app_store_button

google_play_button

DK - Details page - Device banner - 894x1036

Nyd den ubegrænsede adgang til tusindvis af spændende e- og lydbøger - helt gratis

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Michael Shermer

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.

The Michael Shermer Show

Publishing likes to imagine itself as a marketplace of ideas with a strong immune system: good arguments win, bad ones fade, and editors act as principled gatekeepers. In practice, it's also an industry with thin margins, status anxiety, and a constant fear of reputational damage.
 
Adam Szetela argues that a lot of what gets called "cancel culture" in books is better understood as risk management under social media conditions. Outrage compresses timelines, collapses context, and turns interpretation into a moral referendum. A handful of motivated actors can create the impression of a mass consensus—and once that perception takes hold, institutions often move first and ask questions later.
 
We talk about how "sensitivity reading" functions in this environment: sometimes as thoughtful critique, sometimes as a liability shield, and sometimes as a tool that quietly shifts a book's meaning toward whatever ideology currently feels safest. The result is a distributed system of incentives that nudges publishers toward caution, self-censorship, and blandness … while occasionally rewarding controversy because conflict drives attention.
 
This conversation doesn't treat every public criticism as illegitimate, or every publisher decision as cowardice. The point is to map the machinery: how reputations get threatened, how moral language expands, why apologies can backfire, and why the incentives often select for the loudest framing over the most accurate one.
 
Adam Szetela earned his PhD in English from the Department of Literatures at Cornell University. Before Cornell, he was a visiting fellow in the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University. He writes for The Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek, and other publications. Among other places, his writing has been honored by the Society for Features Journalism. His new book is That Book Is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing.

Who Gets to Edit Culture? Sensitivity Readers & Censorship in Book Publishing

Documentary filmmaker Marcie Hume (BBC alum; Magicians: Life in the Impossible) joins Michael Shermer to talk about her new verité film Corey Feldman vs. the World—shot over a decade, starting in the "Corey's Angels" era and following a tour that unravels in real time.
 
It goes to some uncomfortable places: how celebrity can create cult-ish dynamics (not just with fans, but with the people working around them as well), how "truth" becomes a slogan—used to frame criticism as persecution and to keep tight control of the story, and how living on camera can turn real life into performance where every moment becomes part of the persona.
 
Then the story folds back on itself—the release of Marcie's film becomes its own drama, with last-minute legal threats and a cease-and-desist landing right before the premiere.
 
Marcie Hume is a documentary filmmaker, television executive, and immersive experience creator focused on how people manufacture meaning under pressure, while the story is still being written. A BBC alumna, she has originated and executive produced unscripted series for the BBC, Channel 4, Discovery, National Geographic, and A&E. Her feature documentaries Hood to Coast, Magicians: Life in the Impossible, and Corey Feldman vs. the World trace endurance, obsession, and the narratives people construct to live with extraordinary choices. Corey Feldman vs. the World is currently available to rent or buy on YouTube, Google, or Apple, even though Corey is still trying to have it removed.
 
Watch the trailer
 Rent the film

Filming Corey Feldman & "Corey's Angels": The Weird World Behind the Curtain

Christopher Beha grew up Catholic in Manhattan, walked away during the New Atheist era, and spent years trying to build a secular worldview sturdy enough to live inside. It didn't hold. So he kept reading—Hume, Kant, Russell, the existentialists—and kept chasing the questions that don't let you sleep: what counts as evidence, what belief even is, and what you do when reason can't answer the things you still have to decide. 
 
In this conversation with Michael Shermer, Beha makes a case that skepticism and belief aren't enemies—and that some debates go nowhere because people are arguing about the "branches" while standing on totally different foundations.
 
Christopher Beha is the former editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of four previous books, including The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. His new book is Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer.

Can a Skeptic Believe in God?

Michael Shermer recounts the moment he discovered his name in the Jeffrey Epstein files and uses it as a jumping-off point to tell a few unforgettable stories about con men he's encountered over the years, and how their tactics work.

Shermer Says 6: Jeffrey Epstein and Me

Why do people risk everything for love but treat sex like it's no big deal? Why is intimacy the most expensive thing in a brothel? And why do jealousy, infidelity, and heartbreak push otherwise rational people into behavior they later can't explain?
 
Evolutionary biologist and sex researcher Justin Garcia, executive director of the Kinsey Institute and author of The Intimate Animal, joins Michael Shermer for a candid conversation about the biology of sex, the evolutionary logic of pair bonding, and why love—not lust—is what often pushes people past the point of reason.
 
Justin R. Garcia is an evolutionary biologist and sex researcher. He is Executive Director & Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. He is also the Scientific Advisor to Match Group and Match.com, where he provides expertise to the company's annual Singles in America study. His research has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME, Cosmopolitan, and Vanity Fair. His new book is The Intimate Animal.

The Evolutionary Roots of Love, Sex, and Jealousy

In this episode, Michael Shermer walks through the core ideas behind his new book Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters, breaking down how humans confuse meaning with reality, stories with facts, and confidence with correctness.
 
