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In this lecture, arguably his most controversial subject that is based on his highly-acclaimed book, “How We Believe”, Dr. Shermer addresses a very old question in religion with the newest data from science, namely: why do people believe in God?
As Dr. Shermer attempts to answer the question using the best theories and data from anthropology, psychology, sociology, and evolutionary biology, Dr. Shermer also addresses the important role of religion in society, the historical roots of religion and why it arose around 5000 years ago as a co-equal partner to governments and states, the origin of myths and the importance of myth-making in human cultures, and what belief in God means for individuals and society. In his always conciliatory and friendly approach to deep and controversial subjects, Dr. Shermer nevertheless is not afraid to face head-on, and courageously confront our most meaningful questions that we all have about God, the universe, and the meaning of life.
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(28 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
From bands and tribes to chiefdoms and states, to become a Type 2.0 global civilization our polity and economy must evolve along with our science and technology. Politics, economics, and religion have been identified as a major cause of strife and conflict between nations. That’s too easy. The problem is not religion X or political party Y or economic ideology Z. The problem is tribalism. We are a social primate species, and as such we are exceptionally tribal.
Group identity is essential to our sense of self. Religious tribalism, political tribalism and economic tribalism have plagued our species since the birth of Civilization 1.0 starting 10,000 years ago. We need new science and technologies to reach Civilization 2.0, but without evolved political and economic systems, we will not make it. In this powerpoint, evidence will be presented in support of the observation of the 19th century social reformer and slave abolitionist Theodore Parker: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
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(82 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this lecture based on a chapter in his book, The Believing Brain, Dr. Shermer outlines how controversies in science are resolved by looking at the centuries-long debate over the nature of the cosmos, its size and origin, and what those fuzzy patches in the sky are: nebula within the Milky Way galaxy or island universes? It was not clear until well into the 20th century that the Milky Way was not the entire universe, until Edwin Hubble working at Mt. Wilson Observatory determined that the universe is much larger than anyone had previously imagined it to be.
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(72 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this presentation, Dr. Shermer addresses the topic of The Bermuda Triangle and some of the cognitive biases and processes that lead us to incorrect beliefs about phenomena. The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels reportedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Popular culture has attributed these disappearances to the paranormal or supernatural or extraterrestrial intelligences, but evidence indicates that a significant percentage of the incidents were inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have stated that the number and nature of disappearances in the region is similar to that in any other area of ocean.
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(36 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
Synthesizing thirty years of research, Michael Shermer upends traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first, and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. Using sensory data that flow in through the senses, the brain naturally looks for and finds patterns—and then infuses those patterns with meaning, forming beliefs. Once beliefs are formed, our brains subconsciously seek out confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, accelerating the process of reinforcing them. Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal.
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(285 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
What is a cult? What is the difference between a cult and a religion? Who joins cults and why? What are the social, cultural, and psychological reasons that people join cults? In this lecture Dr. Shermer presents research from sociologists and psychologists to attempt to answer these questions, while examining several examples of cults from recent history and when and why they can be dangerous.
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(105 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this lecture Dr. Shermer considers the evolutionary origins of trade through the study of the economy as an evolving complex adaptive system grounded in a human nature that evolved functional adaptations to survival as a social primate species in the Paleolithic epoch in which we evolved. That is, the economy is a very complex system that changed and adapted to circumstances as it evolved out of a much simpler system, that we spent the first 90,000 years of our lives as hunter-gatherers living in small bands, and that this environment created a psychology not always well equipped to understand or live in the modern world.
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(172 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this lecture Shermer addresses three aspects of evolution and economics: (1) How the market has a mind of its own—that is, how economies evolved from hunter-gathering to consumer-trading. (2) How minds operate in markets—that is, how the human brain evolved to operate in a hunter-gatherer economy but must function in a consumer-trader economy. (3) How minds and markets are moral—that is, how moral emotions evolved to enable us to cooperate and how this capacity facilitates fair and free trade.
