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Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer is a science writer, skeptic, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic. Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series, "Exploring the Unknown". Michael Shermer is the author of several books, including Why People Believe Weird Things. Chapter eight "The Unlikeliest Cult: Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and the Cult of Personality" is sure to offend some objectivists. The book was featured as one of the Top 100 books of 1997 by the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Shermer is also skeptical of cryonics. In September 2001 issue of Scientific American [1], Shermer writes\n:To see the flaw in this system, thaw out a can of frozen strawberries. During freezing, the water within each cell expands, crystallizes, and ruptures the cell membranes. When defrosted, all the intracellular goo oozes out, turning your strawberries into runny mush. This is your brain on cryonics. 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 PhD from Claremont Graduate School 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 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 \n*Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time 2002 (2nd Revision edition) ISBN 0805070893 \n*Teach Your Child Science 1989 ISBN 0929923081\n*The Borderlands of Science : Where Sense Meets Nonsense 2001ISBN 0195143264 \n*Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? 2002 ISBN 0520234693 \n*Teach Your Child Math and Mathemagics 1999 ISBN 0737301341\n*In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace: A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History 2002 ISBN 0195148304 \n*The Science of Good and Evil: Why people cheat, gossip, share, care, and follow the Golden rule 2004 ISBN 0805075208

External Links

\n*
Skeptic.com--The Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine\n*"Nano Nonsense and Cryonics True believers seek redemption from the sin of death"

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks