The Michael Shermer Show

For too long, the term insubordination has evoked negative feelings and mental images. But for ideas to evolve and societies to progress, it’s vital to cultivate rebels who are committed to challenging conventional wisdom and improving on it. Change never comes easily. And most would-be rebels lack the skills to overcome hostile audiences who cling desperately to the way things are. Shermer and Kashdan discuss: how he became an insubordinate rebel in his unusual young life • the effects of a fatherless home on children • the influence of role models • how civil rights movements make progress • the adversarial court system • how juries should think • racialization in America • viewpoint diversity • resisting complacency • the value of non-conformity • influencing the majority (when in the minority) • how to build alliances • how to champion ideas that run counter to traditional thinking • how to unlock the benefits of being in a group of diverse people holding divergent views • how to cultivate curiosity, courage, and independent, critical thinking in youth. Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at George Mason University, and a leading authority on well-being, curiosity, courage, and resilience. He has published more than 220 scientific articles, his work has been cited more than 35,000 times, and he received the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. His books Curious? and The Upside of Your Dark Side have been translated into more than fifteen languages. His writing has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, National Geographic, and other publications, and his research is featured regularly in media outlets such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Time. He’s a twin with twin daughters (plus one more), with plans to rapidly populate the world with great conversationalists.

Shermer and Thusi discuss: how she gained access to police and sex workers in Johannesburg • what it was like patrolling brothels in Johannesburg • what sex work is, exactly (street-based, brothel-based, escort services, private, dance hall, and hotel sex work) • why sex workers are mostly women and patrons mostly men • why sex work is illegal in many places and whether it should be legal and regulated like any other trade • the liminal nature of sex work (mostly illegal, mostly goes on anyway, difficult to police) • Critical Race Theory • racism and antiracism • President Barack Obama • her response to Shelby Steele and Jason Hill’s “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy • why we are not living in a post-racial society (yet) and why race matters (still). India Thusi is a Professor of Law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law with a joint appointment at the Kinsey Institute. Her research examines racial and sexual hierarchies as they relate to policing, race, and gender. Her articles and essays have been published or are forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, NYU Law Review, Northwestern Law Review (twice), Georgetown Law Journal, Cornell Law Review Online, amongst others. She has worked at the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and — most recently — The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communication lab that collaborates to effect lasting policy and culture change. She served as a federal law clerk to two social justice giants: the Honorable Robert L. Carter, who sat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and was the lead counsel for the NAACP in Brown v. Board of Education; and the Honorable Damon J. Keith, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and is lauded for his prominent civil rights jurisprudence. She also clerked for Justice van der Westhuizen at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country’s highest court. She was recognized as a Top 40 Rising Young Lawyer by the American Bar Association in 2019. Her book is Policing Bodies: Law, Sex Work, and Desire in Johannesburg.

The Blind Storyteller is an intellectual journey that draws on philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, and Berent’s own cutting-edge research. It grapples with a host of provocative questions, from why we are so afraid of zombies, to whether dyslexia is “just in our heads,” from what happens to us when we die, to why we are so infatuated with our brains. The end result is a startling new perspective on the age-old nature/nurture debate — and on what it means to be human. Shermer and Berent discuss: nature/nurture genes/environment biology/culture • language and innate knowledge • what babies are born knowing • how people reason about human nature • dualism • essentialism • theory of mind • the nature of the self • innate beliefs in the soul and afterlife • free will and determinism • how people think about mental illness and disorders • how one’s theory of human nature effects one’s attitudes about nearly everything. Iris Berent is a Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, Boston, and the Director of the Language and Mind Lab. Berent’s research has examined how the mind works and how we think it does. She is the author of dozens of groundbreaking scientific publications and the recipient of numerous research grants. Her previous book, The Phonological Mind (Cambridge, 2013), was hailed by Steven Pinker as a “brilliant and fascinating analysis of how we produce and interpret sound.”

