About this episode
This episode may also be viewed as a video on 502 Conversations video.
Dr. Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101.
He is the author of some 44 scholarly articles, 5 academic books, and 15 popular books including the New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things; Why Darwin Matters; The Moral Arc; The Science of Good and Evil; and Giving the Devil His Due. His most recent book is Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational.
For 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific Americanduring which time he wrote 214 columns, and he now writes a weekly Substack column. Dr. Shermer also regularly contributes opinion editorials, essays, and reviews to: the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Nature, and other publications. He has been interviewed in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. His two TED talks, have been seen by millions, and were voted in the top 100.
He has been called a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson. Follow him on Twitter @michaelshermer.
This is Dr. Shermer's second appearance on 502 Conversations.
2:10 Conspiracy: How does this book fit into your previous writing?
3:30 Is it rational to act on mistaken beliefs?
6:30 What are tribal and constructive conspiracism?
12:48 Are conspiracy theories a problem of modernity, or do you find them in hunter gatherer societies?
16:07 Trust vs. distrust
20:00 Who is and who is not susceptible?
23:42 Belief in conspiracy theories as a type of Pascal’s wager
25:22 Sometimes things happen that just seem too unbelievable to not be part of a plan - such as the JFK assassination.
28:41 Anomaly hunting - opening an umbrella?
33:00 Failed government conspiracies
38:00 Shermer’s Conspiracy Principle
39:00 What happens when a conspiracy theory falls apart, or is refuted by evidence; loss aversion and the sunk cost fallacy
42:10 Shrodinger's bin Laden: the ability for some to hold two or more opposing C.T.'s such as those that bin laden was already dead when U.S. special forces got to the compound and also think bin laden is still alive. How is that explained?
45:30 How come some things don't become CT's?
48:25 Has there been a shift in C.T's? Conspiracy by assertion, the “I know it's true, lots of people think so” but no evidence attitude.
53:10 How much of the “assertions as proof” concept, or “I just know it to be true”, is the fault of higher education promoting post modernism and other ways of knowing, personal truths, and the claim that there is no objective truth?
