What Should We Believe? Michael Shermer On Staying Rational In An Irrational World

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2022

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Shermer is a longtime figure in the New Atheist movement that arose in the early 2000s. He is the Founding Editor of Skeptic Magazine, the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, where he teaches Skepticism 101. His new book, Conspiracy: Why The Rational Believe The Irrational, looks at the psychological processes and societal forces that cause people, often en masse, to believe outlandish stories and theories. In this conversation, Michael talks with Meghan about a range of subjects, including what makes certain conspiracy theories take hold, what "cognitive dissonance" really means, why even military pilots can't be trusted when it come to UFO sightings, and how he went from being a born again Christian to a committed atheist. They also discuss the state of the heterodox movement and ask whether tribalism can be solved with a tribe.

Guest Bio:

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, where he teaches Skepticism 101. For 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American and he now writes a weekly Substack column. He is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Unspeakable Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. My guest is Michael Shermer. He is a
0:09.9	long-time figure in what is often called the new atheist movement, the new rationalist movement.
0:16.1	He has a new book out about conspiracy theories and why people believe them. But before I tell you more about
0:22.8	him, a couple of announcements. The first is that if you are a paying subscriber to my new
0:28.9	substack page, first of all, thank you. And secondly, I'm happy to say that I am finally
0:34.8	starting to post new writing on that page. It took me a minute to get
0:39.1	that part going, but I have some new things up now, and I'll be posting as often as I can.
0:45.7	These are ruminations about my life, diary of an aging Gen Xer, something in that vein. So if you want to be the first to read what is essentially the first personal essay writing
0:58.1	up done in quite a while now, please become a paid subscriber at megandaum.substack.com.
1:05.2	I will also tell you that the unspeakable podcast official Zoom hangouts have resumed. We had one a few weeks ago,
1:13.8	and it was great. These are going to take place monthly on Sunday evenings, beginning at 8 p.m.
1:20.7	Eastern Time. This is reserved for founding members. I know that's a generous donor level, but this is a special thing.
1:29.5	We get together. We discuss recent episodes of the podcast. I am always there. I moderate the
1:36.1	discussion. The next one will be Sunday, November 6th at 8 p.m. Eastern. We usually go for at least an hour and a half, often two hours. So if you
1:47.3	want to be part of that, join at the founding member level, if you haven't already. And you can look
1:53.1	out for posts from me about that. I send around the Zoom link, all that kind of thing. Okay,
1:59.8	my guest, Michael Shermer, is the founding publisher
2:02.7	of Skeptic Magazine. He's the host of the podcast, The Michael Shermer Show, and he's a presidential
2:08.7	fellow at Chapman University, where he teaches skepticism 101. I thought that's what this show was.
2:15.6	For 18 years, he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American,
2:19.8	and he now writes a weekly substack column. Michael's the author of several books, including the brand new
2:25.4	conspiracy, why the rational believe the irrational. In this conversation, Michael and I cover a lot of
	...

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