Michael Shermer Quotes

42 Sourced Quotes

But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.

Michael Shermer
Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

Michael Shermer
The human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering.

Michael Shermer
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.

Michael Shermer
I'm a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

Michael Shermer
When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.

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.

Michael Shermer
I'm a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

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.

Michael Shermer
Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.

Michael Shermer
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
For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.

Michael Shermer
The first-cause and prime-mover argument, brilliantly proffered by St. Thomas Aquinas in the fourteenth century (and brilliantly refuted by David Hume in the eighteenth century), is easily turned aside with just one more question: Who or what caused and moved God?

Michael Shermer
Ultimately all hominids came from Africa, and therefore everyone in America should simply check the box next to 'African-American.' My maternal grandmother was German and my maternal grandfather was Greek. The next time I fill out one of those forms I am going to check 'Other' and write in the truth about my racial and cultural heritage: 'African-Greek-German-American.' And proud of it.

Michael Shermer
We are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency.

Michael Shermer
Skepticism is not a position; skepticism is an approach to claims, in the same way that science is not a subject but a method.

Michael Shermer
There is a significant difference between having no belief in a God and believing there is no God...

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.

Michael Shermer
To be a fully functioning moral agent, one cannot passively accept moral principles handed down by fiat. Moral principles require moral reasoning.

Michael Shermer
In science, all conclusions are provisional, subject to new evidence and better arguments, the very antithesis of religious faith.

Michael Shermer
We know evolution happened because innumerable bits of data from myriad fields of science conjoin to paint a rich portrait of life's pilgrimage.

Michael Shermer
Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.

Michael Shermer
Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

Michael Shermer
Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.

Michael Shermer
Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from and where we are going.

Michael Shermer
What can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone tool in one's hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe's creation and did not blink?

Michael Shermer
The whole point of faith, in fact, is to believe regardless of the evidence, which is the very antithesis of science.

Michael Shermer
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

Michael Shermer
Science is a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed or inferred phenomenon, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation.

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

Michael Shermer