Finally…The Truth with Michael Shermer

About This Episode

Is there such a thing as objective truth? Are we living in a post-truth world? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly sit down to build a toolkit for finding the truth in an era of motivated reasoning, misinformation, and alternative facts with science historian and professional skeptic, Michael Shermer.

What is the definition of objective truth? We discuss fallibilism: the principle that you might be wrong about anything, which is exactly why you keep checking. Learn about Carl Sagan’s invisible dragon in the garage thought experiment and why internal conviction, no matter how vivid, isn’t enough without external validation. Chuck shares his own ayahuasca experience and the group debates where personal truth ends and objective truth begins. Plus, we explore why charismatic cult leaders actively discourage outside reference points.

We discuss institutional trust, my-side bias, and why the brain functions more like a lawyer than a scientist. How does AI help or hurt the search for truth? Shermer addresses AI confabulation, the dangers of overconfidence, and why clicking the actual source still matters. We explore Bayesian reasoning and how we approach different fields (history, religion, literature) from differing relationships to truth.

Is religion incompatible with truth? Shermer argues that religious stories read as literature and that it’s only when religious belief demands scientific standards of evidence that the two systems collide. The episode closes on the biases most likely to lead you astray: motivated reasoning, hindsight bias, and patternicity. Learn why settled science always has outlier papers, why the plural of anecdote is not data, and why Shermer still believes objective truth exists and that humans, uniquely among species, are getting better at finding it. Keep Looking Up!

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