Science Salon

Michael Shermer sits down with novelist and essayist Lionel Shriver for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens when old political labels stop making sense. Shriver reflects on the strange moral and political confusions that now shape debates over immigration, identity, religion, and the meaning of tolerance.  They discuss why immigration has become, in Shriver's view, the central political issue of this century; why support for illiberal ideas is often framed as compassion; why the culture of fiction and publishing has grown more timid; and how writers can still engage seriously with divisive subjects without surrendering either honesty or nuance. The conversation also turns personal: Shriver's religious upbringing, her own personal experiences with immigration, and reflections on the diminishing cultural authority of the novelist. Lionel Shriver is an author and journalist, a graduate of Columbia University, and a columnist for The Spectator. Her fiction confronts some of the defining issues of moder

Zion Lights used to be deep inside the environmental movement: protests, arrests, road blockades, the whole thing. Then she started looking closely at the evidence around nuclear power and found that much of what she'd been told about energy, risk, and climate solutions didn't hold up. In this conversation with Michael Shermer, she explains why anti-nuclear politics has done real damage, and why reliable energy matters far beyond moral posturing. She speaks from experience about Extinction Rebellion, energy policy in Germany and France, fear around Fukushima and Chernobyl, energy poverty, overpopulation, and why modern environmentalism so often attacks the very technologies that could help both people and the planet. Zion Lights is a British science communicator, writer, author, and former environmental activist known for her pivot to advocacy of evidence-based environmental policy, particularly her support for nuclear energy as a tool for decarbonisation. She is a prominent voice in debates about climate cha

Jeremy Jones joins Michael Shermer to talk about DOGE AI, government fraud, and the strange reality that some of the biggest problems in public life are both widely known and somehow never fixed. Jones explains how his team uses AI to sort through enormous government datasets, isolate suspicious billing patterns, and surface waste at a scale that would be almost impossible to catch by hand. They also get into Jones's own background—growing up in Luxembourg, landing in Chicago, and seeing firsthand how different systems shape people's lives—before moving into a broader argument about immigration, education, bureaucracy, media, and why trust in institutions is falling. It's a blunt conversation, and at times a confrontational one, about fraud, incentives, and what happens when everybody knows something is broken but nobody seems able, or willing, to stop it. Jeremy Jones is the co-founder of Rhetor, an AI-powered intelligence and strategy company for campaigns, advocacy orgs, and government departments. Rhetor

Why do some world-changing ideas get ignored, attacked, or buried for years before anyone takes them seriously? Michael Shermer sits down with The Economist science correspondent Matt Kaplan to discuss the scientists who got there first and paid the price. They talk about why institutions resist new ideas, why careers can depend on defending the status quo, and why being right is often not enough. They discuss figures like Katalin Karikó, whose work on mRNA was dismissed long before it helped transform modern medicine, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who faced fierce backlash for arguing that doctors themselves were spreading deadly infections. This is a fascinating look at what happens when evidence collides with ego, reputation, and scientific orthodoxy. It's also a conversation about truth, status, intellectual courage, and the deeply human side of science. Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at The Economist. He has written about everything from paleontology and parasites to virology and viticulture over th

Michael Shermer responds to a remarkable letter from a group of eighth graders at a Christian school in Texas who say they've been praying for him and want to talk about Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible.

For decades, developmental psychologist Jay Belsky has focused on one of the biggest questions in human development: how do early experiences shape the lives we go on to live? In this conversation with Michael Shermer, he explains why childhood adversity can leave deep marks, why some children are far more affected by experience than others, and why averages often hide the most important part of the story.    Belsky revisits the old nature-versus-nurture debate, but pushes past the usual framing. His argument is not that childhood determines everything in some simple, uniform way. It's that children differ in how developmentally "plastic" they are. The same divorce, the same stress, the same family conflict, or the same support can have very different effects depending on the child. The discussion moves through attachment theory, father absence, family conflict, puberty, epigenetics, and the evolutionary logic of development.  Belsky also returns to one of his central ideas: the children who are most vulnerab

Publishing likes to imagine itself as a marketplace of ideas with a strong immune system: good arguments win, bad ones fade, and editors act as principled gatekeepers. In practice, it's also an industry with thin margins, status anxiety, and a constant fear of reputational damage. Adam Szetela argues that a lot of what gets called "cancel culture" in books is better understood as risk management under social media conditions. Outrage compresses timelines, collapses context, and turns interpretation into a moral referendum. A handful of motivated actors can create the impression of a mass consensus—and once that perception takes hold, institutions often move first and ask questions later. We talk about how "sensitivity reading" functions in this environment: sometimes as thoughtful critique, sometimes as a liability shield, and sometimes as a tool that quietly shifts a book's meaning toward whatever ideology currently feels safest. The result is a distributed system of incentives that nudges publishers toward

