The Michael Shermer Show
The Michael Shermer Show is a series of long-form conversations between Dr. Michael Shermer and leading scientists, philosophers, historians, scholars, writers and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.
- Update frequency
- every 4 days
- Average duration
- 90 minutes
- Episodes
- 550
- Years Active
- 2015 - 2025
165. John McWhorter — The Elect: Neoracists Posing as Antiracists and Their Threat to a Progressive America
Dr. Shermer speaks with John McWhorter about his new online book on how the antiracism movement poses a threat to progressive America. Shermer and McWhorter discuss: antiracism as a religion; the 3 w…
164. Neil deGrasse Tyson — Cosmic Queries: StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going
In this thought-provoking conversation on life, the universe, and everything, Neil deGrasse Tyson tackles the world’s most important philosophical questions about the universe with wit, wisdom, and c…
163. Helen Pluckrose — Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody
Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn’t practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that the…
162. Benjamin Friedman — Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
In episode 162 of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael speaks with one of the nation’s preeminent experts on economic policy, Benjamin Friedman, about his new book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism — …
161. Roy Richard Grinker — Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness
For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In episode 161 of The Michael Shermer Show, Dr. Shermer speaks with anthropologist…
160. Abigail Shrier — Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters
Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childh…
159. Joshua Glasgow — The Solace: Finding Value in Death Through Gratitude for Life
How can we find solace when we face the death of loved ones? How can we find solace in our own death? When philosopher Joshua Glasgow’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, he struggled to answer these …
158. Jason D. Hill — We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to The American People
In this episode Michael Shermer speaks with Jason D. Hill, a black immigrant from Jamaica, about his eloquent appreciation of the American Dream, and why his adopted nation remains the most noble exp…
157. Avi Loeb — Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth
According to the Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, we have proof of alien existence, and more sightings are coming soon. In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring throu…
156. Ayaan Hirsi Ali — Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights
Why are so few people talking about the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities? No one in a position of power wants to admit that the problem is linked to the arrival of severa…
155. Martin Sherwin — Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1945–1962
In episode 155, Dr. Shermer speaks with Martin Sherwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, about his new book Gambling with Ar…
154. David Sloan Wilson — Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III
In episode 154, Michael speaks with renowned evolutionary theorist David Sloan Wilson about his new novel Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III, a devastating critique of Ayn Rand’s philos…
153. Kevin Dutton — Black-and-White Thinking: The Burden of a Binary Brain in a Complex World
In episode 153, Michael speaks with University of Oxford research psychologist Dr. Kevin Dutton about his new book Black-and-White Thinking: The Burden of a Binary Brain in a Complex World. Shermer a…
152. Politics & Truth — Michael Shermer Responds to Critics of His Commentary “Trump & Truth”
Dr. Michael Shermer received a lot of interesting and constructive responses to episode 151, his commentary on the events of January 6, 2021 — the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. In epis…
151. Trump & Truth — A Commentary by Michael Shermer
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire
In this monologue commentary on the events of January 6, 2021, Dr. Shermer applies causal inference theory to…
150. Daniel Lieberman — Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding
“Nothing about the biology of exercise makes sense except in the light of evolution, and nothing about exercise as a behavior makes sense except in the light of anthropology.”
In this myth-busting b…
149. The After Time: The Future of Civilization After COVID-19
In this special episode of the Science Salon podcast, the last of 2020, Dr. Michael Shermer offers some reflections on 2020, starting with race and the Black Lives Movement, putting it into perspecti…
148. Have Archetype — Will Travel: The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon
In this special episode of the Science Salon podcast Dr. Michael Shermer reflects on the recent resurrection of Jordan Peterson, the resurgent criticism of him and why so many people attack him, why …
147. David Barash — On the Brink of Destruction
In a conversation based on the book Threats: Intimidation and its Discontents, Shermer and Barash discuss:
- 2020 as the most momentous year of the past half century,
- judging historical figures based …
146. Donald Prothero — Weird Earth: Debunking Strange Ideas About Our Planet
Shermer and Prothero discuss:
- flat earth theories and how we know the earth is round,
- hollow earth theories and how we know it’s not hollow,
- the return of Ptolemy and an earth-centered solar system …