Meet the Amazing TAMers: Michael Shermer

Joel Guttormson, Outreach and Event Coordinator for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science interviews speakers from TAM 2013 presented by the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, the host of the The Skeptics Society's Distinguished Science Lecture Series, and Adjunct Professor at Claremont Graduate University and Chapman University. His latest book is, 'The Believing Brain'.

The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine: www.skeptic.com

JREF: http://www.randi.org

Skeptic Presents: What is a Skeptic?

In this video—the fourth in our series of videos that promote science and critical thinking through the use of humor, wit, and satire—we present a fun and informative look at the principles of Skepticism.

2005 Skeptics Society Conference: Brain, Mind and Consciousness:

The Brain, Mind & Consciousness conference, on what Nobel Laureate Francis Crick called "the greatest unsolved problem in biology," was held over the weekend of May 13--15, 2005 at Caltech.

Research on the brain, mind, and consciousness was given a significant boost by Nobel laureate Dr. Francis Crick in 1994, when he wrote in his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, "that 'you,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."

This is what is called "the hard problem"—explaining how billions of neurons swapping chemicals give rise to such subjective experiences as consciousness, self-awareness, and awareness that others are conscious and self-aware; that is, not only the ability to wonder, but the ability to wonder why we wonder, and even wonder why others wonder why....

Explaining each of the functional parts of the brain is the easy problem, such as the differences between waking and sleep, discrimination of stimuli, or the control of behavior. By contrast, what has come to be known as the hard problem in consciousness studies is experience: what it is like to be in a given mental state? Adding up all of the solved easy problems does not equal a solution to the hard problem. Something else is going on in private subjective experiences—called qualia—and there is no consensus on what it is.

Dualists hold that qualia are separate from physical objects in the world and that mind is more than brain. Materialists contend that qualia are ultimately explicable through the activities of neu- rons and that mind and brain are one. Our speakers, some of the top neuroscientists in the world, will address these and other problems, such as the evolution of the brain, and how and why it got to be so large. Skeptics will get a chance to interact with these world-class scientists on the breaks, during meals, and in a formal discussion period. We will also consider the implications of this new brain research to better understand apparent paranormal phenomena, as well as how and why people believe weird things.




Lectures included: The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach with Dr. Christof Koch, Children as Scientists: How the Brain Learns to Think with Dr. Alison Gopnik, In Search of Memory — True, False, Repressed, Recovered with Dr. Richard McNally, Sleep, Dreams, and the Subconscious with Dr. Terry Sejnowski, Exploring Altered States of Consciousness with Dr. Susan Blackmore, The Search for the Neurological Basis of the Social Emotions with Dr. John Allman, From Whence Trust Comes: Oxytocin and Behavioral Economics with Dr. Paul Zak, Consciousness is Nothing But a Word with Dr. Hank Schlinger, and From Biology to Consciousness to Morality with Dr. Ursula Goodenough.

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Skeptic Presents: You Can't Handle The Truther

In this video—the third in our series of videos that promote science and critical thinking through the use of humor, wit, and satire—CIA Agents plot the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

Skeptics Presents: B.Y.T.H. Busters (The Secret Law of Attraction)

In B.Y.T.H. Busters: The Secret Law of Attraction, Adam Average and Jamie Imtheman put the "Law of Attraction" to the test. This is the second in a series of videos that promote science and critical thinking through the use of humor, wit, and satire.

Skeptic Presents: The Con Academy (Vol.1)

This is volume 1 of The Con Academy videos—another resource in the Skeptics Society's arsenal of Skepticism 101 for teaching critical thinking and promoting science through the use of humor, wit, and satire. In this faux commercial for The Con Academy you'll see how psychics count on the confirmation bias to convince people that their powers are real when, in fact, they are just remembering the hits and forgetting the misses. We also demonstrate how psychic "organizations" con people by taking their money for services that are not real.

Psychic 101: How to be the Best Psychic in the World

This is a student-made video, created for Dr. Michael Shermer's course, "Skepticism 101: How to Think Like a Scientist (Without Being a Geek)" at Chapman University during the fall 2011 semester. This video serves to educate the audience on how to become the best psychic in the world. Students draw from Dr. Richard Wiseman's book, "Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There".


Written and Directed by: David Ruby &; Hollie Hooper
Starring: Luis Chavez, David Ruby, Hollie Hooper &; Allison Orr