Documentary filmmaker Marcie Hume (BBC alum; Magicians: Life in the Impossible) joins Michael Shermer to talk about her new verité film Corey Feldman vs. the World—shot over a decade, starting in the "Corey's Angels" era and following a tour that unravels in real time. It goes to some uncomfortable places: how celebrity can create cult-ish dynamics (not just with fans, but with the people working around them as well), how "truth" becomes a slogan—used to frame criticism as persecution and to keep tight control of the story, and how living on camera can turn real life into performance where every moment becomes part of the persona. Then the story folds back on itself—the release of Marcie's film becomes its own drama, with last-minute legal threats and a cease-and-desist landing right before the premiere. Marcie Hume is a documentary filmmaker, television executive, and immersive experience creator focused on how people manufacture meaning under pressure, while the story is still being written. A BBC alumna, s

Christopher Beha grew up Catholic in Manhattan, walked away during the New Atheist era, and spent years trying to build a secular worldview sturdy enough to live inside. It didn't hold. So he kept reading—Hume, Kant, Russell, the existentialists—and kept chasing the questions that don't let you sleep: what counts as evidence, what belief even is, and what you do when reason can't answer the things you still have to decide.  In this conversation with Michael Shermer, Beha makes a case that skepticism and belief aren't enemies—and that some debates go nowhere because people are arguing about the "branches" while standing on totally different foundations. Christopher Beha is the former editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of four previous books, including The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. His new book is Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer.

Michael Shermer recounts the moment he discovered his name in the Jeffrey Epstein files and uses it as a jumping-off point to tell a few unforgettable stories about con men he's encountered over the years, and how their tactics work.

Why do people risk everything for love but treat sex like it's no big deal? Why is intimacy the most expensive thing in a brothel? And why do jealousy, infidelity, and heartbreak push otherwise rational people into behavior they later can't explain? Evolutionary biologist and sex researcher Justin Garcia, executive director of the Kinsey Institute and author of The Intimate Animal, joins Michael Shermer for a candid conversation about the biology of sex, the evolutionary logic of pair bonding, and why love—not lust—is what often pushes people past the point of reason. Justin R. Garcia is an evolutionary biologist and sex researcher. He is Executive Director & Senior Scientist at the Kinsey Institute. He is also the Scientific Advisor to Match Group and Match.com, where he provides expertise to the company's annual Singles in America study. His research has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME, Cosmopolitan, and Vanity Fair. His new book is The Intimate

In this episode, Michael Shermer walks through the core ideas behind his new book Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters, breaking down how humans confuse meaning with reality, stories with facts, and confidence with correctness. He also explains why changing your mind is a strength, not a flaw; why extraordinary claims really do require extraordinary evidence; and why "just asking questions" isn't as innocent as it sounds. BUY THE BOOK Amazon Shop Skeptic (autographed) "Michael Shermer reminds us that the search for truth is not a luxury, but a necessity. This book is a powerful argument for why reality matters and a practical toolkit for how to find it." ―Sabine Hossenfelder "Michael Shermer has a fine record as a long-time crusader for evidenced rationality. This fascinating and wide-ranging book should further enhance his impact on current controversies." ―Lord Martin Rees "Michael Shermer is one of our most influential intellectuals. Truth lances the myth of truth's subjectivity, a

In this solo episode of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael Shermer responds to the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old healthcare worker who was killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis during protests over enforcement of immigration law.  As political debate intensifies, Shermer asks a tough question that most discussions are avoiding: What role does personal responsibility play in emotionally charged, high-risk situations? He separates the facts we can reasonably assert from what remains uncertain and explains why scrutinizing frame-by-frame video misses something essential about how humans behave under stress and fear.

