Joe Rogan Experience #1888 - Michael Shermer

1. 0:00 – 0:51

   Shermer’s core thesis: why conspiratorial thinking can be rational

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. MSMichael Shermer0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays)

   4. MSMichael Shermer0:13

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      ... Spears. Michael Shure.

   6. MSMichael Shermer0:15

      Icon-bearing signed gifts for you, sir.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Thank you very much.

   8. MSMichael Shermer0:17

      (laughs) I hope that's all right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Why the Rational Believe the Irrational.

   10. MSMichael Shermer0:22

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       Why is that?

   12. MSMichael Shermer0:24

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       Is it simple? It wouldn't be this big of a book-

   14. MSMichael Shermer0:27

       N- no.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       ... if it was simple.

   16. MSMichael Shermer0:28

       Yeah, it's not that simple, but, uh ... Well, first of all, my argument is that it's not irrational to believe conspiracy theories, because enough of them are true that i- 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, a costlier err- error to make.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       That's a rational perspective.

   18. MSMichael Shermer0:51

       Yeah.

2. 0:51 – 4:21

   JFK: Oswald-alone vs “something bigger” (and why the documents matter)

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:51

      Uh, the, the term conspiracy theory got thrown about ... There was the first, the first introduction of it into the zeitgeist was during the Kennedy assassination, correct?

   2. MSMichael Shermer1:00

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

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:27

      Yeah.

   4. MSMichael Shermer1:28

      You know, Richard Hofstadter's, you know, the Paranoid Style in American Politics kind of m- put that on the map as conspiracy theories are something delusional. You ... It's a, 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 wanna do, and we're against that." That's printed right there in the Declaration.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:54

      Yeah.

   6. MSMichael Shermer1:54

      So it's not fringey, right? It was, it was kind of commonly known that these things happened.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:58

      The term as a pejorative, though, was ... It was introduced into, like, sort of the American m- m- culture around the Kennedy assassination.

   8. MSMichael Shermer2:08

      Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting story, because, um, I'm, I'm convinced Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I'm not a-

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:14

      Really?

   10. MSMichael Shermer2:14

       Yes, I am. Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:15

       What makes you convinced of that?

   12. MSMichael Shermer2:16

       (laughs) Uh, well, I have a whole chapter on it, and we can get into that in a second. But, uh, the, the, the twist about it where it seems like there was something up was that John ... 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, of the Russians so we can avoid war.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:42

       Have you gone back and forth on that at all?

   14. MSMichael Shermer2:44

       Uh-

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:44

       Or is it just something you've always believed?

   16. MSMichael Shermer2:46

       No, no. I ... Well, uh, before the Oliver Stone film, I hadn't really given it that much thought. I thought, "Well, the, you know, Warren Report seems pretty, uh, thorough, but, you know, who knows? What do I know?" And then, you know, the Oliver Stone film, which floats every conspiracy theory there was in one package, and then I thought, "Well, you know, if 10% of this is true, seems like there was something else going on." Uh, but then, you know, there were web pages 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, Case Closed, about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and why all the evidence points to him, and then, uh, Vincent Bugliosi's book, uh, Reclaiming History, which is, like, 1,500 pages long, and it, it dissects every one of the hundreds of conspiracy theories. There are ... Something on the order of 140 people have been accused, and, you know, a couple hundred organizations have been a- 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, you know that-

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:48

       All the evidence points to him?

   18. MSMichael Shermer3:49

       Massive amounts of evidence, right?

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:51

       Mm-hmm.

   20. MSMichael Shermer3:51

       And so now, we're supposed to get a new, uh, uh, uh-

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:54

       Why do you think they-

   22. MSMichael Shermer3:55

       ... troch- tranches of documents.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:55

       But they're not. They're, they won't release 'em. They keep stopping-

   24. MSMichael Shermer3:59

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:59

       ... the release of these documents.

   26. MSMichael Shermer4:00

       Uh, this worries me because that makes people suspicious, as it should. And, uh, so any, any ... But, but back, back to-

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:07

       But wait a minute. It worries you because it makes people suspicious, or it worries you-

   28. MSMichael Shermer4:11

       Yes. Yes.

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:11

       ... because it points to their withholding information because that information looks bad?

   30. MSMichael Shermer4:18

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

3. 4:21 – 9:18

   The ‘magic bullet’ and eyewitness reliability in high-chaos events

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:21

      What are your, what are your thoughts on the magic bullet?

