Finally…The Truth with Michael Shermer

Summary

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StarTalk Radio: "Finally…The Truth with Michael Shermer"

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Michael Shermer (Founder, Skeptic Society; Author of Truth)
Co-Hosts: Gary O’Reilly, Chuck Nice
Release Date: July 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This Special Edition of StarTalk explores the elusive concept of "truth"—how we define it, search for it, and often get it wrong. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O’Reilly are joined by Michael Shermer, author of the new book Truth, to unpack why the very idea of truth matters, how science sifts fact from fiction, and the psychological and societal biases that put us in a post-truth era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Objective Truth?

• Michael Shermer defines objective truth as “something confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer our provisional assent” (05:45).
  • Emphasizes "provisional"—truth in science is always subject to revision with new evidence.
• Neil notes, “You essentially…go get your haters…they come in and they go, yeah, this is bullshit.” (06:46), describing how science welcomes dissent to test ideas.

Notable Moment:

• Carl Sagan's Dragon in the Garage: A story illustrating that unfalsifiable claims (“an invisible, levitating, cold-blooded dragon”) are indistinguishable from no claim at all (07:03).

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2. The Difference Between Personal & External Truth

• Shermer: “There is a realm of personal truths that are true for you and do make a difference in your life.” (11:57)
• Chuck Nice shares an ayahuasca experience, affirming deep personal meaning even as he recognizes its internal origin (09:23).
• Shermer clarifies: “For science we need external validation of your internal state… we need to have some evidence.” (08:55)

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3. Why We Self-Deceive & Motivated Reasoning

• “Our brains are more like lawyers than scientists. We want to win the case for our side, not find out what's actually true.” —Shermer (14:38)
• All humans participate in “motivated reasoning”—collecting supporting evidence while ignoring counter-evidence (19:10).
• Tyson: “A good scientist will certainly want their hypothesis to be correct, but…will try to find ways to show that it’s not” (14:23).

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4. Trust in Institutions — Science, Politics, and Media

• Trust in scientific and medical institutions has “plummeted to an all-time low post-COVID” (20:45).
• Discussion: Scientists could improve trust by expressing uncertainty, using language like “the best available evidence…up until now” (21:24).
• Shermer: “We have to trust our institutions…who can fact check everything?” (19:25)

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5. Social & Cognitive Biases at Work

• My-side Bias: Tendency to believe “my religion/political party is right” (20:23).
• Patternicity: Seeing meaningful patterns in randomness (e.g. cancer clusters, seeing faces in toast) (34:06).
• Servant of Belonging: Publicly signaling acceptance of beliefs for social acceptance, regardless of personal understanding (24:24).

Quote:

“Most of it is just random.” —Shermer on our tendency to see false patterns (34:14)

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6. Consensus in Science vs. Opinion

• Shermer: “In science…it's a consensus of the experts who have been fighting each other for decades about whether this hypothesis or theory is true or not.” (37:01)
• Tyson: “In science, when we speak of consensus, it’s the agreement of experiments and observations.” (36:41)

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7. How Story and Myth Differ from Literal Truth

• Many religious and literary truths are “stories that have deeper meaning…like great literature—a Jane Austen novel or Dostoevsky…” (26:18).
• Not all “truths” must be factual to be valuable—myths can encode wisdom even if not literally true (27:23).

Memorable Exchange:

• Shermer: “If you really think about it, [Pizzagate] cannot possibly be true. But what they're signaling is: my side says this is a conspiracy theory…She did something.” (25:07)

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8. Social Media & the Outrage Engine

• Social media amplifies my-side bias and confusion by spreading information and misinformation at unprecedented speed (45:12).
• “It’s an outrage engine.” —Tyson on the impact of social platforms (45:22).

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9. Being a Skeptic vs. Contrarian

• Shermer: "Being a skeptic means…at which point you no longer need to doubt it." (47:41)
• Contrarians doubt for its own sake, but skepticism requires evidence and the willingness to change your mind (49:02).

Notable Quote:

“They may sometimes get it wrong, but your dumb ass always gets it wrong.” —Chuck Nice (51:35)

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10. Misinformation, Anti-Science, and Vaccines

• Shermer: “The harm of people just being skeptical…some people won't get vaccinated and then they'll get measles and things like that.” (53:28)
• Discussion on the shifting political alignments of anti-vaccine sentiment (54:11).

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11. Moral Progress and the Future of Truth

• Moral progress is slow but accumulates (“on a decadal level”) (55:40).
• Tyson asks if there is such a thing as “moral truth”—Shermer: Yes (55:51).
• Hopeful closing: “If there's a God, we could become [like one] in the far future…That's the closest we could get to a deity—it could be our future selves. Or the aliens.” —Shermer (57:05)

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• On Objective Truth:
  • "Something confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer our provisional assent." —Shermer (05:45)
• On Motivated Reasoning:
  • “Our brains are more like lawyers than scientists.” —Shermer (14:38)
• On Skepticism:
  • "Being a skeptic means…at which point you no longer need to doubt it.” —Shermer (47:41)
• On Expertise:
  • “We have to get back to trusting experts. Expertise does matter. Even if they occasionally get it wrong, that's fine.” —Shermer (51:24)
• On Truth and Human Fallibility:
  • “They may sometimes get it wrong, but your dumb ass always gets it wrong.” —Chuck Nice (51:35)
• On the Future:
  • “At some point we could become the equivalent of omniscient beings...if there's a God we could become [one] in the far future, or the aliens...That's the closest we could get to a deity.” —Shermer (57:05)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:02] – Introduction of Michael Shermer & discussion of his new book Truth
• [05:45] – Defining objective truth and provisional assent
• [07:03] – Carl Sagan’s “Dragon in my Garage” story
• [11:29] – Personal vs. external truth (ayahuasca & subjective experience)
• [14:38] – Motivated reasoning and scientific process
• [19:10] – Motivated reasoning and “my-side” bias
• [24:24] – Social signaling and belief as “servant of belonging”
• [26:18] – Religious truths, literature, and the meaning of myth
• [34:06] – Bias: Patternicity, randomness, and human perception
• [36:41] – Scientific consensus vs. opinion
• [45:12] – Impact of social media on truth
• [47:41] – Genuine skepticism vs. contrarianism
• [51:24] – On restoring trust in expertise
• [53:28] – Impact of anti-vaccine sentiment and misinformation
• [55:51] – Is there such a thing as moral truth?
• [57:05] – Hopeful closing: the future role of truth and knowledge

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Truth in science is provisional, evidence-based, and constantly challenged.
• Everyone is subject to cognitive biases and motivated reasoning—awareness and humility are crucial.
• Public trust in institutions is strained, sometimes by lack of transparency, but science’s self-correction is its strength.
• Myths and stories can teach moral truths independently of factual accuracy.
• Skepticism is healthy, but must be grounded in reason and a willingness to accept evidence.
• The search for truth is never-ending, but progress—intellectual, social, moral—remains possible.

