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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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Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Outside
Individual
Sense
Thesis
Human
Trait
Humans
Traits
Mind
Exists
Morality
Universal

More quotes by Michael Shermer

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Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing.
Michael Shermer
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Providentially, learned habits can be unlearned, especially in the context of moral groups.
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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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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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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I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
Michael Shermer
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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.
Michael Shermer
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In science, if an idea is not falsifiable, it is not that it is wrong, it is that we cannot determine if it is wrong, and thus it is not even wrong.
Michael Shermer
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Are science and religion compatible? It's like, are science and plumbing compatible? They're just two different things.
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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Since humans are by nature tribal, the overall goal is to expand the concept of the tribe to include ALL members of the species, in a global free society.
Michael Shermer
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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
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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
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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
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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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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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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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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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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
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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.
Michael Shermer