Quote

Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training.

Michael Shermer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Anecdotal
Naturally
Requires
Training
Comes
Science
Thinking

More quotes by Michael Shermer

Image
Providentially, learned habits can be unlearned, especially in the context of moral groups.
Michael Shermer
Image
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
Image
But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.
Michael Shermer
Image
When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
Michael Shermer
Image
Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.
Michael Shermer
Image
We are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency.
Michael Shermer
Image
Play hard, work hard, love hard. . . .The bottom line for me is to live life to the fullest in the here-and-now instead of a hoped-for hereafter, and make every day count in some meaningful way and do something-no matter how small it is-to make the world a better place.
Michael Shermer
Image
Flawed as they may be, science and the secular Enlightenment values expressed in Western democracies are our best hope for survival.
Michael Shermer
Image
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
Image
Science is the best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works.
Michael Shermer
Image
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
Image
For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.
Michael Shermer
Image
Rationality tied to moral decency is the most powerful joint instrument for good that our planet has ever known.
Michael Shermer
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Human history is highly nonlinear and unpredictable.
Michael Shermer
Image
I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.
Michael Shermer
Image
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
Image
Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.
Michael Shermer
Image
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.
Michael Shermer