Michael Shermer: The Only Skeptic on the Alien Task Force

Michael Shermer just joined the White House’s new UAP task force alongside Avi Loeb. He also has a $1,000 bet with Loeb that we won’t find aliens by 2030. Both things are true. Subscribe if you want science with evidence, not speculation.

Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, author of Truth, and one of the most consistent voices for evidence-based thinking in public life. He was recruited onto the task force as the devil’s advocate. His job: be the skeptic in the room. He’s not a believer. He’s not even a neutral. He bet $1,000 against it.

Shermer has been following the UFO story since the early ’90s. He’s heard every disclosure promise. He’s still waiting. What changed is that now he’s in the room — and his job is to be the hardest person in it to convince.

What you’ll hear:

-Why the post-truth thesis is self-defeating the moment anyone argues for it

What Avi Loeb’s first ground rules reveal about what the task force actually is

-Leslie Kean’s own numbers: 90-95% explained, and what lives in the residue

-Why the extraordinary terrestrial hypothesis collapses under a simple counterfactual

-Brian’s case against the fine-tuning argument and why the universe is poorly tuned

-What Dennett got right about consciousness and why Shermer calls it an impossible problem

Your North Star should be truth. Not ideology, not politics, not religion.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The $1,000 bet with Avi Loeb

00:44 Truth: what it is and what post-truth actually means

03:06 How to change your mind without moving the goalposts

05:30 Base rate neglect and the hedge fund manager who beat the market 15 years in a row

07:00 Brian debates a moon landing denier for two hours

07:18 Shermer joins the White House UAP task force

08:20 Avi Loeb’s first meeting: no stories, no new physics

09:46 The advocatus diaboli: Shermer’s job on the team

11:06 Interdimensional beings, sentient plasmoids, and the escalation ladder

13:00 Grusch, classified claims, and why Ana Paulina Luna can’t hide behind a SCIF

15:08 Sagan’s dragon: the invisible, cold-blooded, levitating problem

17:00 Leslie Kean’s own numbers: 90-95% explained

18:16 The New Jersey UAP flap: drones, Venus, and Starlink

19:50 What lives in the 5% nobody explains

20:06 The extraordinary terrestrial hypothesis and why it fails

21:38 Nobody stays centuries ahead of anyone else

23:26 The residue of anomalies problem

23:44 James Webb, early galaxies, and whether the Big Bang is in trouble

25:56 Epistemology: different tools, different truths

26:54 Literal vs. mythological truth in religion

35:00 Why Jews don’t accept the resurrection

36:14 String theory, Brian Greene, and the fine-tuning argument

44:28 Brian’s case: the universe is poorly tuned

49:58 Flat Earthers, moon landing deniers, and the ego of secret knowledge

57:40 Daniel Dennett, free will, and consciousness as an impossible problem

01:00:00 What’s it like to be something else? The wrong question.

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Featured Guest:

Michael Shermer website: https://www.michaelshermer.com

Skeptic magazine: https://www.skeptic.com

Truth (book): https://michaelshermer.com/truth-what-it-is-how-to-find-it-why-it-still-matters/

Michael Shermer on Twitter/X: https://x.com/michaelshermer?lang=en

My books:

Losing the Nobel Prize (memoir): http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA

Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu

Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U

Galileo’s Dialogue (first-ever audiobook): https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un

Twitter/X: https://x.com/BrianKeating

Substack: https://briankeating.substack.com

Blog: https://briankeating.com/blog

Audio-only: https://briankeating.com/podcast

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