Michael Shermer | |
|---|---|
 Shermer in 2007 | |
| Born | (1954-09-08)September 8, 1954 (age 71) Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Education | Pepperdine University (BA) California State University, Fullerton (MA) Claremont Graduate University (PhD) |
| Occupation(s) | writer,historian of science,editor |
| Title | Editor-in-chief ofSkeptic, adjunct professor atChapman University |
| Website | Official website |
| Signature | |
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Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954) is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director ofThe Skeptics Society, and founding publisher[1] ofSkeptic magazine, a publication focused on investigatingpseudoscientific andsupernatural claims.[2] The author of over a dozen books, Shermer is known for engaging in debates onpseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizesscientific skepticism.
Shermer was the co-producer and co-host ofExploring the Unknown,[3][4] a 13-hourFox Family television series broadcast in 1999. From April 2001 to January 2019,[5] he contributed a monthlySkeptic column toScientific American magazine.
Shermer was raised in a non-religious household,[6][7] before converting toChristian fundamentalism as a teenager.[8] He stopped believing in God during graduate school,[7][9] influenced by a traumatic accident that left his then-girlfriend paralyzed.[10] He identifies as anagnostic and anatheist,[11][12][13] but prefers "skeptic".[14][13] He also advocates forhumanism.[15][16] Shermer became an Internet-ordained clergyman in theUniversal Life Church and has performed weddings.[17]
Michael Brant Shermer was born on September 8, 1954, in Los Angeles, California.[18][19] He is partly of Greek and German ancestry.[20] Shermer was raised inSouthern California, primarily in theLa Cañada Flintridge area.[21][22][23] His parents divorced when he was four and later remarried.[22] He has a step-sister, two step-brothers, and two half-sisters.[21][24]
Shermer attended Sunday school but said he was otherwise raised in a non religious household. He began his senior year of high school in 1971, when the evangelical movement in the United States was growing in popularity. At the behest of a friend, Shermer embracedChristianity. He attended thePresbyterian Church inGlendale, California and observed a sermon delivered by a "dynamic and histrionic preacher" who encouraged him to come forward to be saved. For seven years, Shermer evangelized door-to-door.[21][24] He also attended an informal Christian fellowship at "The Barn" inLa Crescenta, California, where he described enjoying the social aspects of religion, especially the theological debates.[21]
In 1972, he graduated fromCrescenta Valley High School[23] and enrolled atPepperdine University, intending to pursue Christian theology.[21] Shermer changed majors to psychology once he learned that a doctorate in theology required proficiency in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic.[21][23][25] He completed hisBA in psychology at Pepperdine in 1976.[26]
Shermer went on to studyexperimental psychology atCalifornia State University, Fullerton. Discussions with his professors,[27] along with studies in thenatural andsocial sciences, led him to question his religious beliefs.[24][27] Fueled by what he perceived to be the intolerance generated by the absolute morality taught in his religious studies; the hypocrisy in what many believers preached and what they practiced; and a growing awareness of other religious beliefs that were determined by the temporal, geographic, and cultural circumstances in which their adherents were born, he abandoned his religious views halfway through graduate school.[24][27]
Shermer attributed the paralysis of his college girlfriend as a key point when he lost faith. After she was in an automobile accident that broke her back and rendered her paralyzed from the waist down, Shermer relayed, "If anyone deserved to be healed it was her, and nothing happened, so I just thought there was probably no God at all."[10]
He earned an MA degree in psychology fromCalifornia State University, Fullerton in 1978.[26]
After earning his MA in experimental psychology in 1978, Shermer worked as a writer for a bicycle magazine inIrvine, California. He took up bicycle racing after his first assignment, aCycles Peugeot press conference.[21][28] He completed acentury ride (100 miles) and started to ride hundreds of miles a week.[21]
Shermer began competitive cycling in 1979 and rode professionally for ten years, primarily in long distance ultramarathonroad racing. He is a founding member of the Ultra Cycling Hall of Fame.[29]
Shermer worked with cycling technologists in developing better products for the sport. During his association withBell Helmets, a bicycle-race sponsor, he advised them on design issues regardingexpanded-polystyrene for use incycling helmets, which would absorb greater impact than the old leather "hairnet" helmets used by bicyclists for decades. Shermer advised them that if their helmets looked too much likemotorcycle helmets, in which polystyrene was already being used, and not like the old hairnet helmets, no serious cyclists or amateur would use them. This suggestion led to their model, theV1 Pro, which looked like a black leather hairnet, but functioned on the inside like a motorcycle helmet. In 1982, he worked with Wayman Spence, whose small supply company, Spenco Medical, adapted the gel technology Spence developed for bedridden patients with pressure sores intocycling gloves andsaddles to alleviate thecarpal tunnel syndrome and saddle sores suffered by cyclists.[30]
