Search Results for: michael shermer

Michael Shermer: CONSPIRACY: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational

Posted on 6 March 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Michael Shermer’s latest book, a thorough account of why people believe conspiracy theories, why it might be beneficial (for evolutionary reasons) to give them the benefit of the doubt (even if they’re not true), with some deep dives into several … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Psychology | Leave a comment

Michael Shermer: THE MORAL ARC

Posted on 23 January 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom (Henry Holt, January 2015, 541pp, including 55pp of notes, 30pp of bibliography, and 15pp of acknowledgments and index) This is Michael Shermer’s magnus opus, perhaps, culminating a running … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Morality, Science | Leave a comment

Michael Shermer: WHY DARWIN MATTERS: The Case Against Intelligent Design (2006)

Posted on 8 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a middle-period Shermer book, from the range that begins with WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS in 1997 (and omitting some earlier and middle-period books on extraneous topics), and the 6th of 12 Shermer books I have on my … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Evolution | Leave a comment

Nonfiction Notes: Michael Shermer’s HOW WE BELIEVE

Posted on 26 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Michael Shermer, How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science. Freeman, 2000 When I was writing up a post here about Shermer’s first book, Why People Believe Weird Things (post here), I realized Shermer in that … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Religion, Science | Leave a comment

Nonfiction Notes: Michael Shermer: WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS

Posted on 6 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Michael Shermer: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. (W.H. Freeman, 1997) Here’s one of the earliest books that address human irrationality in terms of both the evidence against various pseudoscientific beliefs, and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Psychology, Science | Leave a comment

Ben Carson and the range of human psychology; Michael Shermer and the perception of the real world

Posted on 7 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

This New Republic piece, The Truth About Ben Carson: Smart People Can Believe Crazy Things, addresses what I find most interesting about this Republican candidate who, though evidently a brilliant neurosurgeon, seems to have surrendered his intelligence in so many … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology, Science | Comments Off on Ben Carson and the range of human psychology; Michael Shermer and the perception of the real world

Links and Comments: Michael Shermer, Science and God, Religion vs Education, Your soul

Posted on 2 February 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Michael Shermer’s new book As mentioned a couple posts ago, Michael Shermer has a new book out this week (I got my copy yesterday), The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom, which addresses … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Culture, Evolution, Morality, Religion, science fiction | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Michael Shermer, Science and God, Religion vs Education, Your soul

Links and Quotes: Michael Shermer, Ian McEwan

Posted on 19 January 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Salon has an excerpt from Michael Shermer’s forthcoming book, The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom (Henry Holt, January 20th). Today, of course, most Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe that moral principles are … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Morality, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Quotes: Michael Shermer, Ian McEwan

Basic Principles: Passages from Shermer

Posted on 8 March 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

In the closing pages of Michael Shermer’s new book, he quotes Jonathan Rauch’s list, from his book The Constitution of Knowledge, about social rules for turning disagreement into knowledge. Shermer expands upon them, and for one of them provides a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Morality, Quote at Length, Science | Leave a comment

Joshua Greene, MORAL TRIBES, post 1

Posted on 17 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here is a substantial book about human morality that offers ideas that, to me, help to knit together the ideas of others. For chronological context, this 2013 book follows, of course, the 1997 Pinker book that I recently read (review … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Morality, progress, Science | Comments Off on Joshua Greene, MORAL TRIBES, post 1