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Michael Shermer’s new book, "Truth", is out now (Johns Hopkins University Press). To find him: skeptic.com | @michaelshermer on X/Twitter.

Neil deGrasse Tyson and team encourage listeners to "keep looking up."

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Transcript

[A]

Streaming on July 23rd. Star Trek Strange New Worlds returns with a brand new season exclusively on Paramount. Plus, get ready to boldly go one step closer to where it all began, as Captain Christopher pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise embark on thrilling new adventures across the galaxy. As they journey to strange new worlds, they battle inner demons and external threats, encounter colorful new characters, and reunite with familiar faces. Don't miss the brand new season of Star Trek, Strange New Worlds, streaming on July 23rd, exclusively on Paramount.

[B]

There once was a magic sorry at

[C]

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. We don't do fairytales. We do real. Like real adventures to Mars or real

[A]

journeys into the future to see how

[C]

imagination can really take us to strange

[B]

new worlds and real trips into the past, where we meet heroes and legends

[A]

way ahead of their time.

[C]

Real rockets, real astronauts, real adventure, all at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Discover something real. So, Gary, are you objectively true?

[B]

Maybe. But then again, there's your truce. My truce And Chuck's truths.

[A]

And I know for a fact that mine's a lie.

[B]

Oh.

[C]

Coming up, Start Talk special edition, all about truth. Is it still there? Coming up. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition, which means we got Gary O'Reilly right here next to me.

[B]

Hi, Neil.

[C]

Gary.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

I love having you.

[B]

I love being here.

[C]

Yeah. Chuck, how you doing, man?

[A]

Oh, doing great.

[C]

So you cooked up an episode, you and your producers cooked up an episode today that, oh, my gosh, this is an eternal subject. And take us in.

[B]

The truth, is it out there? Yes. So apparently is trust. But do you trust the teller of the truth?

[A]

Everyone trusts me. I'm the most truthy person that you'll ever meet. I make up the truth. Good at it.

[B]

Is it noise? Is it biased? Is it fake news? Are they alternative facts? But then stop and think for a second and ask, do we actually examine the truth differently for, say, science or then for history or politics, even religion? How about UAPs and aliens? Yeah. Might talk about them as well. What if there was a toolbox of sorts that could help you build a skill set that could get you closer to what you might call the true

[C]

true instead of the fake truth. The true truth. There you go.

[B]

So, Neil, I think let's bring in our guest.

[C]

All right. Well, I am delighted and honored to bring in someone who I can claim as a friend for decades. It is the one and only Michael Shermer. Michael, welcome back to startalking nice to see you all.

[D]

We don't go back to a previous life.

[B]

Maybe.

[D]

Maybe reincarnation.

[C]

That's a different episode. And welcome to my office here at the Hayden Planetarium. And you're author of a dozen books, each one trying to get people to think straight in a different way. You are a founder of the Skeptic Society, is that correct? And there's a magazine called the Skeptic. Yes, sensibly titled.

[B]

That was a focus group.

[D]

I'm sure.

[A]

It was, as I like to call it, fake news.

[C]

And you are also hosting. That's pretty good.

[B]

Don't encourage him.

[C]

You're also host of the Michael Shermer Show. It's your own podcast. And how did you come up with that name for it?

[D]

It was original. Huh?

[C]

No, we're good. And your latest book. Oh, my gosh. Cause this could have almost written itself in the time and the place that this needs to appear. It's just called Truth.

[A]

Man, that is an ambitious title, I guess.

[C]

No, no, here's the problem. The real problem is that this book is even necessary. Well, who would have thought, you know?

[A]

Yeah. I mean, in this day and age. It's far more necessary though.

[C]

That's what I'm saying.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm just saying I'm sad that you had to write this book.

[D]

Well, thank you. Yes. Well, that's the problem. So I start with the idea that there is no truth and we're living in a post truth world, which the moment somebody opens their mouth and says that it can't be true because they're making an argument which is searching for

[C]

truth straight in the deep end. Hey, wait, can we start in the toddler pool first?

[A]

Kiddie pool first. I mean, my man is like. He's standing in the square in ancient

[D]

Greece, just like they give me lifeguards, man.

[C]

Okay, can we unpack what you just said?

[A]

Yeah, man.

[D]

Well, so there's people, you know, fake news, alternative facts, or postmodernism. There is no truth. My truth is as good as your truth. Scientific truths are just another narrat, just another story like anybody else's story.

[C]

So these are what people say?

[D]

This is what people say. Right. So we counter that these are the so called science wars. We counter that by saying actually there are objective truths. So we could get at them. Here are the methods we have. That's chapters two, three and four of how to Get There.

[A]

Wow. All right, so Wade, I'm sorry, before you go further, can you define objective truth then? Because if we don't do that right now, then everything else we say is kind of like do that right now. It's really kind of flimsy.

[D]

Something confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer our provisional assent.

[A]

Something confirmed to such a degree a degree that it would be reasonable to

[D]

offer our provisional assent.

[A]

Our provisional assent.

[D]

Provisional. It could be. That's the key word in there. It could be wrong. I could be wrong.

[A]

That word's doing a lot of lifting, Michael.

[D]

I know. So I start with the premise that whether there's a God or not, I know for sure it's not me and it's not you, or you or you. Sorry. So how do I say we know who it is?

[A]

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[C]

How do you know it's not any of us?

[D]

Well, because we're all. So it starts with fallibilism. We all could be wrong about anything. So we start with the idea that I may have my personal truths, but I might be wrong. So I need to ask you to double check for me, you know, if I think I believe X. Can you look and double check for me to see if I'm hallucinating?

[C]

How many people do that?

[D]

Almost nobody, which is why I wrote the book. Well, you scientists do.

[C]

Yeah, we do.

[D]

But you're trained to do that.

[C]

Anytime we come up with an idea, I say, could you check this? Did I make an error? Can you double check my calculations?

[A]

You essentially you go get your haters. Yeah, Ideally peer review.

[C]

Ideally, you get your haters and they

[A]

come in and they go, yeah, this is bullshit.

[D]

So you remember Carl Sagan's dragon in my garage story from dvd?

[C]

I heard it, but I was never able to retell it.

[D]

Okay, I'll retell it if you can.

[C]

Please.

