"The author discusses how we should think about conspiracy theories, who believes them and why, which conspiracy theories are likely to be true or false and what criteria we can use to assess them, and what we should do to combat dangerous conspiracism and reestablish trust in our democratic institutions, in the media, and in one another"--

Shermer demonstrates how our brains selectively assess data in an attempt to confirm the conclusions (beliefs) we've already reached. Drawing on evolution, cognitive science, and neuroscience, he considers not only supernatural beliefs but political and economic ones as well.

Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology. Cutting the politics away from the facts, skeptic Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just...

Virtually unknown today, Alfred Russel Wallace was the co-discoverer of natural selection with Charles Darwin and an eminent scientist who stood out among his Victorian peers as a man of formidable mind and equally outsized personality. Michael Shermer rescues Wallace from the shadow of Darwin in this biography. Here we see Wallace as perhaps the greatest naturalist of his age-spending years in remote jungles, collecting astounding quantities of specimens,...