The Collapse of Open Inquiry: Sacred Victims and Forbidden Questions
Release Date: 12/28/2025
Shermer Says 8: Easter Without the Miracle
The Michael Shermer Show
On Easter Sunday, Michael asks whether the resurrection should be understood as history, myth, or something deeper.
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Debra Soh on Why Men and Women Are Drifting Apart, Dating Apps, and Gen Z
The Michael Shermer Show
Fewer people are having sex, fewer are forming lasting relationships, and many feel more isolated than ever. Why? Michael Shermer sits down with neuroscientist and author Debra Soh to discuss her new book Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. They talk about the so-called sex recession, why modern dating feels so broken, and how social media, pornography, AI companions, and changing expectations between men and women are reshaping intimacy. The discussion also touches on Gen Z mental health, dating apps, the manosphere, marriage, and the broader social consequences of a...
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The Psychology of Gaslighting, Bullying, Cults, and Coercion
The Michael Shermer Show
What do gaslighting, bullying, cults, and coercion have in common? In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with Jennifer Fraser about the psychology and neuroscience of manipulation, the recurring structure of abuse cultures, and the way authority can distort perception. Their discussion looks at fear, humiliation, retaliation, favoritism, empathy deficits, and the warning signs that distinguish legitimate leadership from coercive control across schools, workplaces, sports, relationships, and institutions. Jennifer Fraser is the author of four books and an international expert on bullying and...
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Did Jesus Really Change Western Morality? Bart Ehrman
The Michael Shermer Show
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Lionel Shriver on Immigration, Religion, and the Decline of the West
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer sits down with novelist and essayist Lionel Shriver for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens when old political labels stop making sense. Shriver reflects on the strange moral and political confusions that now shape debates over immigration, identity, religion, and the meaning of tolerance. They discuss why immigration has become, in Shriver’s view, the central political issue of this century; why support for illiberal ideas is often framed as compassion; why the culture of fiction and publishing has grown more timid; and how writers can still engage seriously...
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The Biggest Blind Spot of the Climate Movement: Nuclear Energy
The Michael Shermer Show
Zion Lights used to be deep inside the environmental movement: protests, arrests, road blockades, the whole thing. Then she started looking closely at the evidence around nuclear power and found that much of what she’d been told about energy, risk, and climate solutions didn’t hold up. In this conversation with Michael Shermer, she explains why anti-nuclear politics has done real damage, and why reliable energy matters far beyond moral posturing. She speaks from experience about Extinction Rebellion, energy policy in Germany and France, fear around Fukushima and Chernobyl, energy poverty,...
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DOGE, Government Fraud, and AI Audits
The Michael Shermer Show
Jeremy Jones joins Michael Shermer to talk about DOGE AI, government fraud, and the strange reality that some of the biggest problems in public life are both widely known and somehow never fixed. Jones explains how his team uses AI to sort through enormous government datasets, isolate suspicious billing patterns, and surface waste at a scale that would be almost impossible to catch by hand. They also get into Jones’s own background—growing up in Luxembourg, landing in Chicago, and seeing firsthand how different systems shape people’s lives—before moving into a broader argument about...
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Heretics: The Scientists Who Were Mocked But Later Proven Right
The Michael Shermer Show
Why do some world-changing ideas get ignored, attacked, or buried for years before anyone takes them seriously? Michael Shermer sits down with The Economist science correspondent Matt Kaplan to discuss the scientists who got there first and paid the price. They talk about why institutions resist new ideas, why careers can depend on defending the status quo, and why being right is often not enough. They discuss figures like Katalin Karikó, whose work on mRNA was dismissed long before it helped transform modern medicine, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who faced fierce backlash for arguing that...
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Shermer Says 7: Responding to Fan Mail … “Who Was Jesus?”
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer responds to a remarkable letter from a group of eighth graders at a Christian school in Texas who say they’ve been praying for him and want to talk about Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible.
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Why the Same Childhood Doesn’t Affect Everyone the Same Way
The Michael Shermer Show
For decades, developmental psychologist Jay Belsky has focused on one of the biggest questions in human development: how do early experiences shape the lives we go on to live? In this conversation with Michael Shermer, he explains why childhood adversity can leave deep marks, why some children are far more affected by experience than others, and why averages often hide the most important part of the story. Belsky revisits the old nature-versus-nurture debate, but pushes past the usual framing. His argument is not that childhood determines everything in some simple, uniform way....
info_outlineOpen inquiry depends on the ability to ask uncomfortable questions and follow evidence wherever it leads. Eric Kaufmann argues that this norm is now under strain.
Drawing on history, survey data, and political theory, Kaufmann outlines how certain identity categories came to be treated as morally sacred—and how that shift has reshaped debates about equality, free speech, and academic inquiry. The conversation examines the long roots of today’s culture conflicts, the move from equal opportunity to equal outcomes, and why disagreement is increasingly interpreted as moral transgression rather than intellectual difference.
At stake is what happens to liberal societies when some questions can no longer be asked, nd whether open inquiry can still be defended without abandoning concern for fairness and dignity
Eric Kaufmann is a professor of politics and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham. He has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Times of London, Newsweek, National Review, New Statesman, Financial Times, and other outlets. His new book is The Third Awokening.