He also explains why changing your mind is a strength, not a flaw; why extraordinary claims really do require extraordinary evidence; and why "just asking questions" isn't as innocent as it sounds.
 
BUY THE BOOK
 
 Amazon
 Shop Skeptic (autographed)
 
"Michael Shermer reminds us that the search for truth is not a luxury, but a necessity. This book is a powerful argument for why reality matters and a practical toolkit for how to find it."
 ―Sabine Hossenfelder
 
"Michael Shermer has a fine record as a long-time crusader for evidenced rationality. This fascinating and wide-ranging book should further enhance his impact on current controversies."
 ―Lord Martin Rees
 
"Michael Shermer is one of our most influential intellectuals. Truth lances the myth of truth's subjectivity, arguing (provocatively) that truth can generate moral absolutes. This stimulating, excellent book inspires you to spread the word that the Earth is not flat and that truth matters."
 ―Robert Sapolsky
 
"Michael Shermer has spent his career grappling with the slipperiest word in our language: truth. As someone who knows firsthand what happens when truth gets lost in noise and narrative, I'm grateful for Shermer's clear-eyed insistence that truth is not only real, but necessary."
 ―Amanda Knox
 
"Michael Shermer pulls no punches: in a world where opinion too often masquerades as fact, he dismantles delusion and arms us with the tools to meet reality head-on."
 ―Brian Greene

Truth Still Matters (And Here's Why)

In this solo episode of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael Shermer responds to the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old healthcare worker who was killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis during protests over enforcement of immigration law. 
 
As political debate intensifies, Shermer asks a tough question that most discussions are avoiding: What role does personal responsibility play in emotionally charged, high-risk situations?
 
He separates the facts we can reasonably assert from what remains uncertain and explains why scrutinizing frame-by-frame video misses something essential about how humans behave under stress and fear.

Shermer Says 5: What Went Wrong in Minnesota? Protests, Panic, and Personal Responsibility

Michael Shermer sits down with attorney and bestselling author Kent Heckenlively for a tense, thoughtful, and surprisingly cordial conversation about UFOs, government secrecy, and the idea of "catastrophic disclosure."
 
Heckenlively argues that something real is being hidden. Not necessarily aliens, but information powerful enough to disrupt energy markets, military spending, and political authority. But beyond stories and secondhand testimony, where is the kind of evidence that would settle the question once and for all?
 
The episode takes up congressional hearings, whistleblowers, classified briefings, Cold War secrecy, optical illusions, advanced military technology, and why, after nearly 80 years, the UFO story continues to produce more questions than answers.
 
Kent Heckenlively is an attorney, science teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. His books have covered such topics as scientific fraud, bias at Google, Facebook, and CNN, promising medical therapies, as well as behind-the-scenes looks into the COVID-19 Task Force. His books have sold more than half a million copies. His new book is CATASTROPHIC DISCLOSURE: The Deep State, Aliens, and the Truth.

Government Transparency & UFOs: Inside Military Programs and Classified Briefings

In this episode, Michael Shermer talks with filmmaker James Fox, whose work has helped push UFOs, now often called UAPs, out of the tabloid shadows and into congressional hearings, radar logs, and sworn testimony.
 
Fox has spent three decades interviewing fighter pilots, radar operators, intelligence officials, scientists, and firsthand witnesses. His conclusion is not that we know what these objects are, but that dismissing them no longer works. Around 90 to 95 percent of sightings collapse under scrutiny. The remaining cases do not.
 
The question is: What are we supposed to do with what's left?
 
James Fox is a film director widely regarded as one of the leading voices in UFO filmmaking. He is known for documentaries such as The Phenomenon, The Program, and Moment of Contact, several of which are frequently cited among the best UFO documentaries ever made.

The Hardest UFO Cases to Dismiss: Something Is Flying Around and We Don't Know What It Is

What if the deepest human drive isn't happiness, survival, or even love, but the need to matter?
 
Philosopher and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein joins Michael Shermer to discuss The Mattering Instinct, her argument that the desire to feel significant lies at the core of human behavior. That drive helps explain our greatest achievements, from creativity and moral courage to scientific and artistic excellence. It also helps explain some of our darkest outcomes, including extremism, violence, and ideological fanaticism.
 
Goldstein examines why people will give up comfort, status, and sometimes even their own lives to feel that they matter. She questions why meaning cannot be captured by happiness metrics or self-help formulas, and why the same psychological force can produce saints, scientists, athletes, cult leaders, and terrorists. The conversation moves through free will, entropy, morality without God, fame, narcissism, and the crucial difference between ways of mattering that create order and those that leave damage behind.
 
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an award-winning philosopher, writer, and public intellectual. She is the author of ten books of acclaimed fiction and non-fiction, including 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. She holds a PhD in philosophy of science from Princeton University and has taught at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, and Harvard. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, her work has been supported by the MacArthur "Genius" grant and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Whiting Institute, Radcliffe Institute, and the National Science Foundation. Her new book is The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us.

Filming Corey Feldman & "Corey's Angels": The Weird World Behind the Curtain

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

Other podcasts you might like ...