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For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.

Michael Shermer

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Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Problems
Surprisingly
Numbers
Varied
Individual
Solving
Problem
Smarter
Crowds
Individuals
Large
Number

More quotes by Michael Shermer

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My thesis is that morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait that is, a human universal.
Michael Shermer
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Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. (80)
Michael Shermer
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Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.
Michael Shermer
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Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.
Michael Shermer
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I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
Michael Shermer
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In comparison, Google is brilliant because it uses an algorithm that ranks Web pages by the number of links to them, with those links themselves valued by the number of links to their page of origin.
Michael Shermer
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The price of liberty is, in addition to eternal vigilance, eternal patience with the vacuous blather occasionally expressed from behind the shield of free speech.
Michael Shermer
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We know evolution happened not because of transitional fossils such as A. natans but because of the convergence of evidence from such diverse fields as geology, paleontology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, molecular biology, genetics, and many more.
Michael Shermer
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Accepting evolution does not force us to jettison our morals and ethics, and rejecting evolution does not ensure their constancy.
Michael Shermer
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In the long run, it is better to understand the way the world really is rather than how we would like it to be.
Michael Shermer
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There is a significant difference between having no belief in a God and believing there is no God.
Michael Shermer
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When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
Michael Shermer
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Through no divine design or cosmic plan, we have inherited the mantle of life's caretaker on the earth, the only home we have ever known.
Michael Shermer
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Mysteries once thought to be supernatural or paranormal happenings - such as astronomical or meteorological events - are incorporated into science once their causes are understood.
Michael Shermer
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Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.
Michael Shermer
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Believing that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is only the wind does not cost much, but believing that a dangerous predator is the wind may cost an animal its life.
Michael Shermer
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We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.
Michael Shermer
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No such individual would find the Golden Rule surprising in any way because at its base lies the foundation of most human interactions and exchanges and it can be found in countless texts throughout recorded history and from around the world - a testimony to its universality.
Michael Shermer
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Remember always that we are pattern-seeking primates who are especially adept at finding patterns with emotional meaning.
Michael Shermer
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Skepticism is not a position skepticism is an approach to claims, in the same way that science is not a subject but a method.
Michael Shermer