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Michael Shermer Quotes
born 1954 United States
Michael Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, and founder of The Skeptics Society (also its executive director), and editor of its magazine Skeptic.
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In science, all conclusions are provisional, subject to new evidence and better arguments, the very antithesis of religious faith.
Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.
Scientific explanations are often complicated and require training and effort to work through. Superstition and belief in fate and the supernatural provide a simpler path through life’s complex maze.
My thesis is that morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait; that is, a human universal.
The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition—thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.
Perceiving the world as well designed and thus the product of a designer, and even seeing divine providence in the daily affairs of life, may be the product of a brain adapted to finding patterns in nature. We are pattern seeking and pattern-finding animals.
So, of course, [Duane] Gish's presentation was well received, which it would have been the case had he only gotten up and said "praise the Lord" and sat back down.
Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance. Once you believe that you have the absolute and final answers to moral questions, why be tolerant of those who refuse to accept your Truth? Religiously based moral systems apply this principle in spades.
Shermer (2007)
We now know the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, and humans are about roughly 100,000 years old, Christianity began about 2,000 years ago; what was God doing that 99.99% of all that time?!
If IDers eschew all attempts to provide a naturalistic explanation for life, they abandon science altogether.
Hillel HA-Babli, in the thirty-first book of The Sabbath in 30 B.C., raised the Golden Rule to the ultimate moral principle: "Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do unto thee, do not do unto them. This is the whole Law. The rest is explanation."
Scholars who study cults (or, as many prefer to call them by the less pejorative term, “New Religious Movements”) explain that there is no simple answer to the question “Who joins cults?” The only consistent variable seems to be age—young .people are likely to join the cults than older people.
Being deeply knowledgeable on one subject narrows one's focus and increases confidence, but it also blurs dissenting views until they are no longer visible, thereby transforming data collection into bias confirmation and morphing self-deception into self-assurance.
Lately the word progress has taken on a pejorative meaning, implying superiority over those who “have not progressed as far,” namely, they have not adopted the values or the standard of living defined by the Industrial West, because they are either not able or not willing to encourage the development of science and technology. I do not mean progress to have this pejorative sense.
We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.
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