While a long distance racer, he helped to found the 3,000-mile nonstop transcontinental bicycleRace Across America (known as "RAAM", along with Lon Haldeman and John Marino), in which he competed five times (1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1989), was an assistant race director for six years, and the executive race director for seven years.[21][31] An acute medical condition is named for him: "Shermer's Neck" is pain in and extreme weakness of theneck muscles found among long-distance bicyclists. Shermer suffered the condition about 2,000 miles into the 1983 Race Across America.[32] Shermer's embrace ofscientific skepticism crystallized during his time as a cyclist, explaining, "I became a skeptic on Saturday, August 6, 1983, on the long climbing road toLoveland Pass, Colorado", after months of training under the guidance of a "nutritionist" with anunaccredited PhD. After years of practicingacupuncture,chiropractic,massage therapy,negative ions,rolfing,pyramid power, andfundamentalist Christianity to improve his life and training, Shermer stopped rationalizing the failure of these practices.[33]
Shermer participated in the Furnace Creek 508 in October 2011, a qualifying race for RAAM, finishing second in the four man team category.[25][34]
Shermer has written on the subject of pervasivedoping in competitive cycling and agame theoretic view of the dynamics driving the problem in several sports. He coveredEPO doping and described it as widespread and well known within the sport, which was later shown to be instrumental in thedoping scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong in 2010.[35][36][37]
While cycling, Shermer taught Psychology 101 during the evenings atGlendale Community College, a two-year college. Wanting to teach at a four-year university, he decided to earn his PhD. He lost interest in psychology and switched to studying thehistory of science,[21] earning his PhD atClaremont Graduate University in 1991. His dissertation was titledHeretic-Scientist:Alfred Russel Wallace and the Evolution of Man: A Study on the Nature of Historical Change.[38]
Shermer then became an adjunct professor of the history of science atOccidental College, California. In 2007, Shermer became a senior research fellow at Claremont Graduate University. In 2011, he worked as an adjunct professor atChapman University,[39][40] and was later made a Presidential Fellow.[41] At Chapman, he taught a yearly critical thinking course called Skepticism 101.[21]
In 1991, Shermer and Pat Linse co-founded[42][43] theSkeptics Society in Los Angeles with the assistance of Kim Ziel Shermer.[44] The Skeptics Society is a non-profit organization that promotes scientific skepticism and seeks to debunk pseudoscience and irrational beliefs. It started off as a garage hobby but eventually grew into a full-time occupation. The Skeptics Society publishes the magazineSkeptic, organizes theCaltech Lecture Series, and as of 2017, it had over 50,000 members.[10]
Shermer is listed as one of the scientific advisors for theAmerican Council on Science and Health (ACSH).[45]
Shermer's early writing covered cycling, followed by math and science education for children which included several collaborations withArthur Benjamin.[25]
From April 2001 to January 2019, he wrote the monthlySkeptic column forScientific American.[5] He has also contributed toTime magazine.[46]
He is the author of a series of books that attempt to explain the ubiquity of irrational or poorly substantiated beliefs, includingUFOs,Bigfoot, and paranormal claims.[1][47] Writing inWhy People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time (1997), Shermer refers to "patternicity", his term forpareidolia andapophenia or the willing suspension of disbelief.[48] He writes in the Introduction:
So we are left with the legacy of two types of thinking errors:Type 1 Error: believing a falsehood andType 2 Error: rejecting a truth. ... Believers in UFOs,alien abductions,ESP, andpsychic phenomena have committed a Type 1 Error in thinking: they are believing a falsehood. ... It's not that these folks are ignorant or uninformed; they are intelligent but misinformed. Their thinking has gone wrong.
InHow We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science (2000), Shermer explored the psychology behind the belief in God.[citation needed]
In February 2002, he characterized the position that "God had no part in the process [of the evolution of mankind]" as the "standard scientific theory".[49] This statement was criticized in January 2006 by the scientistEugenie Scott, who commented that science makes no claim about God one way or the other.[50]
Shermer's bookIn Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History (2002) was based on his dissertation.[51][52][53]
In his bookThe Borderlands of Science, (2001) Shermer rated several noted scientists for gullibility toward "pseudo" or "borderland" ideas, using a rating version, developed by psychologistFrank Sulloway, of theBig Five model of personality. Shermer rated Wallace extremely high (99th percentile) onagreeableness/accommodation and argued that this was the key trait in distinguishing Wallace from scientists who give less credence to fringe ideas.[54][clarification needed]
In May 2002, Shermer andAlex Grobman published their bookDenying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?, which examined and countered theHolocaust denial movement. This book recounts meeting various denialists and concludes that free speech is the best way to deal withpseudohistory.
Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown was released in 2005.[citation needed]
His 2006 bookWhy Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design marshals point-by-point arguments supportingevolution, sharply criticizingintelligent design. This book also argues that science cannot invalidate religion, and thatChristians andconservatives can and should accept evolution.[citation needed]
InThe Mind of The Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics (2007), Shermer reported on the findings of multiple behavioral and biochemical studies that address evolutionary explanations for modern behavior. It garnered several critical reviews from academics, with skepticRobert T. Carroll saying: "He has been blinded by his libertarianism and seduced by the allure of evolutionary psychology to explain everything, including ethics and economics."[55][56][57]
In May 2011, Shermer publishedThe Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies: How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.[58][59][60] In a review forCommonweal, writerJoseph Bottum described Shermer as more of a popularizer of science and stated, "science emerges fromThe Believing Brain as a full-blown ideology, lifted out of its proper realm and applied to all the puzzles of the world."[47]
In January 2015, Shermer publishedThe Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom.[61]
Writing forSociety in 2017,Eugene Goodheart noted that Shermer identified skepticism withscientism and observed that in his bookSkeptic: Viewing the World with a Skeptical Eye (2016) Shermer was a "vivid and lucid" writer who imported his "political convictions into his advocacy of evolutionary theory, compromising his objectivity as a defender of science."[62]
Harriet Hall said of Shermer's 2018 publication,Heavens on Earth, that "the topics ofHeavens on Earth are usually relegated to the spheres of philosophy and religion, but Shermer approaches them through science, looking for evidence – or lack thereof."[63]
In 2020, Shermer launchedGiving the Devil His Due, a series of 30 reflections on essays that he had published the previous 15 years.[64]
Shermer appeared as a guest onDonahue in 1994 to respond toBradley Smith's andDavid Cole'sHolocaust denial claims,[episode needed] and in 1995 onThe Oprah Winfrey Show to challengeRosemary Altea's psychic claims.[episode needed]
In 1994 and 1995, Shermer made several appearances onNBC's daytime paranormal-themed showThe Other Side. He proposed a skepticism-oriented reality show to the producers but it did not move forward. Several years laterFox Family Channel, picked up the series.[65] In 1999, Shermer co-produced and co-hosted theFox Family TV seriesExploring the Unknown.[3] Budgeted at approximately $200,000 per episode, the series was viewed by Shermer as a direct extension of the work done at the Skeptics Society andSkeptic magazine, with a neutral title chosen to broaden viewership.[65]
Shermer made a guest appearance in a 2004 episode ofPenn & Teller'sBullshit!, in which he argued that events in theBible constitute "mythic storytelling", rather than events described literally. His stance was supported by the show's hosts, who have expressed their own atheism. The episode in question,The Bible: Fact or Fiction?, sought to debunk the notion that the Bible is anempirically reliable historical record. Opposing Shermer wasPaul L. Maier, professor of ancient history atWestern Michigan University.[66]
Shermer presented at the threeBeyond Belief events from 2006 to 2008. He has presented at severalTED conferences with "Why people believe strange things" in 2006,[67] "The pattern behind self-deception" in 2010,[68] and "Reasonable Doubt" in 2015.[69][70]
Shermer has debatedDeepak Chopra several times,[71][72] including on theABC News programNightline in March 2010.[73] In his bookHeavens on Earth Shermer writes that he was initially open minded to Chopra's New Age arguments and agreed to attending a three week spiritual retreat, after which he concluded that anyone would feel better after a vacation.
In 2012, Shermer was one of three guest speakers[74] at the firstReason Rally in Washington, D.C., an event attended by thousands of atheists,[75] where he gave a talk titled "The Moral Arc of Reason."[76] That same year, Shermer participated in anIntelligence Squared debate titled "Science Refutes God" paired withLawrence Krauss, and opposingDinesh D'Souza andIan Hutchinson.[77]
He is also an occasional guest onSkepticality, the officialpodcast ofSkeptic.[78][79]
Shermer appeared in the 2014 documentaryMerchants of Doubt.[80]
Shermer was accused of sexual harassment by two women.[81] Shermer has denied these allegations.[81][82] In 2019,Illinois Wesleyan University canceled Shermer's visit for the President's Convocation at that institution after it learned of the sexual assault allegations.[83]
Shermer married Kim Ziel. They had one daughter together[29] and later divorced. On June 25, 2014, he married Jennifer Graf, a native ofCologne, Germany.[84]
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Shermer is a self-describedlibertarian.[85][86] In a 2015 interview, Shermer stated that he preferred to talk about individual issues after previous experience with people refusing to listen to him after learning he held libertarian views.[87]
In 2000, Shermer voted for libertarianHarry Browne, on the assumption that the winner of theAl Gore –George W. Bush contest would be irrelevant. He later regretted this decision, believing thatBush's foreign policy made the world more dangerous. He voted forJohn Kerry in 2004. Shermer namedThomas Jefferson as his favorite president, for his championing of liberty and his application of scientific thinking to the political, economic, and social spheres.[88][89]
In June 2006, Shermer, who formerly expressed skepticism regarding the mainstream scientific views onglobal warming, wrote inScientific American magazine that, in the light of the accumulation of evidence, the position of denying global warming is no longer tenable.[90]
Shermer supports some measures to reduce gun-related violence.[87] He once opposed mostgun control measures, primarily because of his beliefs in the principles of increasing individual freedom and decreasing government intervention, and also because he has owned guns for most of his life. As an adult, he owned a.357 Magnumpistol for a quarter of a century for protection, although he eventually took it out of the house, and then got rid of it entirely. Though he no longer owns guns, he continues to support the right to own guns to protect one's family.[91] However, by 2013, the data on gun homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings convinced him that some modest gun control measures might be necessary.[92]
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