[D]

There's a dragon in my garage. Would you like to see it? Oh my God, that'd be so cool. So I take it to the garage, I open it up, you look in, there's some bicycles and paint cans and a ladder. You don't see any dragon. I go, well, it's an invisible dragon. You go, oh, okay. How about we sprinkle some flower and will catch the footprints of the dragon walking around? Well, you see, this is an invisible levitating dragon. It hovers above the ground about a foot. All right, how about we get one of those thermometers they used in Covid where you point it at people's forehead, get the temperature, we'll see the outline of the dragon walking around in there. No, this is a cold blooded dragon. How about the fire but just to

[C]

be clear, when you're cold blooded, you are the temperature of your environment. So they don't necessarily have cold blood, they just don't maintain, they don't create their own warmth. So they would be the. They wouldn't show up on an infrared camera.

[D]

That's right. Or the fire. It's cold fire. Okay, what's the difference between an invisible, levitating, cold blooded, cold fire breathing dragon and no dragon at all? And you can't say, well, I feel the presence of the dragon when I'm in the room, or I feel the love of the dragon. That's all fine for you personally, but at some point for us to believe there's actually a dragon, we gotta have some evidence. And that's science, by the way.

[A]

Michael, I just want to go on record and say, if an old white man comes to me and say, there's a dragon in my garage, would you like to see it? I'm calling the police.

[C]

That's how you respond to it.

[D]

Exactly.

[C]

Okay, now suppose just while we're there, okay, suppose you are so charismatic, you are so lovable, you are so articulate, manipulative, sure that anyone you speak to of this dragon ends up feeling the presence of the dragon just the way you do. Out of the power of suggestion. Why doesn't that then constitute evidence? Because that's how you get cults. Yes. All the people in the cult feel what the leader of the cult feels. Why doesn't that constitute a certain kind of evidence?

[D]

So for science we need external validation of your internal state. So maybe you do feel this. Fine, that's your truth. But for me to believe it, I need to have some external validation. So if I take ayahuasca and I realize and I tell you, oh my God, there's this. All of the spirit world I saw, the entities, they were floating out there. Here's the color, I felt their love, and so on. And you go show me the evidence. And I go, here, you take the ayahuasca and you'll see it too. That's still in your brain. It's still an internal truth. We need to have some measure of it.

[A]

Now suppose that. And I'm playing devil's advocate here because what you just. I've actually experienced that with ayahuasca. With ayahuasca.

[D]

You did.

[A]

Oh my God, it was amazing. And.

[C]

Oh, wait, it's like he's on it now.

[D]

Do you feel like there really is this other place that you can.

[A]

It's more than a feeling. And that's why people are so incredibly passionate about it. Because.

[C]

And just to be clear, you took it under a very controlled.

[A]

Very controlled. In a place where. Yes, they have medical staff on board.

[D]

And if I come back and go, neil, I was wrong. There is this unworld world.

[A]

You will not come back and say that. Now, you might say that there's a possibility that there's a spirit realm and that somehow in the ultra consciousness, we're able to tap into it, but we can't do it otherwise. You might say that, but the truth is, everything that the entire time that I was going through. And you're not high. That's the misconception.

[C]

You're not.

[A]

You're not high. Okay. But as you're in this altered state, the only thing I kept saying as I was looking at beings who were in front of me, I'm like. It wasn't like a hallucination. Hallucination, whatever. They're there to me. They're there, but I knew they weren't there. And I kept saying, these are artifacts of my mind's making. I kept telling myself that. However, what my mind, through this experience revealed to me was so deep and so useful that it felt like this couldn't have come from me. But I know for a fact that it had to come from me. Okay, because.

[C]

So you're rationalizing.

[A]

Well, I'm not even. I am rationalizing. You're absolutely right.

[C]

I'm rationalizing. But someone less rational than you, it's a whole other.

[A]

Oh, my goodness.

[C]

They're all in. They're all in.

[A]

By the way, it still exists as that for me as well, because it's so real. Like I said, it's more than a feeling. It's a connection that feels completely external. But guess what? I know for a fact that it was coming from my brain.

[C]

Okay, so, Michael, getting back to the Dragon in the garage with a charismatic cult leader, one by one, people are drawn in. And for them, the evidence is that they feel it. So at some point, you need someone who is not swayed by the charisma of the leader, who then would be counted as an outside reference.

[D]

That's why cult leaders don't want you to engage with people on the outside.

[A]

That's right. Yeah.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Or you need a device.

[C]

That's why they're.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Or you need a device. Right.

[D]

The emirs. Well, if I could just say something about your experience. So in my model of truth, there is a realm of personal truths that are true for you and do make a difference in Your life. So when somebody says I found Jesus or God or whatever and it changed my life, I'm not saying you should believe. I'm not saying I can prove it. I'm just saying this is what worked for me. I'm fine with that.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. Especially if it changes for the better.

[D]

Yeah, well, yeah, hopefully is what Chuck

[B]

was describing with his experience what people are calling truthiness, the truth you want to believe.

[D]

Well, a little bit. But that was Colbert's riff on more political kind of truths. I think this is more from the

[C]

Colbert rapport, from the ratio.

[B]

But is that the truth that you personally believe and the one that you want to believe?

[D]

Yes, yes, that's right. Yeah. It's an extra step there where I would really like this to be true. Now I'm gonna find the evidence for it. That's not helpful. This is slightly different again, I think if there's experiences you have that change. People have near death experiences. Did they really go to heaven? Probably not. But it changed their life. Now they've, you know, they're doing this and that instead of what they used to do. Okay, yeah.

[A]

And I will say the. And I'm going to get off the ayahuasca thing because it's not what we're about. But the biggest benefit to me was I was on several neurotransmitter medications and I was able to come off all of them under the supervision of my psychiatrist. Oh wow. Who was like, hey man, I don't know what to say. Like we don't have these answers in neuroscience right now. But clearly something happened and boom. And I haven't taken them since. So that's.

[D]

I would like scientists to be more open minded about that sort of thing. They tend to be pretty dogmatically skeptical of that. Yeah, I think we need to keep the door open for these kinds of experiences just in case.

[C]

But part of that skepticism is because if you were a betting person, most of such claims would not pan out. And so if a scientist has limited time, you're gonna say, well investigate this cause it surely works. But you're just in a line of people making exactly the same suggestion of the time of the scientists. And so go back to the dragon scenario. Yeah.

[B]

And you've got the, I suppose, deception of a false narrative. But are we programmed to be self deceiving in the way that we will absorb a truce that we know may

[A]

or may not be?

[C]

That's cause you started saying there's the truth you want to be so and then you look for evidence in support of it. A good scientist will certainly want their hypothesis to be correct, but a good scientist will try to find ways to show that it's not.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

It's two very different paths.

[D]

If you don't find the flaws in your research, somebody else will with great glee, and they'll publish it, right? So the whole development of science is to get around those issues. Our brains are more like lawyers than scientists. We want to win the case for our side, not find out what's actually true. So that's what we have to work against.

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[A]

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[A]

I'm Brian Futterman and I support StarTalk on Patreon.

