A commentary on the latest UAP/UFO story about the whistleblower and the government UFO retrieval program. In this special episode of The Michael Shermer Show , Dr. Shermer addresses the latest claims by a whistleblower that the U.S. government and its allies has spacecraft that are “off-world,” meaning extraterrestrial in nature. If true, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in human history, but is it, in fact, true? Very very unlikely, for a number of reasons that Dr. Shermer considers...
Jun 08, 2023•33 min•Ep 358•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and Thornton discuss: aggression: passive, proactive, reactive, relational • moralistic punishment and the game theory analysis of the logic of violence • gun violence (homicide, suicide, accidents) • violence against women/children • male-on-male violence • alcohol, drugs, infidelity • race • self-control • training soldiers • male role models • Rodney King, Michael Brown, George Floyd • police violence • bullying • fatherless homes • rape and sexual violence • self-defense. Matt Thornt...
Jun 06, 2023•2 hr 49 min•Ep 357•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and Mac Donald discuss: race as America’s original sin • civil rights • equality vs. equity • disparate impact • overt racism vs. systemic racism • why Blacks make less money, own fewer and lower quality homes, work in less prestigious jobs, hold fewer seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, run fewer Fortune 500 companies • race and science, medicine, classical music, opera, Juilliard, Swan Lake, museums, and the law • crime and mass shootings • George Floyd and race riots. He...
May 30, 2023•2 hr 37 min•Ep 356•Transcript available on Metacast How humans transfer knowledge through time might affect our ability to think. With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things — no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization — are we risking our ability to think? Simon Winchester takes...
May 27, 2023•2 hr 34 min•Ep 355•Transcript available on Metacast The quantum computer, which harnesses the power and complexity of the atomic realm, promises to be every bit as revolutionary as the transistor and microchip once were. Its unprecedented gains in computing power herald advancements that could change every aspect of our daily lives. There is not a single problem humanity faces that couldn’t be addressed by quantum computing. Shermer and Kaku discuss: AI, GPT, sentience/consciousness, the end of humanity • decoherence • Uncertainty Principle • mul...
May 25, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep 354•Transcript available on Metacast My guest today is Inga Thompson, one of the most decorated cyclists in American history. You might ask, besides being aware I’m something of a bike geek, why am I having a cyclist on the show? Well, we’re not here to talk about bikes or training diets. We are here to talk about what happened to Inga when she spoke out in defense of women’s rights. Not against bible-thumping religious fundamentalists who think women belong in the kitchen and bedroom making dinner and babies, but against her fello...
May 23, 2023•2 hr 22 min•Ep 353•Transcript available on Metacast In the final minutes of the final lecture of Dr. Shermer’s final semester at Chapman a student asked what practical lessons for life he might share with them. Dr. Shermer offered as much as he could think of off the top of his head, but since he has researched and written a fair amount on this topic over the decades he sat down and wrote out a final lecture here, not only for his students but for anyone who is interested in knowing what tools science and reason can provide for how to live a good...
May 18, 2023•43 min•Ep 352•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and Skousen discuss: whether economics is politicized • Adam Smith and what he really said • how the economy really works • fiat money vs. gold standard money • inflation and what to do about it • experimental economics • regulation on capitalism • what the Fed does (or should do) • Modern Monetary Theory • bitcoin/cryptocurrency • monopolies, duopolies, and market capture • antitrust, trustbusting • What’s wrong with free market capitalism? • money, happiness, and meaningfulness. Mark S...
May 16, 2023•2 hr 50 min•Ep 351•Transcript available on Metacast Have you ever wondered why Bernie Madoff thought he could brazenly steal his clients’ money? Or why investors were so easily duped by Elizabeth Holmes? Or how courageous people like Jeffrey Wigand are willing to become whistleblowers and put their careers on the line? Fraud is everywhere, and it is costly. In Fool Me Once , renowned forensic accounting expert Kelly Richmond Pope shows fraud in action, uncovering what makes perps tick, victims so gullible, and whistleblowers so morally righteous....
May 13, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep 350•Transcript available on Metacast The United States is currently home to six generations of people. With her clear-eyed and insightful voice, Twenge explores what the Silents and Boomers want out of the rest of their lives; how Gen X-ers are facing middle age; the ideals of Millennials as parents and in the workplace; and how Gen Z has been changed by COVID, among other fascinating topics. Shermer and Twenge discuss: untangling interacting causal variables (age, gender, race, religion, politics, SES, big events, slow trends, tim...
May 09, 2023•2 hr 41 min•Ep 349•Transcript available on Metacast How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people — as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real , acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion Tanya M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real. Does this effort help explain the enduring pow...
May 06, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep 348•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode of the podcast, Michael Shermer talks about: why race still matters why race shouldn’t matter racism BLM (Black Lives Matter), CRT (Critical Race Theory), DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Anti-bias training the Implicit Association Test and if it measures unconscious racism race and IQ and why such group differences are environmental and not genetic how we can achieve a post-race world....
May 04, 2023•42 min•Ep 347•Transcript available on Metacast It’s become fashionable to argue that free will is a fiction: that we humans are in the thrall of animal urges and unconscious biases and only think that we are choosing freely. In Freely Determined , research psychologist Kennon Sheldon argues that this perception is not only wrong but also dangerous. Shermer and Sheldon discuss: definitions of free will, determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will • dualism • reductionism, materialism, predetermination, and epiphenomenalism • Christian L...
May 02, 2023•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today’s left, he’s remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout—a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neoconservatism after the September 11 attacks. In How Hitchens Can Save the Left , Matt Johnson argues that this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free i...
Apr 29, 2023•2 hr 39 min•Ep 345•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode of the Michael Shermer Show Dr. Shermer comments on current events surrounding trans matters and reads his in-depth essay on the subject, originally published as one of his regularly Skeptic columns on Substack.
Apr 26, 2023•37 min•Ep 344•Transcript available on Metacast The democratic ideal demands that the citizenry think critically about matters of public import. Yet many Democrats and Republicans in the United States have fallen short of that standard because political tribalism motivates them to acquire, perceive and evaluate political information in a biased manner. The result is an electorate that is more extreme, hostile and willing to reject unfavorable democratic outcomes. Shermer and Redmond discuss: why we have political duopoly (Duverger’s law) • pa...
Apr 25, 2023•2 hr 3 min•Ep 343•Transcript available on Metacast Paranoid about the “ums” and “uhs” that pepper your presentations? Bewildered by “hella” or the meteoric rise of “so”? Can the word “dude” help people bond across social divides? Why are we always trying to make our intensifiers ever more intense? Are these language tics, habits, and developments in our speech a sign of cultural and linguistic degeneration? Fridland weaves together history, psychology, science, and laugh-out-loud anecdotes to explain why we speak the way we do today, and how tha...
Apr 22, 2023•2 hr 2 min•Ep 342•Transcript available on Metacast In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar building in Washington, D.C. When he arrived, he was led to a barren room where he waited to meet the man who had summoned him. Lovell became the head of a secret group of scientists who developed dirty tricks for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Their inventions included bat bombs, suicide pills, fighting knives, silent pistols, and camouflaged explosives. Moreover, the...
Apr 18, 2023•2 hr 46 min•Ep 341•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and Alderson-Day discuss the psychologist’s journey to understand the phenomenon of sensed-presence: the disturbing feeling that someone or something is there when we are alone. Using contemporary psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and philosophy, Alderson-Day attempts to understand how this experience is possible. Is it a hallucination, a change in the brain, or something else? The journey to understand takes us to meet explorers, mediums, and robots, and step through real, imagined,...
Apr 15, 2023•2 hr 41 min•Ep 340•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and the Posners discuss: the nature and banality of evil • Are we all potential Nazis? • Mengele, Eichmann, Himmler, Hitler • The Pharmacist of Auschwitz • the Holocaust • the Stanford Prison Experiment • Milgram’s shock experiments on obedience to authority • Abu Ghraib and other war crimes • restorative justice • the opioid crisis • the Vatican and the future of Catholicism. Gerald Posner is an award-winning journalist who has written twelve books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist...
Apr 11, 2023•2 hr 53 min•Ep 339•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and Brin discuss: AI and AGI • are they existential threats? • the alignment problem • Large Language Models • ChatGPT, GPT-4, GPT-5, and beyond • the Future of Life Institute’s Open Letter calling for a pause on “giant AI experiments” • Asilomar AI principles • Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Time OpEd: “Shut it All Down” • laws and ethics. David Brin earned a Bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Caltech, a Master’s in electrical engineering from UC San Diego, and a PhD in astronomy from UC San Dieg...
Apr 08, 2023•2 hr 37 min•Ep 338•Transcript available on Metacast Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the Big Bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse — countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to harbor life. Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambrid...
Apr 01, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Ep 337•Transcript available on Metacast For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age — the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity — point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature , eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. Shermer and Goodenough discuss: origins of her personal beliefs • origins life, RNA, DNA, consciousness, languag...
Mar 28, 2023•2 hr 38 min•Ep 336•Transcript available on Metacast We have calendars to mark time, communal spaces to bring us together, bells to signal hours of contemplation, official archives to record legacies, the wisdom of sages read aloud, weekly, to map out the right way to live ― in kindness, justice, morality. These rhythms and structures of society were all once set by religion. Now, for many, religion no longer runs the show. So how then to celebrate milestones? Find rules to guide us? Figure out which texts can focus our attention but still offer spac...
Mar 25, 2023•2 hr 36 min•Ep 335•Transcript available on Metacast You’ll find nearly everything the Bible has to say about the end in the Book of Revelation: a mystifying prophecy filled with bizarre symbolism, violent imagery, mangled syntax, confounding contradictions, and very firm ideas about the horrors that await us all. But whether you understand the book as a literal description of what will soon come to pass, interpret it as a metaphorical expression of hope for those suffering now, or only recognize its highlights from pop culture, what you think Rev...
Mar 21, 2023•2 hr 42 min•Ep 334•Transcript available on Metacast On his 68 th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. To his surprise, Kelly had more to say than he thought, and kept adding to the advice over the years, compiling a life’s wisdom into the pages of his book: Excellent Advice for Living . Shermer and Kelly discuss: protopian progress • ChatGPT • artificial intelligence; an existential threat? • evolution • cultural progress • self-driving ca...
Mar 18, 2023•2 hr 45 min•Ep 333•Transcript available on Metacast Amanda Knox spent four years in an Italian prison for a crime she did not commit. In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment. After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she returned home to the U.S., where she remained silent until she released the memoir...
Mar 14, 2023•57 min•Ep 332•Transcript available on Metacast The world is rapidly transforming into an experience economy as people increasingly crave extraordinary experiences. Experience designers, marketers, entertainment producers, and retailers have long sought to fill this craving. Paul Zak says there’s a scientific formula to consistently create extraordinary experiences, and that the data show that those who use this formula increase the impact of experiences tenfold. Shermer and Zak discuss: neuroeconomics, neuromanagement, and neuromarketing • Z...
Mar 11, 2023•2 hr 49 min•Ep 331•Transcript available on Metacast Why do we feel like in order to be productive, happy, or good, we must sacrifice everything else? Is it possible to feel all three at once ? Without even knowing it, we’re doing things everyday to sabotage ourselves and our societies, habits that prevent us from optimizing long term happiness. Where most books imagine solutions that, when enacted, fail to fundamentally improve our lives, Jim Davies grounds his research in cognitive science to show you not only what works, but how much it works. ...
Mar 07, 2023•2 hr 47 min•Ep 330•Transcript available on Metacast Shermer and Schulz discuss: an operational definition of the “good life” or “happiness” or “well being” • the reliability (or unreliability) of self-report data in social science • relative roles of genes, environment, hard work, and luck in how lives turn out • personality and to what extent it can be scientifically measured and studied • factors in early childhood that shape mental health in mid and late life • generational differences: • the impact of loneliness • misconceptions about happine...
Mar 04, 2023•2 hr 51 min•Ep 329•Transcript available on Metacast 
