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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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Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Seeking
Atheism
Meaning
Primates
Especially
Adept
Emotional
Pattern
Religion
Patterns
Remember
Findings
Always
Finding

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We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.
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Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.
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Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training.
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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.
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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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Science is not the affirmation of a set of beliefs but a process of inquiry aimed at building a testable body of knowledge constantly open to rejection or confirmation. In science, knowledge is fluid and certainty fleeting. That is at the heart of its limitations. It is also its greatest strength.
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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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The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition — thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.
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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.
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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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Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.
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Providentially, learned habits can be unlearned, especially in the context of moral groups.
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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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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.
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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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There is a significant difference between having no belief in a God and believing there is no God.
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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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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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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.
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When alien abductees recount to me their stories, I do not deny that they had a real experience.
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