The Michael Shermer Show

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139. Shelby Steele — Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country & the film What Killed Michael Brown? Oct 20, 2020

Show notes

The United States today is hopelessly polarized; the political Right and Left have hardened into rigid and deeply antagonistic camps, preventing any sort of progress. Amid the bickering and inertia, the promise of the 1960s—when we came together as a nation to fight for equality and universal justice—remains unfulfilled.

As Shelby Steele reveals in Shame, the roots of this impasse can be traced back to that decade of protest, when in the act of uncovering and dismantling our national hypocrisies—racism, sexism, militarism—liberals internalized the idea that there was something inauthentic, if not evil, in the America character. Since then, liberalism has been wholly concerned with redeeming modern America from the sins of the past, and has derived its political legitimacy from the premise of a morally bankrupt America. The result has been a half-century of well-intentioned but ineffective social programs, such as Affirmative Action. Steele reveals that not only have these programs failed, but they have in almost every case actively harmed America's minorities and poor. Ultimately, Steele argues, post-60s liberalism has utterly failed to achieve its stated aim: true equality. Liberals, intending to atone for our past sins, have ironically perpetuated the exploitation of this country's least fortunate citizens. Approaching political polarization from a wholly new perspective, Steele offers a rigorous critique of the failures of liberalism and a cogent argument for the relevance and power of conservatism.

Shermer and Steele discuss:

30th anniversary of his book The Content of Our Character, and what has changed in race relations in America in those 30 years?
Steele's response to President Johnson's famous quote:
"Freedom is not enough. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him; bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."
why "The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance.",
literal truths vs. poetic truths and power:
"What actually happened was that liberalism turned to poetic truth when America's past sins were no longer literally true enough to support liberal policies and the liberal claim on power. The poetic truth of black victimization seeks to compensate for America's moral evolution. It tries to keep alive the justification for liberal power even as that justification has been greatly nullified by America's moral development."
political correctness is the enforcement arm of poetic truth,
black families & fatherless homes,
white guilt,
race fatigue,
reparations,
anti-racism,
achievement gap,
Princeton racism letter,
race and IQ,
SAT tests,
BLM and the nuclear family,
training and sensitivity programs.

Shermer and Steele also discuss his new film, produced with his son Eli Steele, titled What Killed Michael Brown?

Steele:

"We human beings never use race except as a means to power. Race is never an end. It is always a means, and it has no role in human affairs except as a corruption."

"America's original sin is not slavery. It is simply the use of race as a means to power. Whether for good or ill, race is a corruption. Always. And it always turns one group into the convenience of another group."

"Liberalism's great sin was to steal responsibility for black problems away from black people, leaving them vulnerable to destructive social forces, such as the drug epidemic of the 70s and 80s. It was the suffering of blacks that justified liberalism's demand for power, but this only relegates blacks to permanent victimhood and alienates them from the power to uplift themselves."

Shelby Steele is the Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Winner of the Bradley Prize and a National Humanities Medal and the author of the National Book Critics Circle award-winning The Content of Our Character, Steele lives in the Central Coast of California.

138. Douglas Murray — The Madness of 2020 Oct 16, 2020

Show notes

In this special episode of the Science Salon Podcast, Michael Shermer catches up with Douglas Murray one year after the publication of his bestselling book The Madness of Crowds, which was featured in Science Salon # 87 in October 2019. Murray's book is now out in paperback with an Afterword update on all that has happened the past year, one of the most momentous in living memory. Shermer and Murray discuss:

why he wasn't "cancelled" after The Madness of Crowds was published and became a bestseller,
what people should do if they're cancelled, shamed, mobbed, or accused of being racist, misogynist, transphobic, or bigoted and they know they're not,
how to fight back against wokeness, political correctness, and identity politics,
updates on the featured topics in The Madness of Crowds: gay, women, race, trans,
J.K. Rowling and "people who menstruate" (if only there was a single word for that phrase),
statues and why some people want them taken down (Lord Nelson may be next…find out why),
why leftists think everyone (except them) are racists and why they're really making these accusations,
why we should be suspect of the motives of social justice warriors (who are anti-social, against justice, and not warriors),
Michael Brown, George Floyd, and police violence,
white fragility, white guilt, BLM, and anti-racism,
corporate sensitivity training programs and why they're really being conducted,
what could happen after the 2020 election, depending on who wins, and
comparing 2020 to 1968, and what the future holds for Western culture.

