Michael Shermer - Definition and Overview

Michael Shermer is a science writer, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating supernatural or pseudoscientific claims. Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series, "Exploring the Unknown" and a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine.

Shermer is the author of several books that attempt to explain the ubiquity of irrational or unsubstantiated beliefs. Why People Believe Weird Things, treats a variey of "weird" ideas and cults, in the tradition of the skeptical writings of Martin Gardner. He has devoted entire books to Holocaust deniers, Denying History, and to belief in God, "How We Believe." Shermer, once a fundamentalist Christian, is now an atheist and an advocate for a materialist philosophy.

Shermer received his bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University in 1976 in Psychology/Biology, his master's degree from California State University, Fullerton in Experimental Psychology two years later, and his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in History of Science in 1991 (with a dissertation entitled "Heretic-Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Evolution of Man: A Study on the Nature of Historical Change").

Shermer is also a bicycle enthusiast and was once a marathon bicycle racer. He has produced over a half dozen documentaries on cycling.

Books

• How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science 2001 ISBN 0613354133
• Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time 2002 (2nd Revision edition) ISBN 0805070893
• Teach Your Child Science 1989 ISBN 0929923081
• The Borderlands of Science : Where Sense Meets Nonsense 2001ISBN 0195143264
• Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? 2002 ISBN 0520234693
• Teach Your Child Math and Mathemagics 1999 ISBN 0737301341
• In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History 2002 ISBN 0195148304
• The Science of Good and Evil: Why people cheat, gossip, share, care, and follow the Golden rule 2004 ISBN 0805075208

External Links

• Skeptic.com--The Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine (http://www.skeptic.com)
• "Nano Nonsense and Cryonics True believers seek redemption from the sin of death" (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000E274C-2DD2-1C6F-84A9809EC588EF21)