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(58 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
Evolution, Intelligent Design, and the Battle
for Science and Religion
Evolution happened, and the theory describing it is one of the most well-founded in all of science. Then why do half of all Americans reject it? There are religious and political reasons, and in Why Darwin Matters, historian of science and bestselling author Dr. Michael Shermer diffuses these fears by examining what evolution really is, how we know it happened, and how to test it. Dr. Shermer then discusses what science is through a brief history of the evolution-creation controversy—from the Scopes’ Monkey Trial of 1925 through the creationism trials of the 1960s and 1970s, to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of 1987, to the Intelligent Design controversies of the 1990s and 2000s—demonstrating clearly how and why creationism and Intelligent Design theory are not science. Dr. Shermer builds a powerful case for evolution as the theory that most closely parallels the Christian model of human nature and the conservative model of free market economics. Dr. Shermer was once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, and is now one of the best-known public intellectuals defending evolutionary theory, so Why Darwin Matters provides readers with an insiders’ guide to the evolution-creation debate, in which he shows why creationism and Intelligent Design are not only bad science, they are bad theology, and why science should be embraced by people of all beliefs.
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(267 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this lecture, arguably his most controversial subject that is based on his highly-acclaimed book, How We Believe, Dr. Shermer addresses a very old question in religion with the newest data from science, namely: why do people believe in God? As he attempts to answer the question using the best theories and data from anthropology, psychology, sociology, and evolutionary biology, Dr. Shermer also addresses the important role of religion in society, the historical roots of religion and why it arose around 5000 years ago as a co-equal partner to governments and states, the origin of myths and the importance of myth-making in human cultures, and what belief in God means for individuals and society. In his always conciliatory and friendly approach to deep and controversial subjects, Dr. Shermer nevertheless is not afraid to face head-on, and courageously confront our most meaningful questions that we all have about God, the universe, and the meaning of life.
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(217 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
The Origins of Morality and How to be Good Without God
In The Science of Good and Evil, a lecture based on the third volume in his trilogy on the power of belief, Dr. Shermer tackles two of the deepest and most challenging problems of our age: (1) The origins of morality and (2) the foundations of ethics. Does evil exist, and if so, what is the nature of evil? Is it in our nature to be moral, immoral, or amoral? If we evolved by natural forces then what was the natural purpose of morality? If we live in a determined universe, then how can we make free moral choices? Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there justice in the world beyond the social order? If there is no outside source to validate moral principles, does anything go? Can we be good without God? In this stunning conclusion to an intellectual journey into the mind and soul of humanity, Dr. Shermer peels back the inner layers covering our core being to reveal a complexity of human motives—selfish and selfless, cooperative and competitive, virtue and vice, good and evil, moral and immoral—and how these motives came into being as a product of both our evolutionary heritage and cultural history, and how we can construct an ethical system that generates a morality that is neither dogmatically absolute nor irrationally relative, a rational morality for an age of science.
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(69 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this introductory lecture to the study of skepticism, Dr. Shermer defines skepticism and what it means to be a skeptic, employing numerous examples from the pages of Skeptic magazine to illustrate what science is and how it works, how to think like a scientist, how to think about weird things, what constitutes an extraordinary claim and why we require extraordinary evidence for it, and how to test claims of the paranormal.
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(259 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
Taken from the chapter in his book The Believing Brain on the psychology of political beliefs, Dr. Shermer considers how belief systems operate in the realm of politics, economics, and ideologies. He reviews the research on why people vote Republican or Democrat, why we are so predictable in our political beliefs that if you know where someone stands on, say, abortion, you can predict where they stand on a number of other political issues, and what these political beliefs say about the nature of human nature.
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(34 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
In this lecture, Dr. Shermer integrates several strands of thought on the evolution of morality, ethics, the history of civilization, and how to be good without god by creating a society that accentuates the positive aspects of human nature while attenuating the negative aspects. He shows how and why both liberal democracy and free trade lead to better societies and that we can “rise above” our inner demons by bringing out the better angels of our nature.
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(87 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
Any Sufficiently Advanced Extraterrestrial Intelligence is Indistinguishable from God
In this brief lecture, Dr. Shermer demonstrates why the Intelligent Design creationists’ and theologians’ search for a designer god can only result in the discovery of an extraterrestrial intelligence; one with such power that it can create life, planets, stars, and even universes. As Dr. Shermer states, “Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.” In this lecture Dr. Shermer also discusses the potential trajectory of our own technological advancements.
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(18 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
Does higher education systemically reduce belief? What do we know about this so far? This PowerPoint was used for an in-class presentation (in TEDTalk format) to discuss the correlation between higher education and belief in the paranormal. The presentation was created by Anondah Saide for Dr. Michael Shermer’s course, “Evolution, Economics & the Brain” taught at Claremont Graduate University during the spring 2011 semester.
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(30 MB Powerpoint Presentation)
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