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Descubre un mundo infinito de historias

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Michael Shermer

The Michael Shermer Show is a series of long-form conversations between Dr. Michael Shermer and leading scientists, philosophers, historians, scholars, writers and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.

The Michael Shermer Show

In this episode, Michael Shermer explores anomalous experiences through personal anecdotes and historical examples. He reflects on how to balance healthy skepticism with open-mindedness, and how to reckon with the very real emotional significance of such experiences—regardless of the scientific explanations behind them.

Shermer Says 3: Weird Experiences, the Meaning of Dreams, and What Mark Twain Knew About Reality

A former senior intelligence officer explains how espionage is evolving in the age of AI and amid rising global tensions with China, and why the mass harvesting of data affects not just nation-states, but all of us.
 
The discussion also explores the history of spying, what life is really like for intelligence officers, and major intelligence failures and scandals, including 9/11 and Edward Snowden's unauthorized disclosures about the NSA.
 
Anthony Vinci served as the first Chief Technology Officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Earlier in his career he served in Iraq, Africa, and Asia. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and received his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics. His new book is The Fourth Intelligence Revolution: The Future of Espionage and the Battle to Save America.

A Former Spy Explains How AI is Changing Espionage

Archaeologist Ken Feder sheds light on how archaeology separates evidence from wishful thinking and entertaining storytelling. He explains what rock art, radiocarbon dating, and DNA can really tell us about the first peoples of the Americas, and talks about the different theories about ancient human migration and the impact of European contact on Native American populations. He also shares what we know about Atlantis, the Lost Tribes of Israel, and what to make of Graham Hancock's visions of an ancient apocalypse.
 
Kenneth L. Feder is professor emeritus of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University. His new book is Native America: The Story of the First People.

Did Lost Civilizations Really Exist? An Archaeologist Explains

Michael Shermer sits down with Charles Murray (author of The Bell Curve, Coming Apart, and now Taking Religion Seriously) for a riveting 100-minute conversation about Murray's late-life turn from Harvard-bred agnosticism ("Smart people don't believe that stuff anymore") to Bayesian theism ("I put the afterlife at just over 50%").
 
This wide-ranging discussion explores the evidence for the existence of God and the afterlife, the problem of evil, and the historical growth of Christianity. They also delve into topics such as the nature of consciousness, terminal lucidity, and even evolutionary vs. religious perspectives on love.
 
A thought-provoking exploration for skeptics, seekers, and anyone wondering whether the universe has a purpose.
 
Charles Murray is a policy analyst educated at Harvard and MIT and currently serves as the Hayek Emeritus Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of several influential books, including the controversial The Bell Curve, Coming Apart, and Facing Reality. His most recent book is Taking Religion Seriously.

Charles Murray: Why I'm Taking Religion Seriously

In this episode, Harvard primatologist Christine Webb challenges one of our deepest beliefs: that humans stand apart from the rest of nature. She traces the roots of human exceptionalism from Aristotle and Descartes to modern science, and explains why we still cling to hierarchies of intelligence.
 
While most critiques of human exceptionalism focus on our moral obligation toward other species, Webb argues that they overlook what humanity stands to gain by letting go of its illusions of uniqueness and superiority.
 
Christine Webb is a primatologist at Harvard's Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, with expertise in social behavior, cognition, and emotion. Her new book is The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters.

The Myth of Human Exceptionalism: Why Humans Aren't as Special as We Think

Are we entering a Fifth Great Awakening—a cultural swing back toward religion?
 
An increasing number of books and articles are calling for a religious revival.
 "We need religion to keep our society functioning."
 "People need meaning."
 
Michael Shermer responds to and revisits the historical waves of religious fervor that shaped American life. He also asks what today's renewed interest in faith, spirituality, and meaning says about our culture.
 
Featuring commentary on new books by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Charles Murray, and a preview of Helen Pluckrose's new article for Skeptic.

Shermer Says: Why Secularists Are Turning to Religion, The Substitution Hypothesis, Sleep Paralysis

Pulitzer-winner Caroline Fraser maps the lives and crimes of Ted Bundy and his infamous peers—the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, and even Charles Manson—and explores an intriguing hypothesis: might environmental factors have played a role in the rise of serial killers in the 1970s and '80s?
 
Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, and London Review of Books, among other publications. Her new book is Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers.

The Serial Killer Era of the 70s/80s: Lore, Patterns, and Plausible Explanations

First installment of our new series Shermer Says. 
 
Topics covered:
 
 • Debate Skills
 • Nobel Peace Prize 2025
 • Autism & Tylenol
 • COVID Vaccines & Myocarditis
 • ANTIFA
 • Bari Weiss & CBS News
 • New Skeptic Research Center Study

Shermer Says: Debate Skills, 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, Autism, Vaccines, ANTIFA, Bari Weiss & CBS News

For many decision scientists, their starting point—drawn from economics—is a quantitative formula called Rational Choice Theory, allowing people to calculate and choose the best options.
 
The problem is that this framework assumes an overly simplistic picture of the world, in which different types of values can be quantified and compared, leading to the "most rational" choice. Behavioral economics acknowledges that irrationality is common but still accepts the underlying belief from economics of what a rational decision should look like.
 
 Drawing from economics, psychology, and philosophy—and both inspired by and challenging Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow—Barry Schwartz shows how the focus on rationality, narrowly understood, fails to fully describe how we think about our decisions, much less help us make better ones.
 
Barry Schwartz is professor emeritus of psychology at Swarthmore College and visiting professor at Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. His research and writing focus on the intersection of psychology and economics, particularly with regard to decision-making, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and the nature of human values. His books include The Paradox of Choice, Why We Work, and (as coauthor) Practical Wisdom. His new book, co-authored with the philosopher Richard Schuldenfrei, is Choose Wisely: Rationality, Ethics, and the Art of Decision-Making.

When Rationality Becomes Irrational

Why do we crave revenge? And why can't we stop? In this episode, James Kimmel explains the neuroscience behind one of our most destructive urges. Drawing from his new book, The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction, Kimmel reveals how revenge activates the same brain circuits as drugs like cocaine—and why even imagining payback can feel euphoric.
 
If you've ever fantasized about revenge (and who hasn't?), whether in politics or personal relationships, this episode offers a chilling yet hopeful look at the science of moral outrage and redemption.
 
James Kimmel, Jr., JD, is a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, a lawyer, and the founder and co-director of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Control Studies. A breakthrough scholar and expert on revenge, he first identified compulsive revenge seeking as an addiction and developed the behavioral addiction model of revenge as a public health approach for preventing and treating violence. His new book is The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction—and How to Overcome It.

The Science of Revenge: Why Getting Even Feels So Good

Shermer speaks with Ravi Gupta, the Founder and CEO of Lost Debate, a new non-profit media company that launched in October 2021 to fight polarization and misinformation online. The company has seed funding of over $7 million dollars, with the largest investment coming from Netflix founder Reed Hastings. Before launching Lost Debate, Ravi founded Arena, where he led a team that helped elect over a hundred candidates and launched the largest campaign staffer training academy in the history of the Democratic Party — an effort that's trained over 2500 political operatives over the past three years. He was a critical leader in Democrats' efforts to retake the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 and numerous state houses, including the New York State Senate and Virginia House of Delegates.
 
Shermer and Gupta discuss: growing up with a Democrat mother and a Republican father; the rise of polarized politics in association with political talk radio, TV, and social media; why Republicans supported (and still support) Trump; what's in store for our democracy in 2022 and 2024; what it was like working on the Obama campaign from the inside; why freed felons should regain their right to vote after serving their time; education inequality; Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg, and censorship; the moralization motivation behind cancel culture; Critical Race Theory and race relations in America.

254. Ravi Gupta on the Lost Debate: Whatever Happened to Reasoned Discussion and Respectable Disagreement?

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