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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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Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Natural
Default
Science
Option
States
Skepticism
Believe
Sorts
Things
Motivation
Inspiration
Belief
State
Disbelief

More quotes by Michael Shermer

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There is a significant difference between having no belief in a God and believing there is no God.
Michael Shermer
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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.
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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For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.
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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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)
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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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
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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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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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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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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.
Michael Shermer
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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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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 because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths.
Michael Shermer
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I just witnessed an event so mysterious that it shook my skepticism.
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
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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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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