Quotes by Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer

… In a free society, skeptics are the watchdogs against irrationalism – the consumer advocates of ideas. Debunking is not simply the divestment of bunk; its utility is in offering a better alternative, along with a lesson on how thinking goes wrong.

Ideas

Offering

Thinking

…evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. Just as one would not say ‘I believe in gravity,” one should not proclaim ‘I believe in evolution.

Believe

Reality

Religious

…there … remains a huge following [of Ayn Rand’s philosophy] of those who ignore the indiscretions, infidelities, and moral inconsistencies of the founder and focus instead on the positive aspects of her philosophy. There is much in it to admire, if you do not have to accept the whole package… Criticism of the founder or followers of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy… Criticism of part of a philosophy does not gainsay the whole.

Focus

Philosophy

Thinking

A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral.

Glasses

Light

Space

Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance.

Absolutes

Intolerance

Morality

Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy.

Doe

Ethics

Moral

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

Science

Thinking

Training

Are science and religion compatible? It’s like, are science and plumbing compatible? They’re just two different things.

God

Soul

Two

As Enlightenment philosophers and scholars consciously adopted the methods of science to establish such abstract concepts as rights, liberty, and justice, successive generations have become schooled in thinking of these abstractions as applied to others in matrices-like mental rotations.

Justice

Rights

Thinking

As Karl Marx once noted: ‘Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.’ William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial was a tragedy. The creationists and intelligent design theorists are a farce.

History

Intelligent

Science

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Absolutes

Age

Agents

Anatomy And Physiology

Angel

Animal

Argument

Atheism

Atheist

Atoms

Authority

Autism

Beautiful

Belief

Believe

Body

Brain

Buddhist

Capacity

Care

Causes

Christian

Claims

Community

Conspiracy

Crowds

Curious

Cynical

Data

Democracy

Design

Determine

Differences

Discovery

Doe

Earth

Effectiveness

Emotional

Enlightenment

Entity

Environmental

Epic

Errors

Ethics

Ethos

Events

Evidence

Evolution

Eye

Faces

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

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The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer

… In a free society, skeptics are the watchdogs against irrationalism – the consumer advocates of ideas. Debunking is not simply the divestment of bunk; its utility is in offering a better alternative, along with a lesson on how thinking goes wrong.

…evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. Just as one would not say ‘I believe in gravity,” one should not proclaim ‘I believe in evolution.

A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral.

Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance.

Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy.

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training.

Are science and religion compatible? It’s like, are science and plumbing compatible? They’re just two different things.

As Enlightenment philosophers and scholars consciously adopted the methods of science to establish such abstract concepts as rights, liberty, and justice, successive generations have become schooled in thinking of these abstractions as applied to others in matrices-like mental rotations.

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