Nicholas Dirks is a strong advocate for academic and scientific collaboration across disciplines and recently helped launch the International Science Reserve which compiles technical and human resources scientists to call upon in times of crisis. His work focuses on the critical issues at the intersection of the humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences, including distrust of science and vaccine hesitancy. Shermer and Dirks discuss: vaccine hesitancy • why antibiotics do not generate the same distrust • vaccines and autism • COVID-19 and its differential effects on people • the lab-leak hypothesis vs. the zoonomic hypothesis for the origin of SARS CoV-2 • Anthony Fauci and the CDC • climate denial • how trust in science has changed over the past century • the politicization of science • how to talk to someone who doesn’t trust science or scientists. Nicholas Dirks, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), is an internationally renowned historian and anthropologist. He leads the Academy in promoting science-based solutions to world challenges, including pandemics and global warming. His work at the Academy facilitates the dissemination of scientific information, supports broad access to science education, studies counter bias in academia and the laboratory, and supports scientists across all stages of their careers. He was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has taught at UC Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, and Columbia University. His website is nicholasbdirks.com.

In this important guide to science and society, cosmologist Stephon Alexander argues that physics must embrace the excluded, listen to the unheard, and be unafraid of being wrong. Drawing on his experience as a Black physicist, he makes a powerful case, in his latest book, for diversifying our scientific communities. Shermer and Alexander discuss: his journey from Trinidad to the Bronx to professor of physics • what it’s like being Black in a mostly White and Asian field of science • systemic racism and misogyny • how to be an outsider inside a science • how to tell the difference between revolutionary and worthless new ideas • how do laypeople understand whether something is good science or not? • the double-slit experiment • superposition • connections between quantum physics and Eastern mysticism • creativity • What banged the Big Bang? • Are we living in a matrix? • Deepak Chopra’s mind monism • consciousness and the universe. Stephon Alexander is a professor of theoretical physics at Brown University, an established jazz musician, and an immigrant from Trinidad who grew up in the Bronx. He is the 2020 president of the National Society of Black Physicists and a founding faculty Director of Brown University’s Presidential Scholars program, which boosts underrepresented students. In addition to his academic achievements, he was the scientific consultant to Ava DuVernay for the feature film A Wrinkle in Time. His work has been featured by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WIRED, and many other outlets. He has been a guest on Nova, the Brian Lehrer Show, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk, among much else. The author of Fear of a Black Universe and The Jazz of Physics, Alexander lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

A conversation with literary critic and publishing insider Bethanne Patrick about the future of books, book publishing, authors and readers. Shermer and Patrick discuss: her memoir Life B • trends in treatment of depression and other mental diseases • why memoirs by authors who have suffered traumas and stresses in their lives sell so well • non-fiction, fiction, and quasi-nonfictional fiction • censorship and cancel culture in publishing • why the New York Times bestseller list is so influential • the trial over the acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House over whether it will lead to a monopsony • the future of publishing and book stores • how writing compares to more accessible forms of content such as film or podcasting • what advice she would give to new would-be authors. Bethanne Patrick is the ultimate literary insider. If you read book reviews, you undoubtedly know Bethanne. Her endorsements in venues like the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and the Boston Globe have moved hundreds of thousands of copies. Check your shelves: chances are you own a book (or three) with a Bethanne blurb on the cover. An influencer in the book world, Bethanne (@TheBookMaven) has over 200K Twitter followers and originated the popular #FridayReads hashtag. The author of two books for National Geographic and editor of an anthology for Regan Arts, Patrick’s debut memoir Life B will be published by Counterpoint in May 2023.

