Michael Brant Shermer was born on September 8,1954 and is an American science writer, historian of science, executive director of The Skeptics Society, and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, a publication focused on investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims.
53 Facts About Michael Shermer
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The author of over a dozen books, Shermer is known for engaging in debates on pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism.
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Michael Shermer was the co-producer and co-host of Exploring the Unknown, a 13-hour Fox Family television series broadcast in 1999.
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Michael Shermer was raised in a non-religious household, before converting to Christian fundamentalism as a teenager.
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Michael Shermer stopped believing in God during graduate school, influenced by a traumatic accident that left his then-girlfriend paralyzed.
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Michael Shermer identifies as an agnostic and an atheist, but prefers "skeptic".
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Michael Brant Shermer was born on September 8,1954, in Los Angeles, California.
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Michael Shermer was raised in Southern California, primarily in the La Canada Flintridge area.
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Michael Shermer's parents divorced when he was four and later remarried.
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Michael Shermer has a step-sister, two step-brothers, and two half-sisters.
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Michael Shermer attended Sunday school but said he was otherwise raised in a non religious household.
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Michael Shermer began his senior year of high school in 1971, when the evangelical movement in the United States was growing in popularity.
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Michael Shermer attended the Presbyterian Church in Glendale, California and observed a sermon delivered by a "dynamic and histrionic preacher" who encouraged him to come forward to be saved.
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Michael Shermer attended an informal Christian fellowship at "The Barn" in La Crescenta, California, where he described enjoying the social aspects of religion, especially the theological debates.
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Michael Shermer changed majors to psychology once he learned a doctorate in theology required proficiency in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic.
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Michael Shermer completed his BA in psychology at Pepperdine in 1976.
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Michael Shermer went on to study experimental psychology at California State University, Fullerton.
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Michael Shermer attributed the paralysis of his college girlfriend as a key point when he lost faith.
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Michael Shermer earned an MA degree in psychology from California State University, Fullerton in 1978.
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Michael Shermer took up bicycle racing after his first assignment, a Cycles Peugeot press conference, Michael Shermer completed a century ride and started to ride hundreds of miles a week.
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Michael Shermer began competitive cycling in 1979 and rode professionally for ten years, primarily in long distance ultramarathon road racing.
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Michael Shermer is a founding member of the Ultra Cycling Hall of Fame.
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Michael Shermer worked with cycling technologists in developing better products for the sport.
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Michael Shermer advised them that if their helmets looked too much like motorcycle helmets, in which polystyrene was already being used, and not like the old hairnet helmets, no serious cyclists or amateur would use them.
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An acute medical condition is named for him: "Michael Shermer's Neck" is pain in and extreme weakness of the neck muscles found among long-distance bicyclists.
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Michael Shermer suffered the condition about 2,000 miles into the 1983 Race Across America.
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Michael Shermer participated in the Furnace Creek 508 in October 2011, a qualifying race for RAAM, finishing second in the four man team category.
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Michael Shermer has written on the subject of pervasive doping in competitive cycling and a game theoretic view of the dynamics driving the problem in several sports.
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Michael Shermer covered r-EPO doping and described it as widespread and well known within the sport, which was later shown to be instrumental in the doping scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong in 2010.
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Michael Shermer lost interest in psychology and switched to studying the history of science, earning his PhD at Claremont Graduate University in 1991.
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Michael Shermer's dissertation was titled Heretic-Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Evolution of Man: A Study on the Nature of Historical Change.
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Michael Shermer then became an adjunct professor of the history of science at Occidental College, California.
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In 2007, Michael Shermer became a senior research fellow at Claremont Graduate University.
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Michael Shermer is listed as one of the scientific advisors for the American Council on Science and Health.
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Michael Shermer's early writing covered cycling, followed by math and science education for children which included several collaborations with Arthur Benjamin.
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Michael Shermer is the author of a series of books that attempt to explain the ubiquity of irrational or poorly substantiated beliefs, including UFOs, Bigfoot, and paranormal claims.
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In How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, Michael Shermer explored the psychology behind the belief in God.
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In May 2011, Michael Shermer published The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies: How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.
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In January 2015, Michael Shermer published The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom.
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In 2020, Michael Shermer launched Giving the Devil His Due, a series of 30 reflections on essays that he had published the previous 15 years.
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Michael Shermer appeared as a guest on Donahue in 1994 to respond to Bradley Smith's and David Cole's Holocaust denial claims, and in 1995 on The Oprah Winfrey Show to challenge Rosemary Altea's psychic claims.
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In 1994 and 1995, Michael Shermer made several appearances on NBC's daytime paranormal-themed show The Other Side.
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Michael Shermer proposed a skepticism-oriented reality show to the producers but it did not move forward.
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In 1999, Michael Shermer co-produced and co-hosted the Fox Family TV series Exploring the Unknown.
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Michael Shermer's stance was supported by the show's hosts, who have expressed their own atheism.
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Michael Shermer presented at the three Beyond Belief events from 2006 to 2008.
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Michael Shermer has debated Deepak Chopra several times, including on the ABC News program Nightline in March 2010.
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Michael Shermer is an occasional guest on Skepticality, the official podcast of Skeptic.
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Undark Magazine reported that the allegations against Michael Shermer began to emerge in 2013 and 2014.
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The magazine reported that Michael Shermer had sent cease and desist letters to the student-run newspaper of Santa Barbara City College and accused the editor of defamation in an email to the college.
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Michael Shermer later regretted this decision, believing that Bush's foreign policy made the world more dangerous.
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Michael Shermer named Thomas Jefferson as his favorite president, for his championing of liberty and his application of scientific thinking to the political, economic, and social spheres.
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Michael Shermer once opposed most gun control measures, primarily because of his beliefs in the principles of increasing individual freedom and decreasing government intervention, and because he has owned guns for most of his life.