In The Madness of Crowds Douglas Murray investigates the dangers of "woke" culture and the rise of identity politics. In lively, razor-sharp prose he examines the most controversial issues of our moment: sexuality, gender, technology and race, with interludes on the Marxist foundations of "wokeness", the impact of tech and how, in an increasingly online culture, we must relearn the ability to forgive. One of the few writers who dares to counter the prevailing view and question the dramatic changes in our society — from gender reassignment for children to the impact of transgender rights on women — Murray's penetrating book clears a path of sanity through the fog of our modern predicament.

Douglas Murray is a regular columnist for both the Spectator and Standpoint and writes frequently for a variety of other publications, including the Sunday Times and Wall Street Journal. A prolific debater, Douglas has spoken on a variety of prominent platforms, including at the British and European Parliaments and the White House.

137. Marta Zaraska — Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 Oct 13, 2020

Show notes

From the day her daughter was born, science journalist Marta Zaraska fretted about what she and her family were eating. She fasted, considered adopting the keto diet, and ran a half-marathon. She bought goji berries and chia seeds and ate organic food. But then her research brought her to read countless scientific papers and to interview dozens of experts in various fields of study, including molecular biochemistry, epidemiology and neuroscience. What Marta discovered shattered her long-held beliefs about aging and longevity. A strong support network of family and friends, she learned, lowers mortality risk by about 45 percent, while exercise only lowers it by about 23 percent. Volunteering your free time lowers it by 22 percent or so, while certain health fads like turmeric haven't been shown to help at all. These revelations led Marta Zaraska to a simple conclusion: In addition to healthy nutrition and physical activity, deepening friendships, practicing empathy and contemplating your purpose in life can improve your lifespan. Shermer and Zaraska also discuss:

diet, nutrition, and supplements: what works, what doesn't, and what about meat?
exercise: how much, what type, and when?
the causal mechanisms behind how relationships and marriage effect health,
how friendships and community affect longevity,
how religion makes people healthier and longer lived,
why we need others and why handshakes and hugs will return after COVID-19,
the harmful effects of loneliness and isolation,
the deleterious effects of stress, and
how leading a purposeful and meaningful life leads to longevity.

Marta Zaraska is a Canadian-Polish science journalist. She has written about nutrition and psychology for the Washington Post, Scientific American, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, New Scientist, and several other publications. She is the author of Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat (Basic Books, 2016), which has been translated into Japanese, Korean, simplified Chinese, Spanish and Polish, and chosen by the journal Nature as one of "the best science picks" in March 2016. Meathookedhas also been praised in The Wall Street Journal, Discover Magazine, Time, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, Natural History Magazine, etc. She has also contributed a chapter to the recently published The Reducetarian Solution (TarcherPerigee, 2017) alongside Mark Bittman, Michael Shermer, and Peter Singer.

136. Gad Saad — The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Oct 06, 2020

Show notes

There's a war against truth and if we don't win it, intellectual freedom will be a casualty. The West's commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism has never been more seriously threatened than it is today by the stifling forces of political correctness. Dr. Gad Saad exposes the bad ideas—what he calls "idea pathogens"—that are killing common sense and rational debate. Incubated in our universities and spread through the tyranny of political correctness, these ideas are endangering our most basic freedoms—including freedom of thought and speech.

