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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.

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
Process
Certainty
Affirmation
Science
Constantly
Fluid
Also
Strength
Fleeting
Body
Building
Inquiry
Heart
Greatest
Limitations
Thinking
Open
Rejection
Testable
Belief
Limitation
Confirmation
Knowledge
Beliefs
Aimed

More quotes by Michael Shermer

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Plato wove historical fact into literary myth.
Michael Shermer
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Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.
Michael Shermer
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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.
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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But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.
Michael Shermer
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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.
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.
Michael Shermer
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Human history is highly nonlinear and unpredictable.
Michael Shermer
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But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.
Michael Shermer
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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
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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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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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Rationality tied to moral decency is the most powerful joint instrument for good that our planet has ever known.
Michael Shermer
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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
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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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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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In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.
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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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
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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