   2. MSMichael Shermer4:24

      Okay. The magic bullet is not a magic bullet. It's a single-bullet theory. That is ... What, what it's usually rendered as is Kennedy and Connally are sitting like this, si- uh, you know, back-

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:33

      Oh, I'm aware of all of it.

   4. MSMichael Shermer4:34

      Back to back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:34

      Yeah.

   6. MSMichael Shermer4:34

      Right. So the bullet doesn't have to go left, right, and, and so forth.

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:37

      Kennedy was elevated.

   8. MSMichael Shermer4:39

      Yes. Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:39

      Yeah.

   10. MSMichael Shermer4:40

       So if you draw a line straight back to the sixth-floor window of the Book Depository building, the bullet goes straight through his back, out his neck, into Connally, through his arm, into his leg, and so forth, uh, in a straight line.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:52

       Well, you know the only reason why they had to come up with the theory that that one bullet did all that damage. You know that, right?

   12. MSMichael Shermer4:59

       Well, you know-

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:00

       You know why?

   14. MSMichael Shermer5:01

       Well, th- th- I don't know. Go, go ahead and give me your-

   15. JRJoe Rogan5:03

       'Cause someone was hit by a ricochet-

   16. MSMichael Shermer5:04

       Oh, yeah. I'm da- I'm da-

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:04

       ... in the underpass.

   18. MSMichael Shermer5:05

       I'm da-

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:06

       And so they had to attribute all that damage to one bullet.

   20. MSMichael Shermer5:09

       That's right. Right. That's right. Yeah. S-

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:10

       But there's more ... In Connally's body, there was more pieces of bullet that were missing-

   22. MSMichael Shermer5:16

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:16

       ... from the actual bullet itself.

   24. MSMichael Shermer5:17

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:18

       Did you ever look at the actual bullet itself? Have you studied it?

   26. MSMichael Shermer5:21

       Yeah. I have a picture of it in there.

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:22

       Yeah.

   28. MSMichael Shermer5:22

       You know, it, it-

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:23

       I know a lot about bullets.

   30. MSMichael Shermer5:24

       Yeah. It is-
4. 9:18 – 11:05

   Proportionality bias and ‘constructive conspiracism’ (signal detection model)

   1. MSMichael Shermer9:18

      Okay, so here's one argument I'm making. It's, it's the argument from proportionality, that the, the ef- the, the effect should have a matching size cause, so let me just back up here for a second. If you take a little pebble and throw it, it doesn't take a lot of effort to do it. A, a fist-sized stone, takes more effort. A big boulder, massive effort. So our, our folk physics, we feel like cause and effect should match, right? So, interesting experiment. If you take subjects and give them two dice and say, "Okay, now try to roll a low number," they'll, they'll kind of just gently toss it like that. Now, try to roll a high number, like an 11 or 12. They'll give it a good heave like that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:51

      Well, that's dumb people.

   3. MSMichael Shermer9:52

      Well... (laughs) But that's our intuition. So it feels like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:54

      But that's people that don't know about dice.

   5. MSMichael Shermer9:56

      Okay.

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:56

      We're talk- talking about trained assassins.

   7. MSMichael Shermer9:59

      Okay, but let me, let me finish. So, you know, our sense is that big events, JFK assassination, Princess Di, uh, dies, 9/11, COVID-19, uh, uh, counterfactually, if Oswald had missed Kennedy or just wounded him and he didn't die, would there be massive conspiracy theories about who he was? Okay, so this has actually happened.

   8. JRJoe Rogan10:20

      Well, the-

   9. MSMichael Shermer10:20

      Now, John Hinckley-

   10. JRJoe Rogan10:21

       But hold on a minute.

   11. MSMichael Shermer10:21

       John-

   12. JRJoe Rogan10:22

       That's, that's a straw man-

   13. MSMichael Shermer10:23

       Wait, lemme finish.

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:23

       ... because you're saying that Oswald did act alone, if he had missed.

   15. MSMichael Shermer10:27

       Yeah, if he had missed.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:28

       But he w- but it, but-

   17. MSMichael Shermer10:28

       Nobody would make a big deal about it.

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:29

       ... we're talking about after the murder.

   19. MSMichael Shermer10:31

       Right. That's my point.

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:32

       The reason why there's a conspiracy is 'cause he was murdered.

   21. MSMichael Shermer10:35

       Right. So why are there no conspiracy theories about John Hinckley shooting Reagan?

