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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

What really defines a cult—and why do smart, well-intentioned people get caught up in them? In this episode, Michael Shermer sits down with cult intervention specialist Ashlen Hilliard to explore the psychology of high-control groups and the people drawn into them. Her work has been featured in prominent media outlets like Hulu, NewsNation, HuffPost, and BET+.
 
In 2022, Ashlen founded People Leave Cults, offering intervention and recovery resources for survivors and concerned loved ones. As one of the few Cult Intervention Specialists in the country, Ashlen consults with a team of experts to develop personalized intervention strategies for families that have a loved one involved in a range of coercive situations, including cults, gangs, domestic violence, trafficking, and violent extremism. She also served as the Director of Events for the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), organizing regional and international events, workshops, and conferences for those affected by the cult phenomena and psychological manipulation.
 
She is touring the Fall of 2025 in these cities for her show https://www.psychologyofcults.com/:
 
October 8 Jacksonville, FL Florida Theatre 
 October 9 Newberry, SC Newberry Opera House 
 October 11 Huntsville, AL Mars Music Hall 
 October 12 Bristol, TN Paramount Bristol 
 October 14 Charleston, WV Maier Foundation Performing Hall 
 October 16 Stroudsburg, PA Sherman Theater 
 October 17 Morristown, NJ Mayo Performing Arts Center 
 October 18 Stamford, CT Palace Theatre 
 October 19 Concord, NH Chubb Theatre 
 October 21 Buffalo, NY Electric City 
 October 22 Columbus, OH The Southern Theatre 
 October 24 Pontiac, MI Flagstar Strand Theatre 
 October 26 Cincinnati, OH Bogart's 
 October 28 Chicago, IL City Winery 
 October 29 Indianapolis, IN Clowes Memorial Hall 
 October 30 Cleveland, OH Connor Palace 
 November 23 Livermore, CA Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center

Why No One Thinks They’re in a Cult

Michael Shermer sits down with economist and Franklin descendant Dr. Mark Skousen to explore the wit, wisdom, and modern relevance of Benjamin Franklin, the man who bridged science, politics, and philosophy like no other. Shermer and Skousen discuss Franklin’s contributions to science, moral philosophy, economics, and religious thought, while asking: What would Franklin make of today’s America—its economy, politics, and culture?
 
Mark Skousen holds the Doti-Spogli Chair of Free Enterprise at Chapman University. Known as “America’s Economist,” he is the editor of Forecasts & Strategies, an award winning investment newsletter, and producer of FreedomFest, “the world’s largest gathering of free minds.” He is the author of over 25 books, incl. his latest, The Greatest American: Benjamin Franklin, The World’s Most Versatile Genius.

Was Benjamin Franklin America’s First Scientist?

The COVID-19 pandemic was a devastating global event, killing more than seven million people, straining the fabric of societies, and shaking the foundations of the world economy. And yet, as horrifying as the experience was, COVID-19 was not “The Big One” — the dreaded pandemic that haunts the nightmares of epidemiologists and public health officials everywhere. That far deadlier outbreak is still ahead of us, and it will reshape life across the planet unless we’re ready for it.
 
In this episode, Dr. Michael Osterholm, one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts, explains what we got wrong, what we got right, and what it all reveals about our preparedness for the next great pandemic.
 
Michael Osterholm is Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health at the University of Minnesota, where he founded and directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP). An internationally renowned epidemiologist with fifty years of experience, he's led major outbreak investigations worldwide and authored over 350 papers. He served as a U.S. State Department science envoy from 2017-2019. His new book is The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics.

COVID-19: What We Learned (and Didn’t) About Masks, Lockdowns, and Vaccines

Common knowledge is necessary for coordination, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right, using paper currency, and coalescing behind a political leader or movement. It’s also necessary for social coordination. Humans have a sixth sense for common knowledge, and we create it with signals like laughter, tears, blushing, eye contact, and blunt speech.
 
But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge—to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room.
 
Pinker shows how the hidden logic of common knowledge can make sense of many of life’s enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretense of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date.
 
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He has won many prizes for his teaching, his research on language, cognition, and social relations, and his twelve books. His new book is When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

The Power of Common Knowledge: Steven Pinker on Language, Norms, and Punishment

Jim Lampley’s story is a 50-year travelog of an unlikely career that catalogs the evolution of sports television—from his emergence as the first sideline reporter, through hosting and covering 14 Olympics, to working with all major sports networks.
 
In this episode, Lampley reflects on his experiences in boxing, the evolution of the sport, and the genius of athletes like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. The conversation also explores the unpredictability of life and how chance events shape our paths, the importance of mentorship, and the impact of performance-enhancing drugs.
 
