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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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Michael Shermer
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 8
Historian Of Science
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sport Cyclist
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Michael Brant Shermer
Believe
Designer
People
Complexes
Complex
Intelligent
Design
Espouse
Economy
Similarly
Nature
Liberals
Government
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More quotes by 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.
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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)
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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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We think of our eyes as video cameras and our brains as blank tapes to be filled with sensory inputs.
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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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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.
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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.
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For solving a surprisingly large and varied number of problems, crowds are smarter than individuals.
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Providentially, learned habits can be unlearned, especially in the context of moral groups.
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We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something grander than ourselves.
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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.
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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.
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Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training.
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Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic.
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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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Remember always that we are pattern-seeking primates who are especially adept at finding patterns with emotional meaning.
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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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But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.
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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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