[D]

This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[B]

Is there an identikit? Standard construction.

[C]

What word did you just use?

[B]

Identity kit. So you come.

[C]

I don't know what that means.

[B]

All right, I'll make some words up.

[C]

Identicate a kit.

[B]

An identikit.

[C]

So you get identikit.

[B]

The truth has to have this, this, this, this and this in it. It's how you structure it and bring it. Is there a standard issue?

[D]

Well, there's tools we use, you know, correlation and randomized controlled trials and these sorts of things. Statistical tests that sciences have developed over the last century and a half or so to see.

[B]

How about us as a, as an individual rather than as a scientist?

[D]

Individually, we know we're more subject to this. Motivated reasoning. I want this to be true. Now I'm going to just collect all the evidence that confirms it. Ignore the evidence that disconfirms it. Everybody does this. Confirmation. Everybody does it.

[C]

Motivated reasoning. I like that phrase.

[D]

Yeah. We're motivated to find what we already want to be true, find evidence for it at some point.

[C]

Can you really fault people for that? I mean, we're human, right? Subject to the whims of our emotions

[D]

and also and our desires. We have to trust our institutions. And do we? Well, because who can fact. Well, you don't have to, but who can fact check everything, right? I mean, I never saw the Chinese spy balloon with my own eyes, but I accept the high resolution photographs. There was the jet shooting it down. It was on all the news. The President, the Secretary of Defense, they all said it's real. By contrast, the UFO videos are always grainy and blurry. You can't quite make it out. No one will confirm. Confirm it. It's all like, oh, it's classified, we can't show you. That's very different.

[C]

Very much so. Two different examples of news reports. One has a level of Evidence that doesn't leave you skeptical of the claim because the images of that Spiderman were pretty high resolution.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

You can see.

[A]

So what do you do with the. I'll call it the trust of the masses where so many people believe something, but the thing that they believe is still wrong.

[D]

Yeah. So my side.

[B]

Sorry, Chuck, Is that the my side bias?

[D]

Yeah, exactly.

[C]

What is my side bias?

[D]

My religion is right, my political party is right. If you want to go into the Trump thing, that would be good.

[C]

The Trump spirit comes upon him.

[A]

First time anybody's ever cued Trump.

[C]

We don't, we don't summon Trump. Trump appears on his own.

[D]

He's a channeler. So again, I mean, the levels of trust the public has in scientific institutions, medical institutions and the academy, universities has plummeted to an all time low post Covid. This is a problem. So that's one of the reasons I wrote this book was like, hey, these institutions actually work pretty well. They usually get it right. Sometimes they're wrong. I would have preferred our institutions to couch their recommendations in more probabilistic. Right now this is what we think about masks or vaccines or whatever. Social distancing. 50, 50. We're gonna go with this. Maybe next week we'll change our mind.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

They could have done that.

[A]

That was the worst.

[C]

Never done.

[A]

That was the worst thing they did is the fact that the best available evidence. No one ever used those terms. But it's hard to engender trust when you preface everything with the best available evidence up until now. And then people go, well, what's that supposed to mean?

[C]

I think there's some hope there. Because when we grew up, I think we're in the same decadal age.

[D]

We're young.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Polling results were not given with uncertainties. And now they are. Okay, they just gave a number. They just gave a number and that was like the number right now it's

[A]

plus or minus three points. Right.

[C]

So that was an important achievement.

[D]

I think you'll hear people say things like, my priors are this. And I changed my upgraded my priors and my credence is now that that's a whole Bayesian area of statistics that people have no idea what they're actually saying, but they've inculcated it from just pop culture. And this is a good thing. Like it is. I'm going to. It's okay if I change my mind?

[A]

Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think that's very important too, to give people the leeway to say it's okay if I'm Wrong. The best thing I like about science, it is, hands down, the number one thing. Since I've been working with Neil for all these years, the thing that I appreciate the most is information that has changed. When better information has come along and nobody. The world, the science world is not set on fire, they're like, yeah, okay, well, we got better information now.

[D]

One proviso on that is that just because that idea was wrong and that one was wrong, my idea is surely right. Even though you think I'm wrong, I'm one of the heritage. I'm Galileo.

[A]

Right.

[C]

I'm right. Yeah. And everybody else is right. So. So does AI help or hurt this exercise?

[D]

It's a tool. I don't know. We don't know yet. It's a useful tool which is gonna.

[C]

In the search for truth.

[D]

Yes, yeah, absolutely. But you gotta check the sites, the sources they cite, provided they give. Some of the sources are. They're hallucinating. They're not real. Right. If you click on the link, it's like that actual article doesn't actually exist.

[B]

When we spoke to Geoffrey Hinton, he said some AI does have overconfidence.

[C]

He said that the hallucinations that we all know and laugh at with AI he doesn't call them hallucinations. He calls them confabulations.

[A]

Confabulations.

[C]

That's what he says.

[A]

Word of the dust.

[D]

Yes. That's good, because we do that. Humans do that.

[C]

That's why he calls it. That's why he calls it that. We have fragmented memories of things, and we fill it in so that the narrative can make sense to us.

[D]

Reagan famously remembered things from movies he was in that he thought actually happened. It's like, no, that was a movie you did in 50s. Oh, yeah.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

So if we go back to the my side bias, where people are believing things even though they know it's probably not right.

[C]

Is that true? Oh, sorry. That's very meta.

[B]

And I came across the phrase, and I'm not sure if it's yours. If it is, I appreciate this. A servant of belonging.

[D]

That's not my phrase, but I like it.

[C]

What does that mean? What does it mean?

[D]

Well, so when people publicly signal, like the example I use in the book is asking undergraduates, do you accept Darwin's theory of evolution? They go, oh, yeah, of course, yes. Explain it. Well, they can't. You know, the giraffe stretches its neck and the baby giraffes have long. No, that's not it at all. So they're publicly signaling. Yeah, The Scientists tell us this is true, so it probably is. And so a lot of conspiracy theory proclamations. Yeah, Yeah. I think QAnon is real. Or the Pizzagate thing. I mean, if you really think about it, this cannot possibly be true. But what they're signaling is my side says this is a crazy. This is a conspiracy theory. And I. I do know there's bad things that happen. Those Democrats, they're up to no good. I don't know if Hillary actually, you know, did this at this pizza game,

[A]

but she did something.

[D]

She did something. Yeah.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That woman's guilty. Find it. Find out why she guilty.

[A]

I call it the past interference syndrome. If you're rooting for the team that the call was made against, it's not pass interference.

[D]

That's right.

[A]

If you're rooting for the team that the call was made for. Oh, it's definitely passing.

[D]

That's right.

[A]

So you. And you actually see it that way.

[D]

That's right.

