#198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain

**Michael Shermer** (0:00)
There is an idea that we're living in a post-truth world. We can't be, because the moment you open your mouth to make an argument that we're living in a post-truth world, you've just made an argument, which means apparently there is a truth to be known.

**Peter McCormack** (0:13)
The problem with conspiracy theories these days is that they keep coming true.

**Michael Shermer** (0:16)
Well, they go too far. You can find the element of truth, two or more people plotting in secret to gain an unfair, illegal or immoral advantage over somebody else.
That does happen. It happens in governments. It happens in corporations. Well, I've had some anomalous experiences.

**Peter McCormack** (0:33)
How do you explain that?

**Michael Shermer** (0:34)
I don't have an explanation. I always like to keep an open mind just in case like, well, that's weird. The other reason I keep an open mind is my historian of science. If you and I were born 500 years from now, and we look back at what they believed in the 21st century, it'd be like, those people believe that? That's just that shit crazy. How could they believe that?

**Peter McCormack** (0:54)
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**Michael Shermer** (1:19)
I'm fine, thank you. Nice to see you.

**Peter McCormack** (1:21)
Yeah, and thanks for agreeing to do this out here in sunny California, although we can't see the sun because we're in a darkened room. I was really excited to talk to you because in the world I live in, conspiracy and skepticism sells. But I have this like innate feeling sometimes. Am I contributing to falsities or am I helping find more truth? So I was really excited to talk to you.
Are we in a war on truth?

**Michael Shermer** (1:51)
Well, there is an idea that we're living in a post-truth world. You'll hear this phrase a lot, which I opened the book by saying we can't be. Because the moment you open your mouth to make an argument that we're living in a post-truth world, and I ask you for your evidence and arguments for that, you've just lost the battle because you've just made an argument, which means apparently there is a truth to be known.
What people really mean more like on the left, kind of postmodernism, there's no real reality. It's just a narrative story. Science is another myth. Like any other myth, it's just a story about whatever it is we're interested in.
So there's that. So we've combated that. That was going all the way back to the 80s and 90s, and the science wars and that sort of thing. Then on the right, you get the alternative facts, fake news stuff from the Trump administration. And there's others on that, particularly after post-COVID. You can't trust public officials, medical expertise doesn't matter anymore. They lied about the COVID origins, they lied about the masks, they lied about the school closings, and it's like, yeah, that's actually, there's some truth to that. So, there's truth on both the left and the right, kind of assaults on the idea of truth. So I begin the book by saying, by defending universal realism. There is a reality that we can know that's out there, and we can know something about it, but fallibilism, we're all fallible. We're confused about, with the cognitive biases, we have political agendas, everybody. So we have to work together as a team using a set of tools, going, okay, this is what we're going to agree. We're going to do this, and whenever we find, that's what we're going to report. Now, maybe it's wrong, but we'll see.
And so the third point there, my opening chapter, is I take a Bayesian approach.
That is, let's never say 0% or 100% true. Just say, between, I don't know, 1% and 99%, probability that it's true or not true, or it could be true, it's 60%, whatever. Then, I'm allowed to change my mind. If you go, okay, Shermer, you're wrong about this particular conspiracy or this theory. Over here, here's the evidence. I go, oh, yeah, all right, that's a good point. I'll shift my credence from 50% to 60% or something like that. So it's no longer me defending my beliefs in some kind of militant way, like, oh, he's attacking me personally and I have to defend myself. But rather like, I just want to believe whatever is true. If you have better argument, okay, I'll change my mind and then it becomes a virtue.