The danger is grave, but as Dr. Saad shows, politically correct dogma is riddled with logical fallacies. We have powerful weapons to fight back with—if we have the courage to use them. A provocative guide to defending reason and intellectual freedom and a battle cry for the preservation of our fundamental rights, The Parasitic Mind will be the most controversial and talked-about book of the year. Shermer and Saad discuss:

which idea pathogens are the most dangerous,
the analogy between biological and ideological parasites,
the origin of political correctness and how it was corrupted,
identity politics and how it perpetrates bigotry, racism, and misogyny,
the psychology of victimhood status (why would anyone want to be a victim?),
virtue signaling and why it isn't virtuous,
why social justice is injustice,
social justice warriors as sneaky fuckers,
the corruption of postmodernism, which began as a form of rational skepticism,
Islamophobia,
diversity, inclusion and equity,
safe spaces, microaggressions, trigger warnings,
What is liberalism, anyway?
the paradox of tolerance,
the dual search for freedom and truth,
free speech as the foundation of all other rights,
Ostrich Parasitic Syndrome,
Collective Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,
nomological networks of cumulative evidence in the quest for truth, and
how big a problem are we really facing?

Gad Saad, Ph.D. (Montreal, Canada), host of the popular YouTube show The Saad Truth and blogger for Psychology Today, is a professor of marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption and is the author of The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption, plus numerous scientific papers.

135. Paul Halpern — Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect Sep 29, 2020

Show notes

Does the universe have a speed limit? If not, some effects could happen at the same instant as the actions that caused them — and some effects, ludicrously, might even happen before their causes. By one hundred years ago, it seemed clear that the speed of light was the fastest possible speed. Causality was safe. And then quantum mechanics happened, introducing spooky connections that seemed to circumvent the law of cause and effect. Inspired by the new physics, psychologist Carl Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli explored a concept called synchronicity, a weird phenomenon they thought could link events without causes. Synchronicity tells that sprawling tale of insight and creativity, and asks where these ideas — some plain crazy, and others crazy powerful — are taking the human story next. Shermer and Halpern discuss:

Model-Dependent Realism, the idea from Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow that our understanding of nature depends on the model we apply to it, and that we cannot define science as an asymptotic curve toward Truth,
from Newton to Einstein to Quantum Physics,
Platonic ideals/idealism,
Is the universe mathematical?
Where/what are "laws of nature"?
What is gravity?
What is causality and how is it determined?
quantum entanglement and what it says about our understanding of causality,
Bell's inequality,
backward causality,
Hume's "constant conjunction" definition of causality and it's limitations,
Hume's "counterfactual" theory of causality,
Bogus mechanisms of causality: impetus, ether, energy fields, ESP,
The friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung,
Jungian archetypes and how scientists think about them,
God, religion, and spirituality.

Paul Halpern is a professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and the author of sixteen popular science books, including The Quantum Labyrinth and Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

134. Joe Henrich — The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Sep 22, 2020

Show notes

WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.

Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves — their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations — over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? To answer these questions Joseph Henrich draws on anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition — laying the foundation for the modern world. Shermer and Henrich discuss:

psychology textbooks that "now purport to be about 'Psychology' or 'Social Psychology' need to be retitled something like 'The Cultural Psychology of Late 20th Century Americans',"
Darwin's Dictum: "How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observations must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service." What views Henrich is writing for and against,
evolutionary psychology and the search for human universals in the context of his thesis that WEIRD cultures are so different,
Max Weber's book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and how his thesis holds up under modern studies,
a 2×2 grid analysis of his thesis (what about the exceptions?):
- Cell 1: Catholic/Protestant Influence + WEIRD characteristics
- Cell 2: Catholic/Protestant Influence + non-WEIRD characteristics
- Cell 3: Non-Catholic/Protestant Influence + WEIRD characteristics
- Cell 4: Non-Catholic/Protestant Influence + non-WEIRD characteristics
the problem of overdetermining the past (so many theories explaining history: Jared Diamond's geographic models, Ian Morris' War: What is it Good For?, Matt Ridley's The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge (ideas having sex), Robin Dunbar's Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, economic historian Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms, Benjamin Friedman's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success,
normative vs. descriptive accounts of human behavior
polygamy vs. monogamy,
1st cousin marriages?
conformity, shame and guilt, illusions, loss aversion, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, superstitions,
religion doesn't have to be true to be useful,
national differences in cultural psychology (for example: Italy a loose culture, Germany a tight culture),
origin of writing and literacy rates,
origin of religion and its purpose(s),
the "Big Gods" theory of religion's origin,
the purpose of religious rituals and food taboos,
families and kin, kin selection, group selection,
meaning and happiness in non-WEIRD cultures,
"Then you get Westerners who are like 'I'm an individual ape on a pale blue dot in the middle of a giant black space" and "What does it all mean?'",
physical differences: "WEIRD people have flat feet, impoverished microbiomes, high rates of myopia and unnaturally low levels of exposure to parasites like helminths, which may increase their risk of heart disease and allergies.", and
When we colonize Mars and become a spacefaring species, what should we take with us from what we've learned about human history and psychology?