[A]

You know who my truth and your truths.

[C]

Let's back up a moment. Just to get the vocabulary established, we refer to Bayesian reasoning. Could you just say something about that?

[D]

So that's Reverend Thomas Bayesian. This is kind of statistical methods of when you should change your mind, when the evidence changes. So you start with, here's what I think is true based on the following points of evidence. Now, if those change, I may change my credence. That is my belief, my confidence that this thing is true. And it's just an influx constantly changing. This allows you to not be so committed to the belief that I have to defend it like it's my territory and it's under attack. Rather, it's maybe true, maybe it's false. I don't know. This is my confidence level. Now let's go there.

[C]

So it's a more fluid.

[D]

It's more fluid.

[C]

It's a more fluid tracking of.

[B]

So is there a point where truth is fixed and fixed only it can never be changed?

[D]

Not in science. I mean, if it's a. If it's a religious truth, this is what we believe. All right, so I'm trying this out in the book, that a lot of religious truths are actually more like literary truths. They're just stories that have deeper meaning behind them, like great literature, you know, a Jane Austen novel or a Dostoevsky novel. Is there really a middle Earth somewhere on the planet from J.R.R. tolkien?

[B]

Don't ruin my dream.

[D]

Maybe it's in New Zealand.

[C]

Sorry.

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

You're making a really good point where we don't approach fiction declaring that it's false.

[D]

Right, of course, fiction.

[C]

That's not the operative way to think about it. We approach fiction as a source of lessons, parables, ways of living. Moral compass can come out of it. And so that's why I've never liked it when people say, is this fact or is it fiction? Because that equates fiction with being false. And I'd rather fictional literature not be thought of as true or false. Same with mythologies. Just. Is there a lesson in there? So now pick up where you were going.

[D]

Yeah, so like the story of Jonah and the whale or the great fish, you know, did he really live for three days in the belly of a great fish who then spit him out at this other land where he goes to deliver the message, the moral message to these other people? Okay, you're missing the point of that story. It's not, you know, how do you live inside a fish for three days? You know, the three days is very symbolic. Okay. And most Christians, when I. Yeah, of course, I don't know, it's probably not real, but there's a deeper truth there. Okay, how about the resurrection? Maybe that didn't actually literally happen, but it's a story about redemption, forgiveness, starting over. And they go, hang on, time out.

[C]

Time out.

[B]

Time.

[C]

A red card. Red card.

[D]

Moses and the parts you're messing with

[A]

the whole foundation here.

[B]

Now you've got Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. I mean, you can't really literally say. It has to.

[D]

Well, I've heard, you know, people have sent us articles of skeptic. Oh, that was caused by an earthquake or this tsunami or this volcano. Maybe it didn't happen at all and it's just a story. Right. And in the case of Jesus, you know, there's people that think, well, this is called the swoon theory, that he wasn't actually dead on the cross. He just fainted. He swooned. And then they put him in the cold cave that preserved him for a couple days. And he woke up. And he woke up and then he married. He went with Mary Magdalene. And if you want to go full Dan Brown, they moved to France, had kids.

[A]

Full Dan Brown.

[B]

I get the reference.

[A]

Yeah, that's funny.

[C]

And the Illuminati is protecting their lonely agenda today.

[D]

Exactly. Again, most Christians are like, no, no, no. It has to literally happen. Now, why do they insist it literally happened? I think part of the reason is because we live in the age of science, where your core beliefs should have some foundation in evidence.

[C]

To which I Say in the age of science.

[D]

Yes, I think.

[B]

Okay, so are we swapping out the lenses for different subject matters? And the way that we. We will look at religion and biblical stories through one lens, and if you take politics or something else, and we talked about UAPs at the beginning of the show, and we see them in a totally. Through a totally different lens, maybe more skeptical, maybe less skeptical.

[D]

Well, this is my point. Use the other. Use the right lens to look at this thing. Read biblical stories as literature rather than as empirical claims.

[A]

Absolutely. But, you know, unfortunately, he's going to hell. Just saying.

[B]

We started a little chat here about post truth era.

[D]

Are we.

[B]

Are we tiptoeing towards you?

[C]

Please say no to that.

[D]

Yeah, please. Well, that was my opening comment, so here's.

[A]

Before you even say anything, I'm really embarrassed to admit this now. What the hell does post truth mean? What does that mean?

[B]

Pay attention.

[D]

This is what I'm asking.

[C]

That's why we're asking a man.

[D]

Okay, this is what I'm asking. What does that even mean?

[C]

He's got a book with this title. See? Okay? So shut the hell up and let the man talk. Okay, go.

[D]

Well, what it's supposed to mean from the kind of postmodernism and all that stuff in the 80s and 90s, is that the old model was that there is an objective reality and truth that we can discover through science. The new reality is that science is just another narrative story that people tell, and it's no better or different than any other stories. So the Aboriginal Australian stories about the origins of life and so on is just as good as your scientists. And so what we're pushing back against that is saying, no, they're not equal. Yeah. And so that would be post truth, that there's no truth to be found. But when you actually read postmodernists, they're making an argument and they're going, here's our evidence for it. It's like, that's not a post truth. You're making an argument. So you're on the page with me, like, all right, let's see what you got.

[B]

So then on the back of that, do you get the feeling that there are segments of society, whether it be Eastern, west or west, whatever, that have just given up on the truth and have more or less just switched off?

[D]

Well, some people have, yes. I mean, that was. Remember Steve Bannon's famous line to Trump was just flood the system of. And. And then we'll tell them what's true because they won't know what to Think that's right.

[C]

He actually said that?

[A]

Yeah, he did.

[D]

Yeah, he did. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This was it. Like.

[A]

He's a great guy, I gotta tell you, that Steve Bannon, he's something special.

[C]

I was on a. A real time with him on one episode. Steve Stevenson Bannon.

[D]

Yeah. Ugh.

[C]

He seemed pretty okay at the time.

[A]

See, that's the problem.

[D]

Isn't that the trick of the devil? The devil is very smart.

[C]

Doesn't seem like a regular guy.

[A]

I'm just saying.

[C]

I didn't. That's the disturbing part. So can you give me a short list of the kind of biases we should look out for in ourselves?

[A]

And how do we know they're not in your book?

[D]

Well, you have to read the book.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Check the evidence there. Well, so obviously the big one. Motivated reasoning. Again, we're all just designed to look for and find evidence for what we want to be true. Confirmation.

[C]

We're designed.

[D]

Well, designed by evolution. So there's one theory that reason evolved as not to find veridical truth, what's actually out there, but to win our arguments for our side. That's one. One case now, you know, we have to have some capacity to understand what. What the world is actually like in order to survive. So there's probably a balance there. But the idea is that we're gonna win the argument for our tribe. That's the my side bias. Yes, the hindsight bias. After the fact, you look back at how things unfold and you go, oh, it obviously had to be that way. My life had to come about that way. Cause look what happened. But in fact, most of it's just random. And we're not good at detecting randomness in your business. The stars in the sky are clustered. That's what randomness looks like. My favorite story from Steve Jobs is when they released the ipod shuffle feature that randomly played your songs from your playlist and people complained. They said certain songs come up more than others. It's not random. It's like, nope, that is what randomness looked like. So they had to program it to be less random so people would feel it's random.

[C]

You program it so that it hits every song before it then redoes it. But that's not random.

[A]

That isn't random.

[C]

That's not random at all.

[A]

Yeah, that's like throwing the die and getting all the numbers.

[C]

Intramural trials first. Yeah.

[A]

Before you go.

[D]

Exactly right. Or cancer clusters. Oh, look, there's. There's this community here. We gotta look to see if there's an Industrial waste stuff there or some company.

[C]

So they find the cancer cluster first.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

Then they look for what could cause it.

[D]

But there's other clusters where there's no cancer at all in this community. And no one goes in there to say, let's see what they're doing. Right. Because they ignore those misses Right. So that's one of the things that epidemiology, they have these tools like we have to.

[C]

What you said, a cluster of no cancer.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. I mean,

[C]

no one's called that.

[A]

Nobody.

[D]

Right.

[A]

They're just like, well, these people are healthy. Let's find out what's causing it. What's caused by this Health.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Can't have that.

[D]

There's not even a name for it.

[C]

It's not even a name.

[B]

It's not going to make the news. People are healthy.

[D]

Right, Right.

[B]

No interest.

[C]

And if they're living near high power lines, no one's gonna say the high power lines made them healthy.

[D]

That's right.

[C]

So what kind of bias is that?

[D]

Well, that's just the, you know. Well, I call that patternicity, tendency to find meaningful patterns and random noise. Most of it is just random.

[A]

Right. Like Jesus in a piece of toast.

[D]

Yes. The Virgin Mary and the Grimpsy sound.

[C]

We're really good at that, but for reasons that I think are plausible. Right. With the lion in the bushes. Tell us that story.

[D]

Right, yeah. So you hear a rustle in the grass. Is it a dangerous predator or is it just the wind? So if you think that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator and it turns out it's just the wind, that's just a false positive, no big deal, you just move aside. But if you make the other kind of error in which you assume the rustle in the grass is just the wind, it's a dangerous predator. You get a Darwin Award for taking yourself out of the gene pool early by making that mistake. So we tend to assume the worst. We tend to assume the pattern we think is real is really is real, just in case. Same thing with conspiracy theories. You know, most of them are not true, but some of them might be. Maybe it's better to err on the side that they really are after me. Even if they're not after me, they might be.

[B]

Right.

[D]

So I better be cautious, just in case.

[A]

It's funny when you say that, because I have talked, you know, I do a lot of work in climate and one of the things I say is everybody loves conspiracy theories except the one conspiracy theory that's in front of Everyone. And that is a small group of companies got together and decided that at all costs possible, they were going to make sure that we dig shit out. I'm sorry, that we dig stuff out of the ground and burn it full well, knowing since 1950, whatever, that it would destroy our planet. Now that is a conspiracy. But you say that to people, they're like, dude, get the hell out of here.

[D]

Well, same thing with tobacco, Big Tobacco. They knew. They knew. They knew the deal for a long time.

[A]

But these conspiracies, they're not sexy. They don't have aliens. And so nobody cares.

[D]

That's right. I mean, The Illuminati, these 12 guys in London running the world, okay, but there are 12 CEOs in tobacco that, you know, right? They had meetings. We have their memos.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

And they.

[A]

And they knew the deal. And they. And, you know, millions of people died, but yet somehow that's not a conspiracy.

[D]

They're the ones that had that phrase, you know, the jury is not in or the science is not settled. We have to wait.

[A]

We have to wait.

[C]

That's where they came from, this notion of settled science. The people I've spoken with who would invoke that term, the way they bring it to the table is there are these two research papers that are opposite the other hundred, and so therefore, the science is not settled. Not settled without realizing that there's always gonna be out research papers, right? And so at some point, they're paid

[A]

for by the people who don't. Who want a different answer.

[C]

So tell me about the notion of consensus here. Because when you look at, I think if you look up the definition, it refers to opinion, consensus of opinions. And in science, when we speak of consensus, it's the agreement of experiments and observations. So how has that word worked for you when you've been voked it?

[D]

Well, in science, yeah, we have to be careful to define that. I mean, it's a consensus of the experts who have been finding each other for decades about whether this hypothesis or theory is true or not. By the time we consume it, they've already hashed out all the problems. This is what we think is probably true. Could be wrong, but that's what we. 97% of climate scientists say. X. What about the 3%? Maybe they're right. Right, maybe, but probably not.

[A]

Yeah, Mr. Exxon and Mr. Shell.

[C]

Is that who the scientists are?

[A]

That's the three scientists. Mr. BP, Mr. Exxon and the Mr. Shao.

[D]

I mean, Neil, you must get these papers. You know, I've been working in my garage here. And the, you know, Einstein was wrong and Newton was wrong and Hawking was wrong. And I got the theory if I'll share the Nobel Prize with you if you help me with the math, you get these. Okay, so how do you know that guy's not right? I mean, he could be, maybe all these others, probably not right, because usually the outsiders, the heretics and so on, the would be Galileos, they're not. Would be Galileo, they're not Galileo, they're just wrong.

[B]

So if we take a holistic view and go in and look at all the different components of a truth, our truth, my truth, your truth. What value is truth to modern society right now?

[D]

I mean, we can't run a society in which there's not some agreed upon reality like money. I mean, money, it's fiat money, it's just ink on paper. It's not valued at all by itself, but with a structure behind it that says we value it at this level and we will back it up. Okay, and so we all have to agree to that, though. And then once we do that, that becomes the reality. Even though underneath it, okay, those are more political truths.

[C]

That means people have the power to create a truth.

[D]

In that sense, yes. So political truths are a little different than others, right?

[C]

In what way?

[D]

Well, so in a way, a democratic election is a kind of experiment. What's the right percentage of immigration? A country should have zero. There's no right number.

[A]

Unless of course, they're from South Africa

[C]

or my wife or my, or my head of the FBI or all with parents who are immigrants.

[A]

Wow, look at that.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

You know, so we run an election, that's an experiment, okay? These people are now in power. They're going to set it here and we'll see how that goes. And then maybe the puppet goes, ah, we didn't like that. We're going to bring in the other team and they're going to do something different and we'll see how that goes.

[A]

Yeah, trust me.

[C]

That dare you.

[A]

Well, so, but when you talk about, when you look at it that way, you bought up money, okay? It's not just the trust that it's valuable. It also behaves as if it were valuable, which is why we then continue to put more trust in. In it. So for instance, if we had runaway inflation, right, Our dollar would become worthless and we would stop trusting it. Therefore, it would not be of value. So the levers that we are pulling to keep the dollar as a viable world currency is the thing that gives us trust. Therefore it really does have value though.

[D]

That's right, Yep. I mean that's why the government implemented the FDIC and that we're guaranteeing a certain level of of money in the bank. Even if you think it's not really there, you don't have to have a run on the bank. That's all based on exactly what you just said a bank run is. People just don't trust that the money is in the bank. And it's actually not in the bank, it's out on loans.

[A]

That's true. You're right.

[D]

So it's too many people go to the bank.

[A]

It's in your house. And it's in your house, Neil. And in your house, Gary. That's where the money is.

[D]

Exactly right. It was the perfect

[C]

was that. It's a wonderful life

[B]

in the memory.

[A]

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[B]

Are we experiencing more disinterest in the truth?

[D]

Well, I think there's an incentive to say that. I think people actually still want to know.

[B]

Are they getting steered towards this by.

[D]

By political groups, religious groups, whatever? Yeah, the. My side by. Yeah, that's. That's happening probably more than before, but. But it's hard to say. It could just be elevated because of social media. It just becomes so prominent so quickly in real time. You can see what's happening on X or whatever, where people's attitudes are. I doubt this or I doubt that. I mean, just like the, the. The ice shooting of Renee.

[C]

Renee Goode.

[D]

Right. So you have the exact same video clip. You go, Fox News. You can clearly see here, she's trying to run over the agent. You go over to cnn, you can clearly see here she's trying to escape the agent and not cause the problem. We're looking at the same video, Right? So even the video evidence is not gonna be enough.

[A]

Not enough. Yeah.

[B]

Are we failing to adapt to the speed of social media, and are we going to struggle even more with social media?

[D]

The whole thing can collapse. Is so new. I Don't know what's going to happen.

[C]

Yeah, because it's feeding you. It's an outrage engine. But let me ask a different question here you are doing the bidding of science and scientists, yet you yourself are not a scientist. What is your disappointment?

[A]

Wait a minute.

[C]

What? Wait, I'm joking.

[D]

Well, I am a historian of science. I.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Well, that's important. Yeah. That's your background. History of science. So my question is, why aren't more scientists doing exactly what you're doing? Why are you doing the bidding of scientists?

[D]

Well, they're too busy working in labs, actually doing real research. Okay.

[C]

Because what you say is exactly what's going on. But the scientific community doesn't articulate it. We're not trained to articulate it in our graphic.

[A]

You're not built for it. I mean, let's be honest.

[D]

You know, I'm often accused of defending the, you know, the orthodoxy. You know, where's your. I thought you were a skeptic. Why aren't you skeptical of whatever their pet peeve is about science? Well, because of the consensus thing. And I trust the experts. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe you're right with your pet theory about vaccines or the big bang or whatever, but probably not. And so I'm really just. What I'm expressing is the system works pretty well most of the time. And even when there's a mistake made and there's a correction, oh, that theory turned out not to be right. Or this or that. Expanding, accelerating, expanding universe, all this. But that wasn't scientists just being wrong. It was scientists correcting the, you know, updating, upgrading our priors and so on and finding new evidence. That's how it works. So even the worst mistakes in the history of science that, like creationists point out, Piltdown, man, they got that one wrong and they got that fossil wrong. Yeah, but the mistakes were made, discovered by scientists.

[C]

Right, Right. It wasn't a journalist finding the mistakes.

[D]

That's right. Yeah.

[C]

Scientists found their own mistakes.

[D]

And even after the replication, the system

[C]

is built to do that.

[D]

That's right.

[C]

So, no, unpack. I like our understanding of the word skeptic, because I've heard people saying, I'm just being skeptical of what the scientists are telling me. Isn't that a healthy posture? At what point do you say. Because one of the skeptics organizations, if not yours, I don't remember which, had a button. The button just said, I doubt it.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that was Joe Rogan.

[C]

No, and I'm just saying, no, being a skeptic means, you know, at which point you no longer need to doubt it.

[D]

That's right.

[C]

So where does that training come in? Interesting, because a lot of the people who were, quote, skeptical of vaccines, like you said, skeptical of masks, skeptical of any emergent scientific objective truth. They're just being skeptical. How could you fault them for that? How do you take us out of that?

[D]

Well, so at the beginning of just asking questions, just ask that question. I know that's a very different. Because they're usually not just asking questions.

[A]

Absolutely.

[D]

They're moving us down a pathway. So we start in science. We start with the null hypothesis. Your hypothesis is probably not true. Now go ahead and give us your best evidence. I think Ivermectin will cure the issues with COVID 19. That's nice. Okay. Do you have any evidence for this? Well, my aunt tried it and she got better. Okay. Sorry. In medicine, an anecdote is not data. We have to have controlled trials, epidemiological studies, and so on and so forth.

[A]

The plural of anecdote is not data. That's right.

[D]

You know, I think Bigfoot's real. Okay. It could be. Maybe there's another bipedal primate running around out there in Canada or the Himalayas. Show us the body. And if they do, okay, then it's real. But if not, then I'm gonna remain skeptical until I see that evidence that's completely reasonable. All people should be scientists in that. So there's nothing special about science and skepticism in that regard. We should all be skeptical to start, but then be willing to say, okay, I think that one's probably true.

[C]

So there's some people who believe they are nobly skeptic who don't know that boundary between when the skepticism is healthy and when it's just wrong to be skeptical.

[D]

That's right. Yeah. I mean, there are people who just sort of contrarian by nature. I'm just gonna doubt everything just for the hell.

[C]

Just the button. I doubt it.

[B]

I don't believe anything anymore. And skepticism and I mean, the line's quite blurred right now.

[D]

Back in the 90s, when postmodernism was big and there is no real truth, I said, so the claim that the Holocaust never happened is as good as your claim that it is? Well, no. Okay. I'm not saying that. I'm like, oh, okay. So there is a way to find out whether something's true or not. Yeah, I guess so.

[C]

Catch us up on this, because I don't want it to go unresolved because the 90s was 30 years ago. Okay.

[D]

What?

[C]

That can't be.

[A]

You're just making up math now?

[C]

30 years ago.

[A]

Oh my God.

[C]

30 years before the 90s was the 1960s. So this postmodern movement was led in academia by the liberal arts community. Could you just remind us about it?

[D]

The humanities, you know, the literature, lit, crit and all that stuff. Deconstructing the text. What did the author really mean when they said this? And we can't know because they're gone. Whatever. Okay, so it kind of came out of that. And then. So we're examining narratives. Well, science is a narrative. It's a story. Then it became. It's just a story. It's just another story. There's nothing special about it, no better

[C]

or worse than anybody else's story in any other profession.

[D]

Then it got wrapped up in the whole. Well, it's, you know, it's western, industrialized, capitalist, white, you know, male.

[C]

Okay, but that was pretty strongly seated in academia. When did that spill out into the public?

[D]

Well, again, probably in the 90s, you know, and just like any kind of claim that anybody makes, we should doubt it just because it came from a white guy or it came from, you know, an academy where this capitalists were running or whatever funding it, that kind of thing.

[C]

Okay, what is the health of that movement today?

[D]

Well, it's still around, but I think it's been challenged. I mean, to be fair, on the right, there's also the kind of fake news, alternative facts, you know, all this stuff. You can't trust the media because the

[C]

postmodernism was a leftist movement.

[D]

That was a leftist movement.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[D]

There's one on the right too. Yes. And so again, one reason for the book is that we have to get back to trusting experts. Expertise does matter.

[A]

Definitely.

[D]

Even if they occasionally get it wrong. That's fine.

[A]

Here's what. Here's the deal. They may sometimes get it wrong, but your dumb ass always gets it wrong.

[C]

That should be on a poster. That's a poster.

[B]

That's it. That's it.

[A]

That's it.

[C]

And Michael, there are people who say, I did my research and they spent an hour reviewing YouTube videos. When a scientist says, I did my research, they mean something completely different.

[D]

That's right. Yeah, yeah. So I like independent journalism. I think it's a good corrective for some of the errors of mainstream journalism. But most of those people don't have fact checkers or editors. So they also get it wrong a lot. I just did an op ed piece for the Washington Post. There was just 700 words excerpt from the book. Four people went through it. I mean it took like four days. And I had to like provide a link for every single sentence. And to the point I was getting irritated and I'm like, actually this is a good thing. There's people checking me. Exactly. Because I know when I'm just posted on some website that there's nobody factoring checking in.

[A]

Yeah. So let me ask you this. And I think I'm opening up a Pandora's box here right now. But I don't care. I got to do it.

[B]

You got to care.

[A]

It's just so important in this country right now. After almost officially eradicating or officially eradicating measles, we now are at a 35 year high for measles outbreak. And there is a direction correlation between the number of people who are not vaccinated and the increase in the cases of measles. What do you say to someone who is listening to the voices that says, well, vaccines are like, they're, they're, they're harmful to your children. They're wrong. And there are clearly cases where people have died because they've been vaccinated and all the things that they put together. How do we talk to someone like that?

[D]

Well, you have to ask questions first. Where'd you hear that? You know, oh, on Tucker Carlson or Rogan or whatever I was listening to RFKJ talk about. Okay. So but those sorts, you have to counter false information with more accurate information. So I mean, there are people that are harmed by vaccines. That does happen. You know, if you give a billion people something with a.0001% side effects, you're gonna get something enough to fill the evening news. Right. So you have to counter it with data. This is the answer to what's the harm of people just being skeptical or whatever? Well, some people won't get vaccinated and then they'll get measles and things like that. That's unfortunate. I mean rfkj, some of the stuff, you know, we should eat healthier.

[A]

Yeah, no doy.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Just to be clear, the liberals were og anti vaxxers.

[D]

Yes, that's right.

[C]

It only crossed over the fence to become purple when it became mixed in with the freedom. Can't have the government tell me.

[A]

Government can't tell me.

[C]

The right has never really been anti pharma.

[D]

From my read of, no, they're fine with pharmaceutical companies making money, but some liberals are like comfortable with big pharma making money on vaccines. So maybe the vaccines are bad. No, no, no, no.

[C]

Got just a couple minutes left here. Have you found anything other than science that has access to objective truths by accident?

[A]

It's called truth social.

[B]

It took this long.

[D]

There it is.

[C]

It took this long for you to go there?

[A]

Oh, go ahead.

[D]

Well, I mean, they may get there by accident. I mean, some of the claims about religion, about how we should live our lives turn out to be good. You know, you. You should treat others like you would want to be treated. The golden rule. Okay. You can graft a game theory model with math. On that you go. Yeah, that actually is true. Okay. They got that through experience, trial and error, over thousands of years. Okay. So, yeah, some institutions like that could get it right without actually testing. You know, it's just. Yeah. Science is so new. Right. We've been fumbling around for thousands of years getting some things right and some things wrong, but we're making progress.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

Quickly or slowly?

[D]

Slowly. Moral progress happens on a decadal level. It happens just slow enough, you don't quite notice how it happened, and then you look back to the 90s and look, how are we.

[C]

Is there such a thing as a moral truth?

[D]

I think so, yes.

[C]

So this is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

And how many of your books have been with him?

[D]

2. Conspiracy and this one.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah, they're good. They're really good.

[C]

The publisher.

[D]

Yes, they fact check. They do a lot of fact checking. And editing.

[A]

Is this out now?

[D]

Yeah, just came out.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Okay. Y.

[C]

So what are you working on now? And how do we find you on social media?

[D]

Skeptic.com Michael Shermer.com on. On Twitter. X Michael Shermer. Yeah.

[C]

S H E R. So Michael Shermer is the key?

[D]

Yeah, that's the. That's pretty. The key.

[A]

Put it in the Google and you

[C]

post with some frequency.

[D]

I do, yeah. Yeah. Not as often as you. Maybe or maybe. Yeah, I don't. Depends. What's.

[C]

Do you have a Tik Tok account?

[D]

I. I don't. I should get one. I know. Not even on Instagram. I mean, I'm so. I'm so old. Old school. I'm older than you, old man. On the porch.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

I'm more on the porch. Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

All right, Michael, take us out with some hope.

[D]

Oh, well, again, I think there is an objective truth to be found. I think we're able to find it provisionally and that our brains are smart enough to figure out what's really going on and understand reality, even if it's error prone. We do it better than than other species.

[C]

So we'll dig out of this.

[D]

I think my ultimate chapter is on at some point we could become the equivalent of omniscient beings. That is, if there's a God we could become in the far future. Or the aliens, if we discover them, they'll be so far advanced than us, they'll appear to be omniscient and omnipotent. And that's the closest we could get to a deity. It could be our future selves. Or the aliens.

[C]

All right, dude. And Chuck, we still got you on our YouTube channel.

[A]

Oh, thank you.

[C]

Just smart enough.

[A]

Thank you, sir. Chuck, Nice. Just smart enough. Look it up. Watch it on YouTube guys.

[C]

All right. Michael Shermer, delighted to have you.

[D]

Thank you for having me.

[C]

This has been another installment of StarTalk Special Edition. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, as always bidding you to keep looking up.

[A]

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