Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.
Michael Shermer
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Large
Number
Problems
Surprisingly
Numbers
Varied
Individual
Solving
Problem
Smarter
Crowds
Individuals
More quotes by Michael Shermer
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
Humans are, by nature, pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns whether they exist or not.
Michael Shermer
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
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
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
We know evolution happened because innumerable bits of data from myriad fields of science conjoin to paint a rich portrait of life's pilgrimage.
Michael Shermer
We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.
Michael Shermer
People who espouse Intelligent Design believe nature is so complex as to require an intelligent designer-God. Similarly, liberals believe the economy is so complex as to require an intelligent designer-government.
Michael Shermer
Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works.
Michael Shermer
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
I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
Michael Shermer
Machine intelligence of a human nature could be a century away, and immortality is at least a millennium away, if not unattainable altogether.
Michael Shermer
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
Scientists like Bjorn Lomborg in The Skeptical Environmentalist have, in my opinion, properly nailed environmental extremists for these exaggerated scenarios.
Michael Shermer
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
Mammals are sentient beings that want to live and are afraid to die. Evolution vouchsafed us all with an instinct to survive, reproduce and flourish.
Michael Shermer
When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
Michael Shermer
Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.
Michael Shermer
But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.
Michael Shermer
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
