Anterior Cervical Discectomy & Fusion (ACDF) or, My Big Bike Crash and Surgical Adventure
On July 26 I had a nasty cycling crash. I’m fond of telling people that cycling is a low-impact sport, unless you impact the ground, which...
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Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories: What We Should and Shouldn’t Believe—and Why
Audible Inc., the world’s largest producer and provider of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment, in conjunction...
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Stein’s Law and Science’s Mission
The case for scientific humanism This column was first published in the January 2019 issue of Scientific American. In the April 2001 issue...
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Kids These Days
A looming crisis and how to avert it This column was first published in the December 2018 issue of Scientific American. Something is amiss...
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Steven Pinker & Michael Shermer – Montreal – Sept 16th 2018
Steven Pinker & Michael Shermer – Montreal – Sept 16th 2018 Steven Pinker & Michael Shermer sit down for a...
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Another Dream Deferred
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by...
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The Fallacy of Excluded Exceptions
Why the singular of “data” is not “anecdote” This column was first published in the November 2018 issue of Scientific American. For a...
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A Mysterious Change of Mind
Why do people die by suicide? This column was first published in the October 2018 issue of Scientific American. Anthony Bourdain (age 61)....
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Abortion Facts
Education and birth control are slowly making the politics less relevant In May of this year the pro-life/pro-choice controversy leapt...
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23 and We
The limitations of personal genome service testing Like a lot of baby boomers, I find myself gravitating to newspaper obits,...
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The Final Mysterians
Are consciousness, free will and God insoluble mysteries? In 1967 British biologist and Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar famously...
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Gay Cake Debate, Political Tribes, and Victimhood (Michael Shermer/Amy Chua Full Interview)
The Rubin Report is the only talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube. Each week Dave Rubin uses logic and reason to have...
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Soul-Searching
Google as a window into our private thoughts What are the weirdest questions you’ve ever Googled? Mine might be (for my latest book): “How...
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Pangburn Philosophy Podcast #7 – A Discussion with Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer is a science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic,...
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Free to Inquire
The Evolution-Creationism Controversy as a Test Case in Equal Time and Free Speech A book chapter for The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy...
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Frequent Infrequencies
Do anomalies prove the existence of God? This op-ed was originally published on Slate.com as part of a Big Ideas series on the question...
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You Kant Be Serious
Utilitarianism and its discontents Would you cut off your own leg if it was the only way to save another person’s life? Would you torture...
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The pattern behind self-deception
Michael Shermer says the human tendency to believe strange things — from alien abductions to dowsing rods — boils down to two...
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Why people believe weird things
Why do people see the Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich or hear demonic lyrics in “Stairway to Heaven”? Using video and music,...
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