Michael Shermer quotes

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. (Michael Shermer)
Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant. View quote
Michael Shermer
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. View quote
Michael Shermer
So, of course, 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. View quote
Michael Shermer
... no such individual would find the Golden Rule surprising in any way because at its base lies the foundation of most human interactions and exchanges and it can be found in countless texts throughout recorded history and from around the world--a testimony to its universality. View quote
Michael Shermer
In principle, skeptics are neither closed-minded nor cynical. We are curious but cautious. View quote
Michael Shermer
Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing. View quote
Michael Shermer
Mysteries once thought to be supernatural or paranormal happenings - such as astronomical or meteorological events - are incorporated into science once their causes are understood. View quote
Michael Shermer
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons. View quote
Michael Shermer
Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy. View quote
Michael Shermer
The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition-thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not. (Michael Shermer)
No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process. View quote
Michael Shermer
Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does. View quote
Michael Shermer
Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic. View quote
Michael Shermer
One, I am skeptical of the effectiveness of nutritional supplements. View quote
Michael Shermer
In comparison, Google is brilliant because it uses an algorithm that ranks Web pages by the number of links to them, with those links themselves valued by the number of links to their page of origin. View quote
Michael Shermer
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. View quote
Michael Shermer
But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths. View quote
Michael Shermer
But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper. View quote
Michael Shermer
Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion. View quote
Michael Shermer
Human history is highly nonlinear and unpredictable. (Michael Shermer)
But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science. View quote
Michael Shermer
Dualists hold that body and soul are separate entities and that the soul will continue beyond the existence of the physical body. View quote
Michael Shermer
We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs. View quote
Michael Shermer
The natural inclination in all humans is to posit a force, a spirit, outside of us. That tendency toward superstitious magical thinking is just built into our nature. View quote
Michael Shermer