“ As Karl Marx once noted: 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.' Wil… Michael Shermer
“ Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion. Michael Shermer
“ Having a Nobel Prize or being a famous scientist will get you a week to a week and a half, metaphorically speaking, of a hearing for your new idea, but after that, it's going to tank if you don't have… Michael Shermer
“ Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic. Michael Shermer
“ A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral. Michael Shermer
“ People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclina… Michael Shermer
“ Through no divine design or cosmic plan, we have inherited the mantle of life's caretaker on the earth, the only home we have ever known. Michael Shermer
“ Science operates in the natural, not the supernatural. In fact, I go so far as to state that there is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal. Michael Shermer
“ Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not. Michael Shermer
“ The case for exploiting animals for food, clothing and entertainment often relies on our superior intelligence, language and self-awareness: the rights of the superior being trump those of the inferio… Michael Shermer
“ ...evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. Just as one would not say 'I believe in gravity,"… Michael Shermer
“ But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science. Michael Shermer
“ I say you don't need religion, or political ideology, to understand human nature. Science reveals that human nature is greedy and selfish, altruistic and helpful. Michael Shermer
“ But because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths. Michael Shermer
“ But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper. Michael Shermer
“ Cities, Barber notes, collect garbage and collect art rather than collecting votes or collecting allies. They put up buildings and run buses rather than putting up flags and running political parties.… Michael Shermer
“ As the columnist Dan Savage says, instead they point to the suicide rate among gay teenagers—which the religious right works so hard to drive up … as evidence that the gay lifestyle is destructive. It… Michael Shermer
“ Countries that quash free inquiry, distrust reason, and practice pseudoscience, such as Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and, more recently, fundamentalist Islamist… Michael Shermer
“ We know evolution happened because innumerable bits of data from myriad fields of science conjoin to paint a rich portrait of life's pilgrimage. Michael Shermer