Lampley offers insights into the current state of journalism, emphasizing the importance of truth and objectivity amidst the challenges posed by social media and economic incentives. He also reflects on the complex legacy of O.J. Simpson and shares anecdotes about some of his other friends, including the beloved actor (and avid golfer) Jack Nicholson.
 
Jim Lampley is a Hall of Fame sportscaster with 50 years of on-site experience at numerous live sports events, including the Super Bowl, Wimbledon, and 14 Olympics. For 30 years, he was the face and voice of HBO World Championship Boxing, calling some of the sport’s most iconic fights—including bouts featuring Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, and Floyd Mayweather. A three-time Emmy winner and International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, his new book is It Happened!

Jim Lampley on Hosting the Super Bowl, Calling Tyson’s Fights, and His Friendship with O.J.

In this solo commentary, Michael Shermer reflects on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and places it in the larger context of political violence, the psychology of radicalization, the dangers of false beliefs, and the role of free speech in intellectual discourse.

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk: Shermer Reflects on Political Violence

Science writer Nicholas Wade explains how human nature continues to shape—and sometimes destabilize—modern civilization, and argues that ignoring the effects of human nature on politics is one of society’s greatest mistakes.
 
Drawing on anthropology, evolutionary biology, and history, Wade shows how deep-rooted traits not only shape the outcomes of certain political beliefs and systems, but also affect how people form families, religion, and social order.
 
Nicholas Wade has worked at Nature and Science, and, for many years, at The New York Times, where he was an editorial writer and science editor. He is the author of four books about recent human evolution. His latest is The Origin of Politics: How Evolution and Ideology Shape the Fate of Nations.

The Fate of Nations: Why Ignoring Human Nature Dooms Politics

Parenting today often feels like an uphill battle, with technology invading every corner of our kids’ lives. From the rise of social media addiction to the growing mental health crisis among children and teens, parents are grappling with how they can create a healthy, balanced relationship with technology for their kids.
 
Drawing on her decades as a psychologist studying the impact of technology and mental health, Jean Twenge offers evidence-based advice for raising independent and well-rounded children.
 
Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of more than 190 scientific publications and several books based on her research, including Generation Me, iGen, and Generations, which we discussed on this show. Her research has been covered in Time, The Atlantic, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. She has also been featured on Today, Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, CBS This Morning, Real Time with Bill Maher, and NPR. Her new book is Ten Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World.

How to Protect Children from Social Media and AI

In this episode of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael Shermer interviews Alan Stern, a prominent planetary scientist and astronaut. Stern discusses his recent suborbital flight, the differences between government and private space initiatives, and the scientific implications of UFO sightings. He also shares insights about the evolution and future of space exploration, including details about the rarely talked about upcoming termination of dozens of already paid-for NASA missions.
 
Alan Stern is a planetary scientist, astronaut, and author. NASA has selected him to be the first researcher NASA funded to fly to space as a crewmember aboard a commercial suborbital space mission. Since 2001 he has led NASA’s $900M New Horizons mission that explored the Pluto system and is now exploring the Kuiper Belt—the farthest exploration of worlds in history. In 2007 and 2008, Dr. Stern served as NASA’s chief of all space and Earth science programs, directing its $5B/year Science Mission Directorate (SMD), with 93 separate flight missions and a program of over 3,000 research grants. In 2022, he took part in a deep-sea expedition to explore the RMS Titanic in a submersible.

The Future of Space Exploration Amid NASA Mission Shutdowns

In a radical new story about the birth of our species, evolutionary biologist Madeleine Beekman argues that it was not hunting, fighting, or tool-making that forced early humans to speak, but the inescapable need to care for our children.
 
Beekman reveals the “happy accidents” hidden in our molecular biology—DNA, chromosomes, and proteins—that led to one of the most fateful events in the history of life on Earth: our giving birth to babies earlier in their development than our hominid cousins the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Faced with highly dependent infants requiring years of nurturing and protection, early human communities needed to cooperate and coordinate, and it was this unprecedented need for communication that triggered the creation of human language—and changed everything.
 
Madeleine Beekman is professor emerita of evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her new book is The Origin of Language.

Why Do Humans Speak?

Because brainwashing affects both the world and our observation of the world, we often don’t recognize it while it’s happening―unless we know where to look. As Rebecca Lemov writes in her new book The Instability of Truth, “Brainwashing erases itself.” What we call brainwashing is more common than we think; it is not so much what happens to other people as what can happen to anyone.
 
In her work, Lemov exposes the myriad ways our minds can be controlled against our will, from the brainwashing techniques used against American POWs in North Korea to the “soft” brainwashing of social media doomscrolling and behavior-shaping.
 
Rebecca Lemov is a historian of science at Harvard University and has been a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute. Her research explores data, technology, and the history of human and behavioral sciences. Her new book is The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion.

Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion

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