor to Time.com, and Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. His new book is The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to read rationally speaking and not just listen to it?
0:04.3	Come to our website where we're posting complete transcripts of every episode.
0:08.2	That's rationally speakingpodcast.org.
0:28.6	Music Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City Skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:33.7	For more information, please visit us at n.ycptics.org.
0:52.1	Thank you. For more information, please visit us at NYCSceptics.org. Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:53.3	I'm your host, Julia Galef, and with me today is
0:56.8	special guest Dr. Michael Shermer. Michael is a leading skeptic. He's the founder of the Skeptic Society
1:03.5	and the founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine. He's also a professor, a regular contributor to
1:09.2	publications like Scientific American, the Wall Street
1:11.9	Journal, and Nature, and he's an author many times over at this point, most recently, of the book
1:17.0	The Moral Arc, How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom,
1:22.9	which we'll be discussing today. Michael, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, so if you would,
1:31.2	to start, just lay out the thesis of your book in brief. So how can we tell that there's been
1:38.3	moral progress? And why do you think that science and reason deserve some credit for it?
1:43.7	Right. Well, so I take the long view, the historical view over the course of centuries.
1:50.0	If you just looked at the headlines, it seems like things are bad and getting worse,
1:54.0	Syrian civil war and, you know, violence in the Middle East and Putin taking, you know,
2:00.0	parts of the Ukraine and Ferguson and Baltimore and, you know, violence in the Middle East and Putin taking, you know, parts of the Ukraine and
2:01.9	Ferguson and Baltimore.
2:04.3	And, you know, you can always come up with headlines.
2:07.0	There's always going to be enough bad news to fill the evening news.
	...

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