All our unique gifts like language, math, and science do not make humans happier or more “successful” (evolutionarily speaking) than other species. Our intelligence allowed us to split the atom, but we’ve harnessed that knowledge to make machines of war. We are uniquely susceptible to bullshit; our bizarre obsession with lawns has contributed to the growing threat of climate change; we are sexually diverse like many species yet stand apart as homophobic; and discriminate among our own as if its natural, which it certainly is not. Is our intelligence more of a curse than a gift? Shermer and Gregg discuss: • intelligence • stupidity • dolphins • artificial intelligence • language • rationality • moral systems • comparative thanatology • “causal inference” vs. “learned associations” • humans as “why specialists” • death awareness • why narwhals do not commit genocide • “prognostic myopia” • our “shortsighted farsightedness" as "an extinction-level threat to humanity” • consciousness and sophisticated consciousness: animals and humans • free will • determinism • pleasure vs. happiness vs. purposefulness. Justin Gregg is a Senior Research Associate with the Dolphin Communication Project and an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis Xavier University where he lectures on animal behavior and cognition. Originally from Vermont, Justin studied the echolocation abilities of wild dolphins in Japan and The Bahamas. He currently lives in rural Nova Scotia where he writes about science and contemplates the inner lives of the crows that live near his home.

Michael Shermer discusses his new book Conspiracy, out October 25, 2022. In Conspiracy Shermer: reviews and integrates evolutionary, psychological, social, cultural, political, and economic conditions that fuel conspiracy theories presents his own original three-tiered theoretical model of Proxy Conspiracism, Tribal Conspiracism, and Constructive Conspiracism classifies and systematizes conspiracy theories in order to tease apart their different causes (incl. JFK’s assassination, the 9/11 Truth movement, Pizzagate, QAnon, the Big Lie, Project MKULTRA, Operation Paperclip, and the perennial conspiracy theories surrounding UFOs) offers his Conspiracy Detection Kit on how to tell if a conspiracy theory is true, false, or undecidable and suggests how to talk to a conspiracy theorist. You can order your copy on Amazon (https://amzn.to/3Eza8Lf) and Audible (https://adbl.co/3eGXkaT) now.

Why does your weather app say “There’s a 10% chance of rain” instead of “It will be sunny tomorrow”? In large part this is due to the insight of Tim Palmer, who made uncertainty essential to the study of weather and climate. Now he wants to apply it to how we study everything else. In The Primacy of Doubt, Palmer argues that embracing the mathematics of uncertainty is vital to understanding ourselves and the universe around us. Whether we want to predict climate change or market crashes, understand how the brain is able to outpace supercomputers, or find a theory that links quantum and cosmological physics, Palmer shows how his vision of mathematical uncertainty provides new insights into some of the deepest problems in science. The result is a revolution—one that shows that power begins by embracing what we don’t know. Shermer and Palmer discuss: doubt and skepticism • when doubt slides into denial • uncertainty as a measurement problem vs. inherent in natural systems • contingency and necessity, randomness and law • the butterfly effect • the geometry of chaos • quantum uncertainty • weather forecasting • climate change • pandemics • economic recessions • human decision making and creativity • free will • consciousness, and God. Tim Palmer, FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society), CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) is a Royal Society Research Professor in the department of physics at the University of Oxford. He pioneered the development of operational ensemble weather and climate forecasting, and in 2007, he was formally recognized as having contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Nobel Peace Prize. Palmer is a Commander of the British Empire, a fellow of the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Institute of Physics’ Dirac Gold Medal. He lives near Oxford, UK.

Shermer and Blinder discuss: serving on Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers • being the Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board • What kind of science is economics? • how one’s political leanings influence cause-and-effect economic theories • the difference between monetary and fiscal policy • a Keynesian approach to economics • inflation, stagflation, recessions, depressions, Bull and Bear markets defined • interest rates • the Federal Reserve • the money supply • What makes money valuable without the gold standard? • how the government can give billions of dollars in COVID relief and other programs • deficit spending • business cycles/boom-and-bust cycles • Reagonomics/trickle-down economics • Is GDP the best measure of an economy’s success? • unemployment and full employment: what’s the right percentage? • income tax: what’s the right percentage? • the best investments to make in the long run • modern monetary theory, and • utility maximizing. Alan S. Blinder is the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, a former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, and a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. A regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal, he is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey