Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, the executive director of the Skeptics Society, and the host of the popular podcast The Michael Shermer Show. He is the author of Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational; Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time; and The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies-How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.
Description
Prologue. Why Truth Matters Skepticism as an Agent of Reason Against Organized Irrationalism Part I. Known Knowns Chapter 1. The Truth About Post-Truth Truthiness Why We Are Not Living in a Post-Truth, Postmodern, Fact-Free World Chapter 2. What Is Truth, Anyway? Justified True Belief, the Principle of Universal Realism, and Why Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence Chapter 3. The Truth About Why Causation, Correlation, Bayesian Reasoning, Signal Detection Theory, and the Determination of Cause and Effect Chapter 4. The Truth About Coincidences and Miracles How to Think About Highly Unlikely Events Part II. Known Unknowns Chapter 5. Religious and Mythic Truths How to Think About the Resurrection and Other Myths Chapter 6. Historical Truths The Noble Dream of Pursuing Objective Truth About the Past Chapter 7. Moral Truths Science and the Search for Objective Universal Values Chapter 8. Alien Truths UFOs and the Search for Sky Gods Part III. Known Unknowables Chapter 9. The Truth About Consciousness What Is It Like to Be You? Chapter 10. The Truth About Free Will Determinism, Self-Determinism, and Your Future Self Chapter 11. The Truth About God Arguments For and Against the Divine Chapter 12. The Truth About Existence Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing Epilogue. Like Gods The Expanding Sphere of Knowledge and My God Gambit Acknowledgments Notes Index