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:40

       Because John Hinckley has a real trail of mental illness.

   23. MSMichael Shermer10:44

       Well-

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:44

       He wrote letters to Jodie Foster.

   25. MSMichael Shermer10:46

       Right, right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan10:46

       He was a very specific human being who was obsessed with killing Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.

   27. MSMichael Shermer10:52

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan10:52

       It's all really documented.

   29. MSMichael Shermer10:54

       Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan10:54

       He's out now, too.
5. 11:05 – 23:17

   Real conspiracies as fuel: MKUltra, Northwoods, COINTELPRO, and state secrecy

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:05

      ... there's this, there's a big conspiracy about that, about the Manson family and the, uh, the fact that Charles Manson was a part of MKUltra.

   2. MSMichael Shermer11:12

      Oh, yes, right. Yes, right, right. So we can go-

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:14

      Did you ever read Chaos by Tom O'Neill?

   4. MSMichael Shermer11:17

      No, I haven't read that one.

   5. JRJoe Rogan11:18

      It's a fantastic book. It's all about why Manson kept getting released.

   6. MSMichael Shermer11:23

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan11:23

      You know, M- Manson was in jail, right? And during the time he was in jail, he was visited by Jolly West, who was the head of the CIA's MKUltra LSD experiments. They most certainly did something to Manson while he was in jail, and they also supplied him... there's anecdotal evidence that shows that they supplied him with LSD when he got out of jail.

   8. MSMichael Shermer11:46

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:46

      Every time he got arrested for violating parole, these cops and these local sheriffs that had caught him were told that it was above their pay grade and they had to release him.

   10. MSMichael Shermer11:55

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:55

       ... Manson got out-

   12. MSMichael Shermer11:57

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan11:57

       ... for multiple offenses after he was on parole, things that should have kept him locked up.

   14. MSMichael Shermer12:03

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:03

       There's some real good evidence that, you know about M- MKUltra was a rare thing.

   16. MSMichael Shermer12:08

       Yep. Yep.

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:08

       And that's, that's an interesting conspiracy, right?

   18. MSMichael Shermer12:10

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:10

       'Cause it's a real one.

   20. MSMichael Shermer12:11

       It's a real one.

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:11

       Documented.

   22. MSMichael Shermer12:12

       Our own government was doing this.

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:13

       Yeah. Well, there's, there's Operation Midnight Climax that they were involved with, where they were ... Do you know about that one?

   24. MSMichael Shermer12:18

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:18

       That's where they were dosing up, um, johns when they would go to visit prostitutes-

   26. MSMichael Shermer12:22

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan12:22

       ... and they would film them through-

   28. MSMichael Shermer12:23

       Yes. (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan12:23

       ... two-way mirrors.

   30. MSMichael Shermer12:24

       Right.
6. 23:17 – 24:30

   A ‘conspiracy detection kit’: scale, incentives, and the ‘too big to keep secret’ problem

   1. MSMichael Shermer23:17

      Yeah. But I mean, again, how does, how do these systems really work? Um, you know, the, so this is my kind of, uh, conspiracy detection kit. You know, the grander the conspiracy theory, the less likely it is to be true. Like, s- say Volkswagen cheating the emission standards in, uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan23:33

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MSMichael Shermer23:33

      ... Europe. That, you know, that's a very specific conspiracy theory. Turned out to be true. They really did do that, and for obvious reasons, profit motive, right? But, but, but, so if you scale up from that, "Well, they're trying to control the entire European, uh, um, uh, economy," or something like, well, no, that's too big. That's-

   4. JRJoe Rogan23:50

      They're just trying to make money.

   5. MSMichael Shermer23:51

      They're just trying to make money, right? So, um, you know, the, the more people that have to be involved, the more elements that have to come-

   6. JRJoe Rogan23:57

      Right.

   7. MSMichael Shermer23:57

      People are incompetent, people can't keep their mouths shut.

   8. JRJoe Rogan24:00

      ... for the most part.

   9. MSMichael Shermer24:00

      For the most part, yes. Now-

   10. JRJoe Rogan24:02

       Yeah.

   11. MSMichael Shermer24:02

       ... to be fair to, to the other side, um, you know, if you read about the development of the U-2 spy plane and the AR-71 Blackbird, you know, this was done in Burbank-

   12. JRJoe Rogan24:12

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MSMichael Shermer24:12

       ... in where, near where you used to live.

   14. JRJoe Rogan24:15

       Yeah, sure.

   15. MSMichael Shermer24:15

       And that's right in the heart of LA.

   16. JRJoe Rogan24:16

       Yep.

   17. MSMichael Shermer24:16

       How did they do this for all those years and nobody knew about it, right?

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:20

       Well, they were acting on th- the interests of the, the government. They were trying to be patriots. They kept their mouths shut-

   19. MSMichael Shermer24:26

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan24:26

       ... because they were trying to win a war against the, the evil others.

7. 24:30 – 36:41

   UAPs: secret drones, bad data, or something else?

   1. MSMichael Shermer24:30

      Right. So, um, again, like, with the recent UAP sightings, what I want ... my initial response is, the SR-71 Blackbird was, before it was declassified, there were commercial pilots going, "Oh my God, there's something-"

   2. JRJoe Rogan24:45

      Right.

   3. MSMichael Shermer24:45

      "... going 3,000 miles an hour, 50,000 feet above me at 30,000 feet. This is impossible. We don't have anything like that." Well, actually, we did have something like that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan24:53

      Yeah, so-

   5. MSMichael Shermer24:54

      So I suspect that the-

   6. JRJoe Rogan24:55

      That's what you think the UAPs are?

   7. MSMichael Shermer24:56

      ... some of these UAP, I think in, in a decade or two, we're gonna find out, oh, we had these incredible drones-

   8. JRJoe Rogan25:01

      Yeah.

   9. MSMichael Shermer25:01

      ... that could fly at these speeds and-

   10. JRJoe Rogan25:02

       I, I tend to lean towards that as well sometimes. I go back and forth with it. I had, uh, Ryan Graves on recently.

   11. MSMichael Shermer25:08

       Yeah, I saw that.

   12. JRJoe Rogan25:09

       It was a fascinating conversation because the way he was describing things, with no visible means of propulsion, um, no technology that we currently know is available could act in the way those things were acting. I wonder if that is what it is, if they have some sort of very advanced drones. And the fact that they seem to be trans-medium, they seem to be able to enter into the ocean and then leave the ocean, I wonder. I wonder if that's something that we have because these things, they're ... you know, one of the ones that he described is like a translucent circle with a black sphere inside of it.

   13. MSMichael Shermer25:42

       Yes, right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan25:42

       And that when they updated their radar systems in 2014, they started seeing them all over the place on their systems and that these people spotted them visually and that they were behaving in a way, like, uh, you know, 130 mile an hour winds were completely stationary. I wonder if those are super advanced drones.

   15. MSMichael Shermer26:01

       Yeah, a lot of pr- uh, another problem with these videos is that they're very grainy, uh, blurry, you can't quite make out what's going on, like the one that looks like it goes into the ocean and comes back out. It's not clear that it goes in the ocean 'cause it ... the, the, the horizon and the ocean is-

   16. JRJoe Rogan26:14

       Mm-hmm.

   17. MSMichael Shermer26:14

       ... is so blurry, right? So I'm a member of this, uh, Galileo Project at Harvard run by Avi Loeb, the head of the astronomy department there.

   18. JRJoe Rogan26:21

       I had Avi on.

   19. MSMichael Shermer26:21

       Yep. I know.

   20. JRJoe Rogan26:22

       Yeah.

   21. MSMichael Shermer26:22

       And, uh, you know, we're, we're g- he, he's raising money to put cameras, high resolution cameras all over the world.

   22. JRJoe Rogan26:28

       Right.

   23. MSMichael Shermer26:28

       Particularly in the places where people like Graves say they s- ... I mean, when Graves told you, "I ... we saw these things every day," it's like, "Every day?"

   24. JRJoe Rogan26:35

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   25. MSMichael Shermer26:36

       There, there surely must be high resolution photos of these things.

   26. JRJoe Rogan26:39

       But those things, those jets are not designed to take high resolution video. They're designed to fight against enemy jets.

   27. MSMichael Shermer26:45

       Right, right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan26:46

       That's what they're designed for. They're designed to recognize these enemy combatants and engage with them in the most effective way possible. That's not with high resolution digital video.

   29. MSMichael Shermer26:56

       Right. Well, that would be the, uh, that would be the solution. We just need better data. (laughs) Right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan27:01

       Well, I wonder if they want better data. Now, let's assume-
8. 36:41 – 46:20

   Science updating itself: James Webb, dark matter/energy as placeholders

   1. JRJoe Rogan36:41

      Have you seen some of the new, um-... discussions based on the, uh, observations from the James Webb, uh, Telescope that maybe the Big Bang Theory needs, needs to be revisited?

   2. MSMichael Shermer36:53

      Yes. Uh, vaguely. It was the expansion rate changing, right?

   3. JRJoe Rogan36:58

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MSMichael Shermer36:58

      The, uh, from the new, um ...

   5. JRJoe Rogan36:59

      Well, they're getting new data, right?

   6. MSMichael Shermer37:00

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan37:00

      They're constantly getting new data and we, we would assume that with more and more sophisticated ways of viewing the known universe that we could possibly get some new data that would change our ideas of what the theory of the Big Bang Theory or the theory of the, the universe itself would be. And that's one of the things that they're discussing right now. What was that? There was a recent article. What was it in? Which, uh, scientific publication that they were discussing whether or not the Big Bang Theory needs to be revisited?

   8. MSMichael Shermer37:28

      I-

   9. JRJoe Rogan37:28

      Bas- it was based on the James Webb ...

   10. MSMichael Shermer37:30

       Yeah, I did see that.

   11. JRJoe Rogan37:31

       Yeah.

   12. MSMichael Shermer37:31

       I mean, it ... Joe, it would be astonishing if that didn't happen.

   13. JRJoe Rogan37:34

       Right. Right. Yeah.

   14. MSMichael Shermer37:35

       (laughs) Because, you know, no theory in science is permanent. They-

   15. JRJoe Rogan37:37

       Especially like, right-

   16. MSMichael Shermer37:38

       ... it's never fixed.

   17. JRJoe Rogan37:39

       It's not like right now we have all the information about... We have the entire universe mapped out, every planet, everything. We know exactly what it is, we know exactly how old everything is, and we know for sure. We just, we just have a limited ability to look, right?

   18. MSMichael Shermer37:52

       Yeah. It ... That's it. It's the limitations of our technology. So in the nine- late '90s is when they discovered the ex- the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Well, how can that be? You know, because in an explosion, you know, the initial explosion, the inflation in cosmology, is really rapid then it slows and slows and slows. And so it was supposed to slow down in, you know, another 10 billion years or something-

   19. JRJoe Rogan38:14

       Right.

   20. MSMichael Shermer38:14

       ... and maybe collapse back on itself and then they discover, oh my God, no. These Type II Supernova, whatever it was, uh, indicate that the expansion is accelerating so there's this weird force, dark energy, that pushes it away.

   21. JRJoe Rogan38:27

       (sniffs)

   22. MSMichael Shermer38:27

       And dark matter is this, you know, proffered thing that explains why galaxies are held together 'cause they don't have enough mass to hold them together in the structures that they are, as I understand it, and rotate at the way they're rotating, so there's something else we can't see.

   23. JRJoe Rogan38:40

       Right.

   24. MSMichael Shermer38:41

       So now, so when astronomers talk about dark energy and dark matter to explain these two anomalies, like how could this be, that's not an explanation. It's just, it's just a linguistic placeholder until we figure out what it is.

   25. JRJoe Rogan38:52

       Right. Right.

   26. MSMichael Shermer38:52

       So surely there is gonna be some discoveries of some kind of n- new energy or some kind of matter that i- w- we don't know of. A century from now it's like, "Oh, of course!" If you came back after being chronically frozen. "Oh, that's what it was. Oh." (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan39:05

       So what would it take for you to look ... I mean, what kind of discovery would it take in terms of UAPs for you to revisit your position and say it's highly likely that this is either something that we don't understand that we, uh, are observing that's come from somewhere else or something that we don't understand because it's technology that hasn't been released?

   28. MSMichael Shermer39:29

       The actual specimen. (laughs) The, the actual e- e- the equivalent of the SR71 Blackbird. I can go to the museum, I can see it, touch it, walk on it. Everybody knows that.

   29. JRJoe Rogan39:36

       So do you hold it like ... Do you have like a placeholder, like, perhaps?

   30. MSMichael Shermer39:39

       Yeah. I do.
9. 46:20 – 58:34

   When science fails: replication crisis, fraud, incentives, and p-hacking

   1. MSMichael Shermer46:20

      So this is what, you know, s- uh, science has kind of developed, science and rationality over the centuries. Okay, so we know we're biased, we know we have to be careful about the confirmation bias and the hindsight bias and so on, so we have to set up some kind of system where it's not just me claiming it. You, you, you have, you can look at it too, you could run the experiment.

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:37

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MSMichael Shermer46:37

      Here's how I did it. You do it. Right? And when that's not done, we, we have all kinds of problems, like the replication crisis in psychology and, and medical science over the last decade or so. You know, the, some significant two-digit percentage of these experiments can't be replicated even though they went through peer-reviewed, um, professional journals and they were done by professional scientists at real universities and so on. And, uh, so this is a pro- it's a hard, it's hard to know what to believe, right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan47:03

      But there's also a problem of basing science on falsified studies, like the Alzheimer's issue that they're dealing with now.

   5. MSMichael Shermer47:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan47:10

      You know, the whole amyloid plaque thing, where they found out that a lot of... Like, what is the... I don't want to butcher this, 'cause obviously I'm not a scientist, but this, there's a series of Alzheimer's drugs that were based on research that was falsified.

   7. MSMichael Shermer47:26

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan47:26

      And they're finding this out now.

   9. MSMichael Shermer47:28

      Mm-hmm.

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:28

       And this is a, a terrible thing for people that have, you know, in- invested their health in these medications, people that have promoted these medications, that this was all based on falsified data.

   11. MSMichael Shermer47:41

       Or how about the, uh-

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:42

       Find that, 'cause tha- that's pretty fascinating, 'cause that, here it is. This is a legitimate conspiracy. "Neuroscience image sleuth finds signs of fabrication in scores of Alzheimer's articles threatening a reigning theory of the disease."

   13. MSMichael Shermer47:56

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:57

       That's terrifying-

   15. MSMichael Shermer47:58

       Yeah, yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:58

       ... to find out that the people that are responsible for doing these experiments falsified. "Matthew Schrag, a neuroscientist and physician at Vanderbilt University, got a call that would plunge him into a maelstrom of possible scientific misconduct. A colleague wanted to connect him with an attorney investigating an experimental drug for Alzheimer's disease called simofyllam. The drug's developer, Cassava Sciences, claimed it improved cognition partially, partly by repairing a protein that can block sticky brain deposits of the protein amyloid-beta, a hallmark of Alzheimer's. The attorney's clients, two prominent neuroscientists who are also short sellers who profit if the company's stock falls, believe some research related to simofyllam may have been fraudulent according to a petition later filed on the behalf of the US Food and Drug Administration." So this is, um...... this is a, a huge scandal-

   17. MSMichael Shermer48:55

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:55

       ... in medical science.

   19. MSMichael Shermer48:57

       Right. And this one appears to be more fraud than just error-

   20. JRJoe Rogan49:00

       Right. Yeah.

   21. MSMichael Shermer49:01

       ... or bias.

   22. JRJoe Rogan49:02

       Right.

   23. MSMichael Shermer49:02

       So, well, okay-

   24. JRJoe Rogan49:03

       That's horrible, right?

   25. MSMichael Shermer49:04

       ... this is what, yeah, this is what whistleblowers are for. Often, these things are exposed through insiders. I mean, almost always. Rare that a journalist from the outside discovers it. It's usually a grad student or something that's suspicious of what the mentor professor is doing. Uh, so that, yeah, that's a problem, right? (laughs) So, that's why you have to disclose any, um, you know, financial c- uh, connections you have to companies that might be affiliated with a drug that could treat the thing you're studying, that sort of thing, you're, um... and so there's more pressure to do that. There was another big meta-analysis on SSRIs, the antidepressants-

   26. JRJoe Rogan49:36

       Mm-hmm, yes.

   27. MSMichael Shermer49:37

       ... uh, showing, you know, big, massive meta-analysis. You know, 50 years we've been at, um, prescribing these SSRIs for depression, and they do no better than nothing or just chance or just, you know, talking to friends or whatever. Uh-

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:49

       Well, also that this idea that it's a, a chemical imbalance of the brain is not based on science.

   29. MSMichael Shermer49:57

       Yeah, well, it's based on (laughs) something, but it, it, probably incorrect science or-

   30. JRJoe Rogan50:00

       Yeah.
10. 58:34 – 1:08:43

    Moral panics and manufactured memories: satanic panic, McMartin, Loftus’s research

    1. MSMichael Shermer58:34

       ... then you get a moral panic. It's like the satanic panic of the, of the 1980s.

    2. JRJoe Rogan58:37

       Mm-hmm.

    3. MSMichael Shermer58:37

       Started with that McMartin Preschool, uh, case in Manhattan Beach.

    4. JRJoe Rogan58:41

       Yes, that's... We'll talk about that because that's pretty crazy.

    5. MSMichael Shermer58:44

       Totally crazy. So this was, um, k- kind of in the time in psychology where Freud- Freudianism, uh, sort of unconscious memories of things and, and, and so on were becoming popular. And there was this idea that, um, you know, there's a lot of molestation and it's... And, and secret satanic cults all over America and there's a lot of these kind of preschools. So the McMartin Preschool Case, um, was based on children telling these fantastic stories-

    6. JRJoe Rogan59:12

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MSMichael Shermer59:13

       ... about the stuff that was going on at the day school. Now you have kids, I have kids, it's like how this is impossible for parents not to know this. Oh, well, they're ta-... They have tunnels, underground tunnels where they have horses, they take them out to Catalina and they do these satanic things to them and what, the parents, did no one noticed this or...

    8. JRJoe Rogan59:28

       And they were kind of coaching the kids when they were asking the kids these questions-

    9. MSMichael Shermer59:32

       Right.

    10. JRJoe Rogan59:33

        ... like, what did they do? Did they do this? And the kids were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

    11. MSMichael Shermer59:36

        Remember the anatomical dolls, anatomically correct dolls? Now-

    12. JRJoe Rogan59:39

        Show me where they touched you.

    13. MSMichael Shermer59:39

        ... show me where he touched you, right?

    14. JRJoe Rogan59:41

        Right, right.

    15. MSMichael Shermer59:41

        And worse, you know, they, they separate the kids from their parents, the-

    16. JRJoe Rogan59:44

        Right.

    17. MSMichael Shermer59:44

        ... mom, mom's outside and the little kid's scared to death in this room.

    18. JRJoe Rogan59:48

        Yeah.

    19. MSMichael Shermer59:48

        And then he's like, "Okay, he to- touched me there. Can I go back to my mommy now?" You know?

    20. JRJoe Rogan59:52

        Right.

    21. MSMichael Shermer59:52

        It's like...

    22. JRJoe Rogan59:52

        And then this ruined people's lives-

    23. MSMichael Shermer59:54

        Yeah, totally.

    24. JRJoe Rogan59:54

        ... and careers and these people were accused of these horrible things that turns out they did not do.

    25. MSMichael Shermer59:59

        They didn't do. Before the OJ trial, this was the longest, most expensive trial in California history, that McMartin Preschool Case, but it launched this kind of satanic panic around America. There's one of these cults in every city.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

        Mm-hmm.

    27. MSMichael Shermer1:00:09

        And finally the FBI got involved and said, "All right, we better look into this." And they, you know, found nothing or... Okay, y- you can always find some weirdo who's a Satanist, right?

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

        Right.

    29. MSMichael Shermer1:00:18

        And maybe they do some weird things with a cat or something.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

        Mm-hmm.
11. 1:08:43 – 1:43:29

    Proxy conspiracies and institutional distrust: O.J., Tuskegee, Paperclip, MKUltra fallout

    1. MSMichael Shermer1:08:43

       Okay. So, this is my, this is my type specimen for p- uh, what I call proxy conspiracists. That is, conspiracies, that is they're, they're a stand-in for something else. The O.J., uh, case. O.J. was acquitted based on a conspiracy theory that the LAPD planted the bloody glove and the blood splatter and so forth, and the jury accepted it. Now, you know, the evidence is pretty overwhelming. He, he killed his wife and her friend, and there was no, uh, police tampering. There was the one guy, Fuhrman, who was probably a racist, but it wasn't clear that he did anything. But my explanation is that in a way the jury, you know, uh, said, "Yeah, maybe not this time, but the LAPD have done these sorts of things."

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:09:21

       Right.

    3. MSMichael Shermer1:09:21

       And there's this great ESPN documentary series called O.J. in America, and it's like six hours long, and it, it tracks the history of the African American community post-World War II coming to Southern California and how bad the relationships were between the LAPD and the African American community, particularly right in downtown LA. And they did plant evidence. They did do things like that.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:09:42

       Yes.

    5. MSMichael Shermer1:09:42

       Right? So, there's an element of truth, back to conspiracism. It, it, you should be-

Episode duration: 2:49:12