{"author":"Michael Shermer","author_id":"Michael+Shermer","total_quotes":28,"quotes":[{"text":"Perceiving the world as well designed and thus the product of a designer, and even seeing divine providence in the daily affairs of life, may be the product of a brain adapted to finding patterns in nature. (38).","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["design","patterns","perception","providence"],"id":27577,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["patterns","perceptions","storytelling"],"id":38960,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Having a Nobel Prize or being a famous scientist will get you a week to a week and a half, metaphorically speaking, of a hearing for your new idea, but after that, it's going to tank if you don't have the evidence and support for it.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["support","week","you "],"id":51221,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Creationists have also changed their name ... To intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life—yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["code-of-hammurabi","creation-myths","creationists","evolution","first-amendment","god-did-it","goddidit","hammurabi","intelligent-design","irreducible-complexity","jargon","myths","native-american","origin-of-life","pseudoscience","school","science","separation-of-church-and-state","sophistry","superstition","ten-commandments"],"id":95495,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"...Evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. Just as one would not say 'I believe in gravity,' one should not proclaim 'I believe in evolution.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["evolution","god","intelligent-design","religion","science"],"id":103201,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Through no divine design or cosmic plan, we have inherited the mantle of life's caretaker on the earth, the only home we have ever known.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["life","home","plan "],"id":114918,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Intelligent Design is a remarkably uncreative theory that abandons the search for understanding at the very point where it is most needed. If Intelligent Design is really a science, then the burden is on its scientists to discover the mechanisms used by the Intelligent Designer. (80).","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["evolution","intelligent-design","science"],"id":127293,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Yet basically, libertarians are for freedom and liberty forindividuals, while recognizing that in order to be free we must also beprotected. Your freedom to swing your arms ends at my nose.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["freedom","libertarian","liberty"],"id":144082,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["bad-science","celestial","prayer","religion","scientific"],"id":156402,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"},{"text":"Any preference for my group's interests over yours must be justified by some unbiased, disinterested ethic. Which sounds simple but, given that we're dealing with Humans and not Vulcans, it's sometimes difficult for two parties to agree on basic principles, specially parties who are unable or unwilling to switch points of view. This is the power of ethical reasoning.","author":"Michael Shermer","tags":["ethics"],"id":168354,"author_id":"Michael+Shermer"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":28,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}