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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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Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Think
Tape
Thinking
Video
Cameras
Inputs
Filled
Tapes
Brain
Sensory
Eyes
Input
Games
Brains
Eye
Blank

More quotes by 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.
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Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training.
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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.
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If spirituality is the sense of awe and humility in the face of the creation, what could be more awesome and humbling than the deep space discovered by Hubble and the cosmologists, and the deep time discovered by Darwin and the evolutionists.
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Belief is the natural state of things. It is the default option. We just believe. We believe all sorts of things. Belief is natural disbelief, skepticism, science, is not natural.
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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.
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Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.
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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.
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We do not just blindly concede control to authorities instead we follow the cues provided by our moral communities on how best to behave.
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Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from and where we are going.
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Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.
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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.
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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)
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I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
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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.
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Providentially, learned habits can be unlearned, especially in the context of moral groups.
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Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.
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We are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency.
Michael Shermer
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No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process.
Michael Shermer
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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.
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