Latest Michaelshermer Podcast Episodes
Should We Prepare for Nuclear War? (Annie Jacobsen)
The Michael Shermer Show - April 20, 2024 13:46 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsPulitzer 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. She...
An AI... Utopia? (Nick Bostrom, Oxford)
The Michael Shermer Show - April 16, 2024 18:25 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsNick 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 ...
Life on Mars? (Robert Zubrin)
The Michael Shermer Show - April 13, 2024 17:46 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsWhen 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 ...
Robots and the People Who Love Them
The Michael Shermer Show - April 09, 2024 17:45 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsShermer 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 p...
The Formation, Diversification, and Extinction of World Religions
The Michael Shermer Show - April 06, 2024 07:00 - 2 hours ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsThousands 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 developme...
The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Uncertain
The Michael Shermer Show - April 02, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsIn 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 se...
The End of Race Politics (Coleman Hughes)
The Michael Shermer Show - March 30, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsAs 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 culminati...
The End of Race Politics
The Michael Shermer Show - March 30, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsAs 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 culminati...
How to Repair America’s Broken Democracy
The Michael Shermer Show - March 26, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsOrder 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, incr...
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up (Abigail Shrier)
The Michael Shermer Show - March 23, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsIn 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...
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
The Michael Shermer Show - March 23, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsIn 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...
An Unfinished History of the Holocaust
The Michael Shermer Show - March 19, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsThe 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...
The Weirdness of the World
The Michael Shermer Show - March 16, 2024 07:00 - 2 hours ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsDo we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket universe embedded in a larger structure about which we know virtually nothing? Is consciousness a purely physical matter, or might it require something extra, something nonphysical? According to the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, it’s hard to say...
The Story of Female Empowerment & Getting Canceled: Elite Commando and Kickboxing World Champion Leah Goldstein
The Michael Shermer Show - March 12, 2024 07:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsA conversation with Leah Goldstein on becoming a kickboxing world champion, ultra-endurance cyclist, and an elite commando combating terrorism. For this she was to be honored at the International Women's Day event… until she was disinvited and canceled. This is her story.
Who Wrote the Qur’an, Why, and What Does it Really Say?
The Michael Shermer Show - March 09, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsOver a billion copies of the Qur’an exist – yet it remains an enigma. Its classical Arabic language resists simple translation, and its non-linear style of abstract musings defies categorization. Moreover, those who champion its sanctity and compete to claim its mantle offer widely diverging int...
Purpose in the Eyes of a Psychiatrist
The Michael Shermer Show - March 05, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsGenerations have been taught that evolution implies there is no overarching purpose to our existence, that life has no fundamental meaning. We are merely the accumulation of tens of thousands of intricate molecular accidents. Some scientists take this logic one step further, suggesting that evol...
Does Humanity Function as a Single Superorganism?
The Michael Shermer Show - March 02, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsCould humans unknowingly be a part of a larger superorganism—one with its own motivations and goals, one that is alive, and conscious, and has the power to shape the future of our species? This is the fascinating theory from author and futurist Byron Reese, who calls this human superorganism “Ag...
The Power of Noticing What Was Always There
The Michael Shermer Show - February 27, 2024 13:42 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsHave you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is ...
China's Grip on Rare-Earth Elements and the Future of Global Energy Security
The Michael Shermer Show - February 24, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsTo build electric vehicles, solar panels, cell phones, and millions of other devices means the world must dig more mines to extract lithium, copper, and other vital building blocks. But mines are deeply unpopular, even as they have a role to play in fighting climate change and powering crucial t...
mRNA Vaccines, Mask Mandates, and the COVID-19 Response (Paul Offit)
The Michael Shermer Show - February 20, 2024 16:12 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsAs a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee and a former member of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices to the CDC, Dr. Paul Offit has been in the room for the creation of policies that have affected hundreds of millions of people. Four years after the outbreak of COVID-19, ...
Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
The Michael Shermer Show - February 17, 2024 15:31 - 2 hours ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsRob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his ado...
How U.S. Public Health Has Strayed From Its Liberal Roots
The Michael Shermer Show - February 13, 2024 18:31 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsThe Covid-19 response was a crucible of politics and public health—a volatile combination that produced predictably bad results. As scientific expertise became entangled with political motivations, the public-health establishment found itself mired in political encampment. It was, as Sandro Ga...
How US Public Health Has Strayed From Its Liberal Roots
The Michael Shermer Show - February 13, 2024 18:31 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsThe Covid-19 response was a crucible of politics and public health—a volatile combination that produced predictably bad results. As scientific expertise became entangled with political motivations, the public-health establishment found itself mired in political encampment. It was, as Sandro Ga...
Against the New Politics of Identity
The Michael Shermer Show - February 10, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsIn Against the New Politics of Identity, philosopher Ronald A. Lindsay offers a sustained criticism of the far-reaching cultural transformation occurring across much of the West by which individuals are defined primarily by their group identity, such as race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexu...
What Determines Who Succeeds in the NBA?
The Michael Shermer Show - February 06, 2024 17:27 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsFormer Google data scientist and bestselling author of Everybody Lies Seth Stephens-Davidowitz turns his analytic skills to the NBA. Shermer and Stephens-Davidowitz discuss: why some countries produce so many more NBA players than others • the greatest NBA players adjusted for height • why tal...
Transforming Mental Health: Little Treatments, Big Effects
The Michael Shermer Show - February 03, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsIf you’ve ever wanted mental health support but haven’t been able to get it, you are not alone. In fact, you’re part of the more than 50% of adults and more than 75% of young people worldwide with unmet psychological needs. Maybe you’ve faced months-long waiting lists, or you’re not sure if yo...
Overcoming Self-Censorship in the Age of Outrage
The Michael Shermer Show - January 30, 2024 14:50 - 2 hours ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsAs a society we are self-censoring at record rates. Say the wrong thing at the wrong moment to the wrong person and the consequences can be dire. Think that everyone should be treated equally regardless of race? You’re a racist. Argue that people should be able to speak freely within the bound...
One Couple’s Vacation Caused 100,000 People to Die
The Michael Shermer Show - January 27, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsIf you could rewind your life to the very beginning and then press play, would everything turn out the same? Or could making an accidental phone call or missing an exit off the highway change not just your life, but history itself? How did one couple’s vacation cause 100,000 people to die? ...
Head of TED Talks Shares a New Vision of Generosity
The Michael Shermer Show - January 23, 2024 14:50 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsAs head of TED, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world’s boldest thinkers sharing their most uplifting ideas. Inspired by them, he believes that it’s within our grasp to turn outrage back into optimism. It all comes down to reimagining one of the most fundamental human virtues: gene...
Are Parallel Universes and Extra Dimensions Real?
The Michael Shermer Show - January 17, 2024 08:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 361 ratingsOur books, our movies—our imaginations—are obsessed with extra dimensions, alternate timelines, and the sense that all we see might not be all there is. In short, we can’t stop thinking about the multiverse. As it turns out, physicists are similarly captivated. In The Allure of the Multiverse,...
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