Michael Shermer sits down with attorney and bestselling author Kent Heckenlively for a tense, thoughtful, and surprisingly cordial conversation about UFOs, government secrecy, and the idea of "catastrophic disclosure." Heckenlively argues that something real is being hidden. Not necessarily aliens, but information powerful enough to disrupt energy markets, military spending, and political authority. But beyond stories and secondhand testimony, where is the kind of evidence that would settle the question once and for all? The episode takes up congressional hearings, whistleblowers, classified briefings, Cold War secrecy, optical illusions, advanced military technology, and why, after nearly 80 years, the UFO story continues to produce more questions than answers. Kent Heckenlively is an attorney, science teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. His books have covered such topics as scientific fraud, bias at Google, Facebook, and CNN, promising medical therapies, as well as behind-the-scenes looks into t

In this episode, Michael Shermer talks with filmmaker James Fox, whose work has helped push UFOs, now often called UAPs, out of the tabloid shadows and into congressional hearings, radar logs, and sworn testimony. Fox has spent three decades interviewing fighter pilots, radar operators, intelligence officials, scientists, and firsthand witnesses. His conclusion is not that we know what these objects are, but that dismissing them no longer works. Around 90 to 95 percent of sightings collapse under scrutiny. The remaining cases do not. The question is: What are we supposed to do with what's left? James Fox is a film director widely regarded as one of the leading voices in UFO filmmaking. He is known for documentaries such as The Phenomenon, The Program, and Moment of Contact, several of which are frequently cited among the best UFO documentaries ever made.

What if the deepest human drive isn't happiness, survival, or even love, but the need to matter? Philosopher and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein joins Michael Shermer to discuss The Mattering Instinct, her argument that the desire to feel significant lies at the core of human behavior. That drive helps explain our greatest achievements, from creativity and moral courage to scientific and artistic excellence. It also helps explain some of our darkest outcomes, including extremism, violence, and ideological fanaticism. Goldstein examines why people will give up comfort, status, and sometimes even their own lives to feel that they matter. She questions why meaning cannot be captured by happiness metrics or self-help formulas, and why the same psychological force can produce saints, scientists, athletes, cult leaders, and terrorists. The conversation moves through free will, entropy, morality without God, fame, narcissism, and the crucial difference between ways of mattering that create order and tho

In this unscripted solo episode, Michael Shermer reflects on a dizzying start to the year and what it reveals about truth, power, and public judgment. From events in Venezuela and the limits of exporting democracy to a viral Planet Fitness controversy, the Minneapolis ICE shooting, and renewed claims about aliens, Shermer keeps returning to the same question: What actually helps, and what only feels like a good idea in the moment?

What if the way we approach mental health is quietly making things worse? Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Sami Timimi joins Michael Shermer to examine some of the core assumptions behind modern psychiatry. Why have diagnoses such as ADHD, autism, anxiety, and depression expanded so dramatically—and why hasn't increased access to treatment led to better outcomes at the population level? Timimi describes how diagnostic categories have broadened over time and questions whether psychiatric labels function in the same way as medical diagnoses elsewhere in healthcare. Without clear biological markers, he argues, definitions can expand to include forms of distress that were once considered part of ordinary human experience. The conversation also considers the role of meaning, identity, and culture in shaping how people understand psychological suffering. Timimi reflects on the limits of medication and therapy, the unintended consequences of the "mental illness as physical illness" model, and how social media may co

What is consciousness, really? Why does it not simply switch on at a single moment? Neuroscientist Niko Kukushkin explains how even single cells can show primitive forms of memory and agency, why the human mind is not a mysterious force floating above biology, and why reducing it to "just neurons" misses what actually matters. He also discusses the evolutionary gamble of complexity, why bacteria still dominate the planet, and how abstraction and memory together give rise to thought. At the center of the conversation is an unsettling question: Why does it feel so special to be you when science says that you are nothing but a chemical reaction—a collection of atoms and molecules, like rocks, paperclips, and everything else in the physical universe? Nikolay Kukushkin is a clinical associate professor at New York University and a research fellow at NYU's Center for Neural Science, where he studies how temporal patterns shape memory formation. He holds degrees from St. Petersburg State University and Oxford Univer

Francis Crick is best known as one of the figures behind the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, but the familiar story leaves out as much as it explains. Historian of science Matthew Cobb looks closely at how Crick's life actually unfolded, revealing a career shaped less by inevitability than by luck, conflict, false starts, and a series of highly contingent moments. The double helix itself may have been waiting to be found, but what followed was anything but predetermined. Crick's influence came from asking uncomfortable questions about what the structure of DNA implied for genetics, evolution, and life itself. Along the way, myths hardened around personalities, credit, and rivalries, especially in the case of Rosalind Franklin, whose role has been both misunderstood and oversimplified. The conversation also traces Crick's later turn away from molecular biology toward the problem that fascinated him from the beginning: consciousness. From visual perception to the search for neural correlates of