The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

In this lecture Shermer addresses three aspects of evolution and economics: (1) how economies evolved from hunter-gathering to consumer-trading. (2) How the human brain evolved to operate in a hunter-gatherer economy but must function in a consumer-trader economy. (3) How moral emotions evolved to enable us to cooperate and how this capacity facilitates fair and free trade.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Taken from the chapter in his book The Believing Brainon the psychology of political beliefs, Dr. Shermer considers how belief systems operate in the realm of politics, economics, and ideologies.

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.

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.

Does higher education systemically reduce belief? What do we know about this so far? This Powerpoint presentation was used for an in-class presentation (in TEDTalk format) to discuss the correlation between higher education and belief in the paranormal.

This in-class exercise, created by the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), answers questions such as: What is ESP? How do you test it? and What is the history of this research?

This is a student-made, educational video on the psychological phenomenon of “change blindness,” created for Dr. Michael Shermer’s course, “Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist (Without Being a Geek)” at Chapman University during the fall 2011 semester.

In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a “moral landscape.”

In this interactive and experimental course students will learn how peer review works, how to present an argument in written and visual form, and explore what it takes to settle a debate in science. They will also understand research tools, databases and other academic resources, and more! This course is somewhat different than most science courses: students may even find themselves singing through part of it!