Joseph Henrich is an anthropologist and the author of The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, among other books. He is the chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, where his research focuses on evolutionary approaches to psychology, decision-making, and culture.

133. Michael E. McCullough — The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code Sep 15, 2020

Show notes

In this sweeping psychological history of human goodness — from the foundations of evolution to the modern political and social challenges humanity is now facing — psychologist Michael McCullough answers a fundamental question: How did humans, a species of self-centered apes, come to care about others?Ever since Darwin, scientists have tried to answer this question using evolutionary theory. McCullough shows why they have failed and offers a new explanation instead. From the moment nomadic humans first settled down until the aftermath of the Second World War, our species has confronted repeated crises that we could only survive by changing our behavior. As McCullough argues, these choices weren't enabled by an evolved moral sense, but with moral invention — driven not by evolution's dictates but by reason. Today's challenges — climate change, mass migration, nationalism — are some of humanity's greatest yet. In revealing how past crises shaped the foundations of human concern, McCullough offers clues for how we can adapt our moral thinking to survive these challenges as well. Shermer and McCullough also discuss:

Darwin's Dictum: All observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.
the problem to solve: why are people kind to strangers (i.e., origins of empathy, altruism, and kindness)?
why we don't need "divine command" theory to explain real morality, which can be derived through evolutionary theory plus philosophical ethical systems,
evolutionary "by-product" theory: when we help strangers in the modern world we are following ancient rules of thumb that worked well enough in a world in which meeting someone for the first time was a reasonably good indicator that you'd meet them again,
Frans deWaal and the "thin veneer" theory of human morality and civilization he thinks Dawkins holds, and why our morals are a thick veneer on our evolved nature,
Peter Singer's expanding circle,
Norbert Elias' The Civilizing Process and his etiquette books advisories,
why stranger-adaptation and blessed-mistake theories are too simplistic,
a brief overview of the past 10,000 years of moral progress,
our evolved human instincts: (1) our social instincts for helping others in hopes of receiving help in return, (2) our instinct for helping others in pursuit of glory, (3) our ability to track incentives, and (4) our capacity for reason,
the 7 Ages of human history: Age of Orphans, Age of Compassion, Age of Prevention, First Poverty Enlightenment, Humanitarian Big Bang, Second Poverty Enlightenment, Age of Impact, and
the end of poverty, UBI, and other social tools for creating a more just society of strangers.

Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. The winner of numerous distinctions for his research and writing, he is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He lives in La Jolla, California.

132. Leonard Mlodinow — Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics Sep 08, 2020

Show notes

One of the most influential physicists of our time, Stephen Hawking touched the lives of millions. Recalling his nearly two decades as Hawking's collaborator and friend, Leonard Mlodinow brings this complex man into focus in a unique and deeply personal portrayal. We meet Hawking the genius, who employed his mind to uncover the mysteries of the universe — ultimately formulating a pathbreaking theory of black holes that reignited the discipline of cosmology and paved the way for physicists to investigate the origins of the universe in completely new ways. We meet Hawking the colleague, a man whose illness leaves him able to communicate at only six words per minute but who expends the effort to punctuate his conversations with humor. And we meet Hawking the friend, who could convey volumes with a frown, a smile, or simply a raised eyebrow. Modinow puts us in the room as Hawking indulges his passion for wine and curry; shares his feelings on love, death, and disability; and grapples with deep questions of philosophy and physics. This deeply affecting account of a friendship teaches us not just about the nature and practice of physics but also about life and the human capacity to overcome daunting obstacles. Shermer and Mlodinow discuss:

what it was like working with Stephen Hawking,
what Stephen Hawking was like as a person and personality,
Hawking's place in the pantheon of great physicists in the history of science,
Hawking's major contributions to physics,
What is grand about the grand design of the universe?
model dependent realism and the philosophy of science,
Can we ever know reality?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
What caused the Big Bang to bang?
What there was before time began?
Why does the universe look fine-tuned and designed?
Is the universe itself a giant black hole?
Did the universe begin in a singularity?
Hawking's beliefs about God and why the concept isn't necessary to explain the universe.

