You may disagree with Michael Shermer, but you'd better have a good reason - and you'll have your work cut out finding it. He describes skepticism as a virtue, but I think that understates his own unique contribution to contemporary intellectual discourse. Worldly-wise sounds wearily cynical, so I'd call Shermer universe-wise. I'd call him shrewd, but it doesn't do justice to the breadth and depth of his inspired scientific vision. I'd call him a spirited controversialist, but that doesn't do justice to his urbane good humor. Just read this book. Once you start, you won't stop.
Richard Dawkins, Author of The Selfish Gene and The Ancestor's Tale
It is both an art and a discipline to rise above our inevitable human biases and look in the eye truths about how the world works that conflict the way we would like it to be. In Science Friction, Michael Shermer shines his beacon on a delicious range of subjects, often showing that the truth is more interesting and awe-inspiring that the common consensus. Bravo.
John McWhorter, Author of The Power of Babel and Losing the Race
Michael Shermer challenges us all to candidly confront what we believe and why. In each of the varied essays in Science Friction, he warns how the fundamentally human pursuit of meaning can lead us astray into a fog of empty illusions and vacuous idols. He implores us to stare honestly at our beliefs and he shows how, through adherence to bare reason, the profound pursuit of meaning can instead lead us to truth - and how, in turn, truth can lead us to meaning.
Janna Levin, author of How the Universe Got Its Spots
Whether the subject is ultra-marathon cycling or evolutionary science, Michael Shermer - who has excelled at the former and become one of our leading defenders of the latter - never writes with anything less than full-throttled engagement. Incisive, penetrating, and mercifully witty, Shermer throws himself with brio into some of the most serious and disturbing toipics of our times. Like the best passionate thinkers, Shermer has the power to enrage his opponents. But even those who don't agree with him will be sharpened by the encounter with this feisty book.
Margaret Wertheim, Author of Pythagoras' Trousers
From breast implants to Captain Bligh, Michael Shermer examines the way we humans perceive news and history. He's given a lot of things a lot of thought. If your perceptions have ever rubbed you the wrong way, you'll find Science Friction fascinating
Bill Nye, The Science Guy ®
A scientists pretends to be a psychic for a day - and fools everyone. An athlete discovers that good-luck rituals and getting "into the zone" may, or may not, improve his performance. A historian decides to analyze the data to see who - or what - was truly responsible for the Bounty mutiny. A son explores the possibilities of alternative and experimental medicine for his cancer-ravaged mother. And a skeptic realizes that it is time to turn the skeptical lens onto science itself.
In each of the provocative, entertaining and very personal essays in Science Friction, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores the barriers and biases that plague and propel science, especially when scientists push against the boundaries of the unknown. As Shermer puts it, the challenge we all face in distinguishing facts from fiction can be summed up with a twist of a well-worn bromide: "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it." What do we know and what do we not know? How does science respond to controversy, attack, and uncertainty? When does theory become accepted fact? In one essay, Shermer looks at the odds that even incredibly heretical ideas in science - that oil is not a fossil fuel or that cancer is an infectious disease - will find data to support them. He contemplates how the QWERTY keyboard and the Salem witch craze can help us understand the role of efficiency and feedback in history. And he dissects Intelligent Design theory using a scientific toolbox. Together, these fourteen essays probe the omnipresent clash between the known and the unknown, always employing Shermer's trademark wit and intelligence.
With Science Friction, Shermer, who Stephen Jay Gould called "a powerful activist and essayist in the service of skepticism," once again delivers a thought-provoking and fascinating view of life in the scientific age.
Michael Shermer is a columnist for Scientific American and the author of the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things, How We Believe, and The Science of Good and Evil. He is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, the executive director of the Skeptics Society, and the host of the Skeptics Lecture Series at the California Institute of Technology. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Introduction: Why Not Knowing