We live in an age of lies. We are so bombarded with fake news and falsehoods and spin and cherry-pick data from all possible sources that we might start to wonder if all information is misinformation.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. Some people call this the post-truth era,

as if the very idea of getting to the objective bottom of anything has become impossible.

My guest insists it is still possible and essential. And he warns us that

the people and entities most invested in convincing us that truth cannot be discerned are the same

ones most invested in spreading lies. Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic Magazine and

author of the new book Truth, what it is, how to find it, and why it still

matters. Michael, welcome to think. No, thanks for having me. Truth is a word, of course,

that we all know. Ironically, we don't necessarily hold the same ideas about what constitutes truth.

So give us a definition we can work with here. I define truth. Is something confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer our

provisional assent? That is to say agree that it's probably true, true with a small T.

Provisionally, we may change our mind if new evidence comes in, but for now, this is what we think is true.

And the more evidence you have, the more confidence you should have that it's true, the less evidence, the less confidence.

Sometimes that's called the Eekre principle.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, is made famous by Carl Sagan in Cosmos, that if the claim is just sort of ordinary, then you don't need

a lot of evidence. But if it's extraordinary, then you need a lot of evidence for it.

You've committed your professional life to skepticism, not because you think objective facts

can't be verified, but because they can and must. Talk about the relationship between skepticism

and truth. Well, my magazine is called skeptic, so yeah, I'm a skeptic in that sense. Skepticism

is just an approach to claims in a scientific way in which we start with the null hypothesis,

that is whatever the claim is, it's probably not true until proven otherwise.

You think Bigfoot is real. I say, that's great. Show me the body. Show me the evidence. And if you have evidence, then we'll accept that claim as true. And if you don't, then we won't. And that's pretty much how science has always worked. Now, that sounds simple enough,

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