Truth Still Matters (And Here's Why)

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• The search for truth is a necessity, as evidenced by the real-world consequences of believing falsehoods, such as the January 6th Capitol storming.  Copied to clipboard!
• Changing one's mind in response to new evidence is a virtue, not a weakness, a principle supported by Bayesian reasoning and the findings of super forecasters.  Copied to clipboard!
• Claims asserted without evidence, like the existence of an invisible, levitating, cold-blooded dragon, can be dismissed without evidence, adhering to Hitchens' dictum.  Copied to clipboard!

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Introduction to New Book on Truth

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(00:01:01)

• Key Takeaway: The episode is dedicated to promoting Shermer’s new book about the nature and importance of truth.
• Summary: Michael Shermer introduces his new book, Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters, and explains the episode will feature excerpts and commentary to encourage purchases.

Dennett Dedication and Why Truth Matters

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(00:02:35)

• Key Takeaway: Truth-seeking methods are essential because human culture and innovation are built upon the ideal of truth.
• Summary: Shermer dedicates the book to Daniel Dennett and reads a quote emphasizing that seeking truth is a fundamental human response to doubt. He then uses examples like the January 6th events to show the real-world consequences of believing falsehoods.

Defining Truth and Feynman’s Principle

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(00:07:23)

• Key Takeaway: Truth must be based on evidence, not just what we wish were true (’truthiness’), as reality cannot be fooled.
• Summary: Shermer discusses ’truthiness’ and defines truth as a claim warranting ‘provisional assent’ based on substantial evidence. He introduces Feynman’s principle: reality must take precedence over public relations.

Sagan’s Dragon and Testable Claims

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(00:11:11)

• Key Takeaway: Claims that are unfalsifiable in principle (like the invisible dragon) do not require belief.
• Summary: Using Sagan’s dragon analogy, Shermer argues that if a claim cannot be tested or disproven, it can be dismissed without evidence, citing UFO claims as an example.

Active Open-Mindedness and Super Forecasting

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(00:15:35)

• Key Takeaway: Rationality requires actively considering evidence that contradicts one’s existing beliefs.
• Summary: Shermer discusses the value of active open-mindedness, citing research showing super forecasters value evidence against their beliefs and do not see changing one’s mind as weakness, contrasting this with conspiracism.

Causality, Confounding Variables, and Bayesian Reasoning

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(00:19:00)

• Key Takeaway: Distinguishing correlation from causation requires controlling for confounding variables, often using Bayesian updating.
• Summary: Using the example of college education and income, Shermer explains the difficulty in establishing causality due to confounding factors. He introduces Bayesian reasoning as a tool for updating confidence levels based on new evidence.

Law of Large Numbers and Coincidences

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(00:23:46)

• Key Takeaway: Highly improbable events (miracles or coincidences) are guaranteed to happen given enough opportunities.
• Summary: Shermer explains how the law of truly large numbers accounts for seemingly miraculous coincidences, such as the Gardner and Hopkins book stories, by considering the vast number of events occurring daily.

Mythic Truths vs. Empirical Truths

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(00:28:46)

• Key Takeaway: Religious stories can hold deeper, mythic truths without needing to be empirically or literally true.
• Summary: Shermer suggests treating biblical literature like great fiction, arguing that atheists who seek natural explanations for miracles miss the point that the stories may have been invented to carry deeper meaning.

Objective Moral Truths and Human Flourishing

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(00:34:36)

• Key Takeaway: Objective moral values exist, discoverable through reason based on the fundamental drive for sentient beings to survive and flourish.
• Summary: Shermer argues for moral realism, deriving ethics from the principle of interchangeable perspectives (the Golden Rule), citing the success of democracies over autocracies as evidence of discovered moral laws.

UFOs, UAPs, and Verifiable Evidence

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(00:41:04)

• Key Takeaway: While extraterrestrial life is probable, claims of aliens visiting Earth lack the extraordinary evidence required for belief.
• Summary: Shermer discusses the probability of life elsewhere but emphasizes that claims of visitation require concrete, verifiable evidence, contrasting this with the overwhelming prosaic explanations for most UAP sightings.

Hard Problems: Consciousness and Free Will

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(00:44:13)

• Key Takeaway: The hard problem of consciousness is conceptually insoluble, and free will exists because the future is not predetermined.
• Summary: Shermer argues the hard problem of consciousness is unknowable without being the entity itself. He supports compatibilism for free will, asserting that because the future is not fixed, we can choose to act differently than our past selves.

The God Question and Scientific Progress

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(00:52:33)

• Key Takeaway: Absolute truth about God is scientifically unknowable, but scientific progress expands knowledge into the unknown.
• Summary: Shermer reviews arguments for and against God’s existence, concluding it remains outside scientific proof. He ends by describing science as an expanding sphere where knowing more reveals more unknowns, urging resistance to injecting supernatural explanations at the boundary of knowledge.