#1888 - Michael Shermer

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Michael Shermer (0:14)

I come bearing signed gifts for you, sir.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

Why the Rational Believe the Irrational.

Why is that?

Is it simple? It wouldn't be this big of a book if it was simple.

Michael Shermer (0:27)

Yeah, it's not that simple. Well, first of all, my argument is that it's not irrational to believe conspiracy theories because enough of them are true that it pays to err on the side of assuming more of them are true than actually are, than missing real conspiracy theories, and then that's a costlier error to make.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

That's a rational perspective. The term conspiracy theory got thrown about.

The first introduction of it into the zeitgeist was during the Kennedy assassination, correct?

Michael Shermer (1:00)

Yeah, well, around that time, right, before World War II, really, conspiracy theories were kind of common knowledge. Everybody knew that things were going on behind closed doors, and it was just kind of commonly known. We just kind of tried to figure it out. It didn't become really fringy until right after the JFK thing. It kind of got as a meme that you're crazy to think these conspiracy theories are true. It became pathologized.

Richard Hofstadter's, you know, the paranoid style in American politics kind of put that on the map. Conspiracy theories are something delusional.

It's a pathology in your brain. Whereas before that, it wasn't. It was just, I mean, even the Declaration of Independence, it's a conspiracy theory. It's saying, look, the British are doing this whole train of abuses and usurpations, and here's what we think they're up to, and here's what we think they want to do, and we're against that. So it's not fringy, right? It was kind of commonly known that these things happened.

Joe Rogan (1:58)

The term as a pejorative, though, it was introduced into sort of the American culture around the Kennedy assassination.

Michael Shermer (2:08)

Yeah, that's an interesting story, because I'm convinced Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Joe Rogan (2:14)

Really?

Michael Shermer (2:14)

What makes you convinced of that? Well, they have a whole chapter on it, and we can get into that in a second, but the twist about it where it seems like there was something up was that President Johnson was worried that if it looks like there's a conspiracy afoot with the Cubans or the Russians, that that could lead to a nuclear exchange, so we don't want the American people to think that this is some kind of vast conspiracy of the Russians.

Joe Rogan (2:41)

Have you gone back and forth on that at all? Or is it just something you've always believed?

Michael Shermer (2:46)

No, no, I, well, before the Oliver Stone film, I hadn't really given it that much thought. Well, the Warren Report seems pretty thorough, but who knows? What do I know? And then the Oliver Stone film, which floats every conspiracy theory there was in one package, and I thought, well, you know, 10% of this is true. Seems like there was something else going on.

But then, you know, there were webpages posted of like, here are all the mistakes in the film, and here are all the counterarguments, and then I read Gerald Posner's book, the case closed, about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, and why all the evidence points to him, and then, uh, Vincent Bellosi's book, uh, Reclaiming History, which is like 1500 pages long, and it, it dissects every one of the hundreds of conspiracy theories, or something on the order of 140 people have been accused, and you know, a couple hundred organizations have been affiliated with the JFK assassination. The problem is, is that there's no convergence of evidence to any other one than Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, and all the evidence points to him, so it's not impossible.

Joe Rogan (3:47)

All the evidence points to him.

Michael Shermer (3:49)

Massive amounts of evidence, right. So now we're supposed to get a new trunche of documents.

Joe Rogan (3:55)

But they're not, they won't release them. They keep stopping the release of these documents.

Michael Shermer (4:00)

This worries me because it makes people suspicious, as it should. So, any, back to...

Joe Rogan (4:06)

But wait a minute, it worries you because it makes people suspicious or it worries you because it points to their withholding information because that information looks bad?

Michael Shermer (4:18)

I would love to see the information, and I would change my mind in a heartbeat.

Joe Rogan (4:21)

What are your thoughts on the magic bullet?

Michael Shermer (4:24)

Okay, the magic bullet is not a magic bullet. It's a single bullet theory. That is, what it's usually rendered as is Kennedy and Connolly are sitting like this, back to back.