Skeptic

Viewing the World with a Rational Eye

By: Michael Shermer

Narrated by: Michael Shermer

From the author's monthly Scientific American columns.

An eclectic, inspiring collection exploring a broad range of scientific thought from best-selling author and celebrated skeptic Michael Shermer.

In Skeptic, Shermer "turns a critical eye toward questions big, small, and trivial" (Kirkus). His trademark combination of deep scientific understanding and entertaining writing style has thrilled his huge and devoted audience for years. Now, 75 of these columns are available together for the first time, taking on a wide range of subjects, from psychology and human nature to religion and pseudoscience. A welcome addition for his fans and a stimulating introduction for new listeners. Skeptic is a must-listen collection from one of our leading science commentators.

©2016 Michael Shermer (P)2016 Michael Shermer

Critic reviews

"Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality." (Neil deGrasse Tyson)

"Dense with facts, convincing arguments, and curious statistics, this is an ingenious collection of light entertainment for readers who believe that explaining stuff is a good idea." ( Kirkus)

Must read in today's facts based world

Loved this book!!! Goes over many major conspiracy theorys and explains them in a science based way. Must read with all the fake news going around.

Mostly for Those Already in the Choir

What did you like best about Skeptic? What did you like least?

It's worth reading/listening to. A couple surprises for me, but otherwise not sure if it contains a ton of stuff that's not already disseminated elsewhere (though I probably over-estimate what I think I was familiar with beforehand). It's thoughtful, and reinforcing, and anticipates, and addresses any perception of imbalance that may come up from critics. Even for the arguments I am familiar with, it's worth the listen just to hear people that are better, and more practiced in articulating the arguments do so.

scatter shot of concepts

the content of the book plots along, and more or less you have to synthesize the parts into the whole yourself. many of the essays are great, but I often found the logic good, but not so thorough, which is in part because of the original compact package more suited for a magazine. this didn't feel like book content

Pure stream of logic and reason

Great collection of little essays, showing the way of scientific and skeptical thinking, and common mind traps which one should consider

skeptical approach to a host of topics

thoigh Michael's delivery is quite boring, it doesnt prevent you from gleaning the incredible information contained with in his collection of essays. he handles all topics with respect and measured pressure, and its a great read for people just starting in the path of questioning the world around you in a rrspectful yet productive way.

Great content, but a little disorganized

Because this is merely a collection of essays brought together for a book, it was hard to have an overall flow of organized information. The content was of course awesome and Shermer is a great author, so no complaints there! It was also a good commute format, as I could pick up a chapter at a time.

Hated this book

The subject sounded really interesting, but it was hard to actually listen to it. Very boring

Trite and often dull.

I could only make it about 1/2 way through this collection of essays and there were very few moments that I wasn't wondering when there would be an interesting one. Then -possibly during the confirmation bias essay, it doesn't really matter- I realized the reason that these boring words about interesting subjects come out so boring because each of these are confirmation bias pieces. To be fair, this is more a reflection of the short print media that they were written for rather than the author and I do think I'd buy or listed to something else by Mr. Shermer.