Leonard Mlodinow received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and was on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology. His previous books include the best sellers The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time (coauthored with Stephen Hawking), Subliminal (winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award), and War of the Worldviews (with Deepak Chopra), as well as Elastic, Euclid's Window, Feynman's Rainbow, and The Upright Thinkers.

131. Stuart Ritchie — Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth Sep 01, 2020

Show notes

Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless — or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As Science Fictions makes clear, the current system of research funding and publication not only fails to safeguard us from blunders but actively encourages bad science — with sometimes deadly consequences. Yet Science Fictions is far from a counsel of despair. Rather, it's a defense of the scientific method against the pressures and perverse incentives that lead scientists to bend the rules. By illustrating the many ways that scientists go wrong, Ritchie gives us the knowledge we need to spot dubious research and points the way to reforms that could make science trustworthy once again. Shermer and Ritchie also discuss:

why we need to get science right because science deniers will pounce on such fraud, bias, negligence, and hype in science,
Daryl Bem's ESP research and what was wrong with it,
"psychological priming" and the problem of replication,
sleep research and the problems in Matthew Walker's book Why We Sleep,
Amy Cuddy and the problem with "Power Posture" research,
Andrew Wakefield and the biggest fraud in the history of science linking vaccines & autism,
diet and nutrition research and the complication of linking saturated fats, unsaturated fats, cholesterol, and heart disease,
Phil Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment,
Samuel Morton's skulls showing racial differences in head size, Steve Gould's critique, the critique of Gould, and the critique of the critics of Gould,
self-plagiarism,
p values / p hacking
the Schizophrenia/amaloid cascade hypothesis and why it has been hard to prove,
the file-drawer problem,
how to detect fraud, and
Terror Management Theory and why it is almost certainly wrong.

Stuart Ritchie is a lecturer in the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King's College London. His main research focus is human intelligence: how it relates to the brain, how much it's affected by genetics, and how much it can be improved by factors such as education. He is a noted supporter of the Open Science movement, and has worked on tools to reform scientific practice and help scientists become more transparent when reporting their results.

130. Debra Soh — The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society Aug 25, 2020

Show notes

Is our gender something we're born with, or are we conditioned by society? In The End of Gender, neuroscientist and sexologist Dr. Debra Soh uses a research-based approach to address this hot-button topic, unmasking popular misconceptions about the nature vs. nurture debate and exploring what it means to be a woman or a man in today's society. Shermer and Soh discuss:

If you are transitioning to a different gender, but the word "gender" is largely meaningless biologically, then what are you transitioning to and what is the point of hormone therapy and surgery?
the 1990s push to find biological basis of homosexuality so it's not a "lifestyle choice" and how this trend has been recently reversed,
the problem of putting ideology before science,
cognitive creationism on the left (evolution from the neck down),
why biology is not destiny,
cancel culture,
sex and gender,
percentages of the population of LGBTQ,
what you identify as vs. who you're attracted to,
individual behavior vs. collective labels,
sexual orientation and gender identity,
gender neutral parenting,
gender dysphoria,
men and women dating,
trans bathrooms, prisons, and sports.

Dr. Debra Soh is a neuroscientist who specializes in gender, sex, and sexual orientation. She received her doctorate from York University in Toronto and worked as an academic researcher for eleven years. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Harper's Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, Playboy, Quillette, and many other publications. Her research has been published in academic journals including the Archives of Sexual Behavior and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. As a journalist, Soh writes about the science and politics of human sexuality and gender, free speech, and censorship in academia. She lives in Toronto and divides her time between New York and Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter at @DrDebraSoh and visit her website at DrDebraSoh.com.

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