The Skeptic column is back!
Examining the World Through a Scientific Lens
Welcome to my new Substack Skeptic column, resurrected from my Scientific American column, which ran from April 2001 to January 2019. Skeptic had nearly a million readers, and each month I would hear from many of them, to which I always looked forward. But given the structure of the magazine and online platform, and time constraints on the staff and myself, interactions and correspondence with my interlocutors was necessarily limited. In resurrecting the Skeptic column in this free Substack format, I am increasing the frequency from monthly to weekly. For paid subscribers to my column I will read and respond to their letters and post some of those exchanges and, time permitting, I will periodically host a live Q&A with subscribers and add more AMAs to my semi-weekly podcast, The Michael Shermer Show.
I also plan to expand the range of topics I will write about to include more cultural, social, religious, economic, and political issues, which I believe can be also examined through a scientific lens, that includes not only empiricism but reason, rationality, and critical thinking. Traditional skepticism has primarily focused on examining claims of the paranormal, supernatural, and extraordinary—ESP, Psi, UFOs, ETIs, ancient astronauts, lost civilizations, astrology, psychics who talk to the dead, cryptids like Bigfoot and Loch Ness, conspiracies and conspiracy theories, and more—but there are many more mainstream claims made that can also be examined through a scientific lens that we do not cover in Skeptic magazine (which I co-founded and edit). My Substack Skeptic column will know no such restrictions, and I have no political, religious, or ideological agenda other than this one: a commitment to the truth.
Anyone who has listened to my podcast or read some of my books, most notably The Science of Good and Evil, The Mind of the Market, The Moral Arc, and Giving the Devil His Due, knows that I am not an ideologue (despite what some of my critics say). When I was in college and a young adult I identified as libertarian, but largely abandoned that label when it was clear that on many issues I was more closely aligned with traditional liberals (not today’s progressives), and other issues I found some conservative positions viable.
Today I call myself a Classical Liberal, but in this Skeptic column I endeavor to avoid pushing any conclusions into any particular political, economic, or social classificatory bins, because that is when truth is sacrificed to ideology and motivated reasoning takes over, most notably the confirmation bias, the hindsight bias, the self-justification bias, and especially the myside bias. The moment you analyze anything from the perspective of your “side”—your team, your religion, your political party, your ideology—the search for truth will be contaminated. I will try to avoid that here. Feedback from readers is the key to course correction whenever this might happen despite my commitment to the search for truth.
If you’re with me in this endeavor please subscribe to the Skeptic column here, and if you support my life’s work to promote science, reason, and critical thinking toward building a more moral and rational world, please consider a monthly subscription.
If you are unfamiliar with my work here is a brief bio:
Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist. He is the author of a number of New York Times bestselling books including: Why People Believe Weird Things, The Science of Good and Evil, Why Darwin Matters, The Mind of the Market, The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc, Heavens on Earth and Giving the Devil His Due. His next big book is on conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Dr. Shermer earned his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University (1976), his M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton (1978), and his Ph.D. in the history of science at Claremont Graduate University (1991). Read more about him at www.michaelshermer.com and follow him on Twitter @michaelshermer.
Praise for Michael Shermer’s Books
“Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson
“Michael Shermer has long been one of our most committed champions of scientific thinking in the face of popular delusion. We have all fallen more deeply in his debt.” —Sam Harris
“Thank goodness for Michael Shermer’s sound and inspired mindfulness and for this importantly useful volume. Truly a delicious read. Ten Goldblums out of a possible ten Goldblums!”
—Jeff Goldblum
“Michael Shermer is one of America's necessary minds. A reformed fundamentalist who is now an experienced foe of pseudo-science and superstition.” —Christopher Hitchens
“Michael Shermer connects the arc of the rise of reason and science with a country’s economic success, and the overall worldwide decline in violence and suppression of our fellow humans, especially women.” —Bill Nye, The Science Guy
“This is one of the best recent books that I have read, and it’s the one that I expect to re-read most often.” —Jared Diamond
“You may disagree with Michael Shermer, but you’d better have a good reason and you’ll have your work cut out finding it. He describes skepticism as a virtue, but I think that understates his own unique contribution to contemporary intellectual discourse.” —Richard Dawkins
“Michael Shermer is our most fearless explorer of alternative, crackpot, and dangerous ideas, and at the same time one of our most powerful voices for science, sanity, and humane values. In this engrossing collection, Shermer shows why these missions are consistent: it’s the searchlight of reason that best exposes errors and evil.” —Steven Pinker
“This book is a ray of light in a nation befogged by pseudoscience and psychobabble.” —Carol Tavris
“Well-researched, comprehensive, and persuasive. How We Believe is especially notable in stressing the great power of narration as the vehicle of complex thought.” —Edward O. Wilson
“As always, Michael Shermer is hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and brilliant. The fascinating essays in this wide-ranging book will make you think—and then rethink.” —Amy Chua
“Michael Shermer is the voice of reason, and this is a book of his best essays—the ones we most need to read to understand the madness of our time and to imagine a more reasonable future. The range of questions Shermer addresses and the breadth of his knowledge make this book a delight to read.” —Jonathan Haidt
“In Giving the Devil His Due, Michael Shermer provides a detailed roadmap for thinking well and clearly about interesting and challenging ideas. This vivid, erudite, broad, and deep collection of essays is marvelously written, so much so that, as you finish one essay, you cannot resist starting the next. And the range—from ancient civilizations to the colonization of Mars, from free speech on campus to gun control in cities, is as astonishing as it is engaging.”
—Nicholas A. Christakis
Welcome Michael, I have been looking forward to your substack and expect it will be a great complement to Skeptic magazine and The Michael Shermer Show which I really enjoy (great guest picks). I hope your contributions can help "swing the pendulum back".
The Laura Helmuth tweets provided are ironic in that they actually describe those who refer to themselves as "woke." (It's not a pejorative when the group being referred to refers to themselves using the same word.)
Individuals who describe themselves as woke exhibit an arrogance of moral certainty (another way of saying "self-righteous") and do indeed pick the fights, because they are invariably the party who resorts to name-calling or labelling, i.e. racist, sexist, transphobic, etc.
Those of us who abhor the woke perspective find it hard to conduct a dialogue or conversation when the refutation to all of our arguments are calling us those names. Moreover, the calling of names and the labels are pretty much the definition of "being cancelled."
For instance, if I argue that there are only two sexes: male and female, and the response is that no, there are myriad sexes: male and female as well as many degrees in between—that's a defensible statement and constitutes dialogue. However, if I argue that there are only two sexes, and the response is "You are sexist, transphobic, intolerant and as such a bad person..." Well, that sounds like bullying instead of disagreement, and it's a call for others to disassociate themselves with (otherwise known as "cancel") me.
The overall point being that if you are on the side that responds to statements by labelling people and calling them names, maybe you should reconsider your position. No argument of ideas should include calling anyone unequivocally pejorative names.
For reference, the tweets Michael sited read: "Substack seems to be attracting a certain set of writers who are arrogant, self-righteous, offended by social justice efforts, and/or just looking for a fight. This thread is about one small part of this pattern: editing, and what contempt for editing says about someone. Writers who resent editing tend to be belligerant and disdainful of their potential audience. Some of them are people who use the word "woke" as an insult and claim they're being cancelled if anyone disagrees with them or has a different interpretation of the world."