Michael Shermer: How Scientific American Got Woke

The science writer and journalists talks identity politics, wokeness, trans athletes, and why his goal is to find out what is true rather than to "be right."

"I think the second-wave feminists I've talked to are very worried about the kind of woke, gender-identity movement because it's reducing women to just body parts," says Michael Shermer. "A guy can say, 'Well, if I just get breast implants [and] then I can have a vaginal plastic made out of a piece of my skin, I'm in. I'm a woman, right?' Well, no, because women are not just tits and ass. There's more to it than that, a lot more."

For decades, Shermer has been one of the most popular—and provocative—explicators of science to popular audiences, having authored bestselling books such as Why People Believe Weird Things, Why Darwin Matters, The Moral Arc, and The Mind of the Market. He founded Skeptic magazine in 1992 and hosts a video podcast with leading activists and intellectuals. For nearly 20 years, he authored a widely read column for Scientific American in which he debunked beliefs in UFOs and other paranormal phenomena, explained the rise of the "new atheism," and showed how evolution systematically informs human behavior. Shermer's work is deeply and explicitly rooted in libertarian and Enlightenment ideas about individual responsibility, free market economics, rationality, and the search for something approaching objective truth.

In 2019, Scientific American cut him loose, a move he ascribes to the publication's suffocating embrace of the sort of identity politics and wokeness that he says dominates academic and intellectual circles and, increasingly, the culture at large. 

Last fall, Shermer, who holds a Ph.D. in the history of science and teaches a class called Skepticism 101 at Chapman University, started a weekly Substack where he posts podcasts and the columns he would have written for Scientific American. The 67-year-old former competitive cyclist talked with Reason during FreedomFest, an annual gathering in Las Vegas, about what he sees as the fundamental clash between wokeness and scientific inquiry, how hard it is to overcome the cognitive biases we all have, why he thinks trans athletes should be banned from most women's sports, why we have so much trouble acknowledging moral and technological progress, and why he now identifies as a classical liberal rather than a libertarian.

Shermer has sat down with Reason a number of times since 2008, speaking about the future of science, how evolution formed the modern economy, and his "Google theory of peace." He's also spoken to us about the history of modern skepticism, why everyone wants to believe in Heaven, and why self-help gurus aren't the key to happiness.

Photo Credits: Willie J. Allen Jr./ZUMApress/Newscom; Loxton, via Wikimedia Commons; Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Fronteiras do Pensamento, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Fronteiras do Pensamento, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Fronteiras do Pensamento, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Sports Press Photo/Daniela Porcelli / SPP/Sipa USA/Newscom; Jose Perez / SplashNews/Newscom; Tristanb at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Kenneth Martin/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Glasshouse Images Glasshouse Images/Newscom; RICHARD B. LEVINE/Newscom.

Music Credits: "Just Make It Fun," by Custommelody via Artlist.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Video by Regan Taylor and Adam Czarnecki.

[billcosgrave]

I used to read Scientific American until I graduated from college in the 1980's. I found it to be a an excellent magazine with many excellent and rigorously written articles. I picked a copy of it recently and I was shocked at how it has turned into total crap!! Another example of the dumbing down of America. I really fear for this country's future and luckily I will not be around to see it.

[paulsnow]

I consumed Scientific American as a kid in the 70's. I grew into an Engineer, building interpreters, compilers, embedded systems, children's software, rules engines used by some states even today, and now blockchain technology. Innovation, science, creativity, technology and more were the life blood and ethos of Scientific American.

How sad for them to lose their way.

[lockerius]

DeSantis didn't slap Disney with higher taxes, he removed some EXTREMELY beneficial tax breaks that nobody else was getting.

He was balancing it out, making it equal for everyone. THAT is a libertarian belief.

[PeterDivine]

19:51 - Desantis isn't "slapping Disney with regulation, " he's revoking a company's ability to run their own private kingdom complete as a tax haven and he's doing it so DISNEY doesn't tacitly dictate state policy.

Revoking special government privileges for favored companies should be a libertarian value. Instantly soured my opinion of this guy. Grossly reductive and false.

[rasmur]

One of the most disturbing aspects of woke ideology for me is its attack on meritocracy—or academic standards of merit such as standardized tests and tests for professions.

[vociferon-heraldofthewinte]

Shermer is for gun control, vaccine mandates and massive tax breaks for certain corporations. How exactly is he a libertarian or classical liberal?

[Muonium]

I let my subscription lapse about 20 years ago because it was getting obnoxiously politically biased and sensationalist even then. Compared with the absolute irredeemable trash it's become today it was practically Nature or Zeitschrift für Physik back then. I have a huge bound and hard covered 1887 year in review edition on my coffee table that a relative gave me as a gift and it was truly an amazing resource of clearly explained cutting edge scientific information. What an absolute disgrace they've become in just the last few years alone.

[Baconmanperson]

Desantis didn't "sic the government on Disney" He (and his congress) simply decided to not continue providing special protections and privileges to a company that went out of its way to show that it was no longer fostering the kind of community they want to incentivize in Florida.

[mehtacotute]

Scientic American doesn't really seem to be either scientific or American....

[wetwingnut]

Discovering Scientific American in high school in the seventies changed my life. I hardly ever made it all the way to the end of any paper - they were published papers then, not articles - but what I learned from reading as much as I could follow was immense. Sci Am taught me to think like a scientist, be rationally skeptical, and showed me what REAL science looks like.
I recently got a subscription for my son who just started high school, but it is nothing like the eye opening journal that I remember.
What a tragic loss.

[aaxen]

One of the strongest memories I have of my father, a physicist, was him in his chair reading SciAm of an evening ... he'd be rolling over in his grave seeing the rag that it has become.

[mendocinolake]

Science mixed with the certainties of politics or religion often yields a sloppy and sour stew.
The cleanness of Scientific American’s articles relatively free of political taint prior to 25 years ago was a celebration of the nature of science and actually one of my joys in life. It is sadly missed.

[normanhosford]

I had quit reading SA about 10 years ago when it became more political than scientific. It had been trending for some time and the time to read it became more valuable than the science in it.

[EquippedwithStrength]

The straw for me was their article saying sex is a spectrum. I couldn’t believe they published it. Utter nonsense and non-science.

[atgrandfathersknee]

Wait, am I supposed to watch this while pretending like Shermer wasn't a part of the problem that got us where we are today in public discourse and academia?

[rao]

I remember when this magazine declared Barack Obama as among the top 10 scientific personalities of 2008 in its Jan/Feb 2009 issue. This type of Kim Jong Uhn grovelling put me off. Havent read it since then.

[Desrtfox]

I used to be subscribed to Scientific American (in print even back in the day). Increasingly over the years, and especially in the last year or two SciAm has just been covering far too much of the Religion of Woke, instead of the Science of anything. Too bad. A once great institution brought low by identity politics. Here's hoping that one day, they recover.

[englishincontext]

The scientific method is not concerned with CULTURE. That is the remit of psychology and sociology. A scientific journal has no business trying to "steer' society about cultural issues.

[joebiz]

Shermer says he no longer considers himself a libertarian because he doesn't believe that we should be able to do whatever we want, which is why he now calls himself a Classical Liberal. Yet earlier in his remarks, he said he's hardcore pro-choice, which I have to assume means to take a life for any reason and at any time during the pregnancy. He states he's no longer a libertarian as it conveys an attitude unconstrained. He defies the new position he set for himself on just this issue alone.

[KeefWard]

“Most of us really should get vaccinated, they work.”

You’re fired.