Quotes by Michael Shermer

“For Paley, a watch is purposeful and thus must have been created by a being with a purpose. A watch needs a watchmaker, just as a world needs a world-makerGod. Yet both Wallace and Paley might have...”

“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.”

“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 h...”

“Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training. ”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 infe...”

“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.”

“...Spinoza’s Conjecture:“Belief comes quickly and naturally, skepticism is slow and unnatural, and most people have a low tolerance for ambiguity.The scientific principle that a claim is untrue unl...”

“Checking a box on a form for race—"Caucasian," "Hispanic," "African-American," "Native American," or "Asian-American"—is untenable and ridiculous. For one thing, "American" is not a race, so labels...”

“Anecdotal thinking comes naturally science requires training.”

“So, of course, [Duane] Gish's presentation was well received, which it would have been the case had he only gotten up and said praise the Lord and sat back down.”

“My thesis is that morality exists outside the human mind in the sense of being not just a trait of individual humans, but a human trait; that is, a human universal.”

“[N]o such individual would find the Golden Rule surprising in any way because at its base lies the foundation of most human interactions and exchanges and it can be found in countless texts through...”

“We're all talking about the same thing, whether it's religious people or New Age spiritual people or Buddhists or scientists. We're all talking about having a sense of awe and wonder at something g...”

“Within a decade, maybe two or three, Christians will come around to treating gays no differently than they now treat other groups whom they previously persecuted — women, Jews, blacks — but not bec...”

“Absolute morality leads logically to absolute intolerance. Once you believe that you have the absolute and final answers to moral questions, why be tolerant of those who refuse to accept your Truth...”

“The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition—thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.”

“We now know the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, and humans are about roughly 100,000 years old, Christianity began about 2,000 years ago; what was God doing that 99.99% of all that time?!”