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Michael Shermer QUOTES

Michael Shermer QUOTES

1 " There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. "

― Michael Shermer

2 " Evolution provides a scientific foundation for the core values shared by most Christians and conservatives, and by accepting–and embracing–the theory of evolution, Christians and conservatives strengthen their religion, their politics, and science itself. The conflict between science and religion is senseless. It is based on fears and misunderstandings rather than on facts and moral wisdom. (138) "

― Michael Shermer , Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

3 " Myths, whether in written or visual form, serve a vital role of asking unanswerable questions and providing unquestionable answers. Most of us, most of the time, have a low tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. We want to reduce the cognitive dissonance of not knowing by filling the gaps with answers. Traditionally, religious myths have served that role, but today — the age of science — science fiction is our mythology. "

― Michael Shermer

4 " How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond oneself. . . . Does scientific explanation of the world diminish its spiritual beauty? I think not. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. (158-159) "

― Michael Shermer , Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

5 " Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. (80) "

― Michael Shermer , Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

6 " Of all the chemical transmitter substances sloshing around in your brain, it appears that dopamine may be the most directly related to the neural correlates of belief. Dopamine, in fact, is critical in association learning and the reward system of the brain that Skinner discovered through his process of operant conditioning, whereby any behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated. A reinforcement is, by definition, something that is rewarding to the organism; that is to say, it makes the brain direct the body to repeat the behavior in order to get another positive reward. "

― Michael Shermer , The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

7 " Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion. "

― Michael Shermer

8 " People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer--a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer--a government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer. "

― Michael Shermer

9 " Rather than there being two distinct and unambiguous categories of
constrained and unconstrained (or tragic and utopian) visions of human
nature, I think there is just one vision with a sliding scale. Let’s call this the
Realistic Vision. If you believe that human nature is partly constrained in
all respects—morally, physically, and intellectually—then you hold a
Realistic Vision of human nature. "

― Michael Shermer , Brain, Belief, and Politics (Cato Unbound Book 92011)

10 " Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy. "

― Michael Shermer , Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

11 " Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life—yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. "

― Michael Shermer

12 " As Karl Marx once noted: 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.' William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial was a tragedy. The creationists and intelligent design theorists are a farce. "

― Michael Shermer

13 " ...Spinoza’s Conjecture:“Belief comes quickly and naturally, skepticism is slow and unnatural, and most people have a low tolerance for ambiguity.
The scientific principle that a claim is untrue unless proven otherwise runs counter to our natural tendency to accept as true that which we can comprehend quickly. Thus it is that we should reward skepticism and disbelief, and champion those willing to change their mind in the teeth of new evidence. Instead, most social institutions-most notably those in religion, politics, and economics-reward belief in the doctrines of the faith or party or ideology, punish those who challenge the authority of the leaders, and discourage uncertainty and especially skepticism. "

― Michael Shermer

14 " Yet basically, libertarians are for freedom and liberty for
individuals, while recognizing that in order to be free we must also be
protected. Your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose. "

― Michael Shermer , Brain, Belief, and Politics (Cato Unbound Book 92011)

15 " 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. (38) "

― Michael Shermer , Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

16 " Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not. "

― Michael Shermer

17 " Any preference for my group's interests over yours must be justified by some unbiased, disinterested ethic. Which sounds simple but, given that we're dealing with Humans and not Vulcans, it's sometimes difficult for two parties to agree on basic principles, specially parties who are unable or unwilling to switch points of view. This is the power of ethical reasoning. "

― Michael Shermer , The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom

18 " Through no divine design or cosmic plan, we have inherited the mantle of life's caretaker on the earth, the only home we have ever known. "

― Michael Shermer

19 " Cities, Barber notes, “collect garbage and collect art rather than collecting votes or collecting allies. They put up buildings and run buses rather than putting up flags and running political parties. They secure the flow of water rather than the flow of arms. They foster education and culture in place of national defense and patriotism. They promote collaboration, not exceptionalism.”24 "

― Michael Shermer , The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom

20 " Countries that quash free inquiry, distrust reason, and practice pseudoscience, such as Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and, more recently, fundamentalist Islamist states, stagnate, regress, and often collapse. Theists and postmodernist critics of science and reason often label the disastrous Soviet and Nazi utopias as “scientific,” but their science was a thin patina covering a deep layer of counter-Enlightenment, pastoral, paradisiacal fantasies of racial ideology grounded in ethnicity and geography, as documented in Claudia Koonz’s book The Nazi Conscience79 and in Ben Kiernan’s book Blood and Soil.80 "

― Michael Shermer , The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom