The Michael Shermer Show is a series of long-form conversations between Dr. Michael Shermer and leading scientists, philosophers, historians, scholars, writers and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.
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Examining Extraordinary Claims and Promoting Science Since 1992
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss432_Sean_Carroll_2024_05_18.mp3 Download MP3 Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step …
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Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in a uniquely accessible way. Quantum field theory is how modern physics describes nature at it…
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Reporting From the Frontlines of the Culture Wars
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As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco neighbors and friends—until she started questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. When her colleagues suggested that asking such questions meant she was “on …
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss430_Christof_Koch_2024_05_11.mp3 Download MP3 In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book’s heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself,…
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In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book’s heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain …
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss429_Tom_Chivers_2024_05_07.mp3 Download MP3 At its simplest, Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains …
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Everything is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World
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At its simplest, Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives and how a failure to account f…
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The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
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For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we’re alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. But once you look for life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic distances? What actually is life? As founding director of Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute, ast…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss428_Lisa_Kaltenegger_2024_05_04.mp3 Download MP3 For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we’re alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate. But once you look for life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic dista…
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We all want to be happier, but our brains often get in the way. When we’re too stuck in our heads we obsess over our inadequacies, compare ourselves with others and fail to see the good in our lives. In The Science of Happiness, world-leading psychologist and happiness expert Bruce Hood demonstrates that the key to happiness is not self-care but co…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss427_Bruce_Hood_2024_04_30.mp3 Download MP3 We all want to be happier, but our brains often get in the way. When we’re too stuck in our heads we obsess over our inadequacies, compare ourselves with others and fail to see the good in our lives. In The Science of Happiness, world-leading psychologist a…
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How Rhetoric Shapes Your Opinions
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Robin Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and “journalists” convince us to believe what we believe—and to talk, vote, and act accordingly. Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by authority figures who don’t have our best interests at heart. It also…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss426_Robin_Reames_2024_04_27.mp3 Download MP3 The discipline of rhetoric was the keystone of Western education for over two thousand years. Only recently has its perceived importance faded. In this book, renowned rhetorical scholar Robin Reames argues that, in today’s polarized political climate, we …
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Accomplishment and Happiness (Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker)
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We push ourselves toward the highest-paying, most prestigious jobs, seeking promotions and public recognition. As Adam Gopnik points out, the result is not so much a rat race as a rat maze, with no way out. Except one: to choose accomplishment over achievement. Achievement is the completion of the task imposed from outside. Accomplishment, by contr…
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Should We Prepare for Nuclear War? (Annie Jacobsen)
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Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen investigated this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, been privy to the response plans, and are responsible for those decisions should they need to be made. Shermer and Jacobsen discuss: surviving a nuclear explosion…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss424_Annie_Jacobsen_2024_04_20.mp3 Download MP3 Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nu…
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An AI... Utopia? (Nick Bostrom, Oxford)
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Nick Bostrom’s previous book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, changed the global conversation on AI and became a New York Times bestseller. It focused on what might happen if AI development goes wrong. But what if things go right? Bostrom and Shermer discuss: An AI Utopia and Protopia • Trekonomics, post-scarcity economics • the hedo…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss423_Nick_Bostrom_2024_04_16.mp3 Download MP3 Nick Bostrom’s previous book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, changed the global conversation on AI and became a New York Times bestseller. It focused on what might happen if AI development goes wrong. But what if things go right? Suppose t…
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Life on Mars? (Robert Zubrin)
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When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the astronautical engineer venerated by NASA and today’s space entrepreneurs, here is what we will …
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Robert Zubrin — How What We Can Create on the Red Planet Informs Us on How Best to Live on the Blue Planet
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss422_Robert_Zubrin_2024_04_13.mp3 Download MP3 When Robert Zubrin published his classic book The Case for Mars a quarter century ago, setting foot on the Red Planet seemed a fantasy. Today, manned exploration is certain, and as Zubrin affirms in The New World on Mars, so too is colonization. From the…
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Robots and the People Who Love Them
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Shermer and Herold discuss: social robots, sex robots, robot nannies, robot therapists • flying cars, jetpacks and The Jetsons • Masahiro Mori • emotions, animism, mind • emotional intelligence • artificial intelligence • large language lodels • ChatGPT, GPT-4, GPT-5 and beyond • the alignment problem • robopocalypse • robo soldiers • robot sentien…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss420_Lance_Grande_2024_04_06.mp3 Download MP3 Thousands of religions have adherents today, and countless more have existed throughout history. What accounts for this astonishing diversity? This extraordinarily ambitious and comprehensive book demonstrates how evolutionary systematics and philosophy c…
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The Formation, Diversification, and Extinction of World Religions
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Thousands of religions have adherents today, and countless more have existed throughout history. What accounts for this astonishing diversity? This extraordinarily ambitious and comprehensive book demonstrates how evolutionary systematics and philosophy can yield new insight into the development of organized religion. Lance Grande―a leading evoluti…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss419_Maggie_Jackson_2024_04_02.mp3 Download MP3 In an era of terrifying unpredictability, we race to address complex crises with quick, sure algorithms, bullet points, and tweets. How could we find the clarity and vision so urgently needed today by being unsure? Uncertain is about the triumph of doin…
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The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Uncertain
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In an era of terrifying unpredictability, we race to address complex crises with quick, sure algorithms, bullet points, and tweets. How could we find the clarity and vision so urgently needed today by being unsure? Uncertain is about the triumph of doing just that. A scientific adventure tale set on the front lines of a volatile era, this epiphany …
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The End of Race Politics (Coleman Hughes)
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As one of the few black students in his philosophy program at Columbia University years ago, Coleman Hughes wondered why his peers seemed more pessimistic about the state of American race relations than his own grandparents–who lived through segregation. The End of Race Politics is the culmination of his years-long search for an answer. Coleman Hug…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss418_Coleman_Hughes_2024_03_30.mp3 Download MP3 As one of the few black students in his philosophy program at Columbia University years ago, Coleman Hughes wondered why his peers seemed more pessimistic about the state of American race relations than his own grandparents–who lived through segregation…
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How to Repair America’s Broken Democracy
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Order the Artificial Intelligence issue of SKEPTIC magazine at https://www.skeptic.com/magazine/archives/29.1/ (available in print or digital format). Looking ahead to the 2024 election, most Americans sense that something is deeply wrong with our democracy. We face extreme polarization, increasingly problematic candidates, and a government that ca…
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss417_Max_Stearns_2024_03_26.mp3 Download MP3 Order the Artificial Intelligence issue of Skeptic magazine (in print or digital format). Looking ahead to the 2024 election, most Americans sense that something is deeply wrong with our democracy. We face extreme polarization, increasingly problematic can…
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Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up (Abigail Shrier)
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In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What…
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An Unfinished History of the Holocaust
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The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London—reveals how the idea of …
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencesalon/mss415_Dan_Stone_2024_03_19.mp3 Download MP3 The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the H…
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