Michael Shermer: The Only Skeptic on the Alien Task Force - #562
Into the Impossible With Brian KeatingShow Notes
Michael Shermer just joined the White House’s new UAP task force alongside Avi Loeb. He also has a $1,000 bet with Loeb that we won’t find aliens by 2030. Both things are true. Subscribe if you want science with evidence, not speculation.
Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, author of Truth, and one of the most consistent voices for evidence-based thinking in public life. He was recruited onto the task force as the devil’s advocate. His job: be the skeptic in the room. He’s not a believer. He’s not even a neutral. He bet $1,000 against it.
Shermer has been following the UFO story since the early ’90s. He’s heard every disclosure promise. He’s still waiting. What changed is that now he’s in the room — and his job is to be the hardest person in it to convince.
What you’ll hear:
-Why the post-truth thesis is self-defeating the moment anyone argues for it
What Avi Loeb’s first ground rules reveal about what the task force actually is
-Leslie Kean’s own numbers: 90-95% explained, and what lives in the residue
-Why the extraordinary terrestrial hypothesis collapses under a simple counterfactual
-Brian’s case against the fine-tuning argument and why the universe is poorly tuned
-What Dennett got right about consciousness and why Shermer calls it an impossible problem
Your North Star should be truth. Not ideology, not politics, not religion.
CHAPTERS
00:00 The $1,000 bet with Avi Loeb
00:44 Truth: what it is and what post-truth actually means
03:06 How to change your mind without moving the goalposts
05:30 Base rate neglect and the hedge fund manager who beat the market 15 years in a row
07:00 Brian debates a moon landing denier for two hours
07:18 Shermer joins the White House UAP task force
08:20 Avi Loeb’s first meeting: no stories, no new physics
09:46 The advocatus diaboli: Shermer’s job on the team
11:06 Interdimensional beings, sentient plasmoids, and the escalation ladder
13:00 Grusch, classified claims, and why Ana Paulina Luna can’t hide behind a SCIF
15:08 Sagan’s dragon: the invisible, cold-blooded, levitating problem
17:00 Leslie Kean’s own numbers: 90-95% explained
18:16 The New Jersey UAP flap: drones, Venus, and Starlink
19:50 What lives in the 5% nobody explains
20:06 The extraordinary terrestrial hypothesis and why it fails
21:38 Nobody stays centuries ahead of anyone else
23:26 The residue of anomalies problem
23:44 James Webb, early galaxies, and whether the Big Bang is in trouble
25:56 Epistemology: different tools, different truths
26:54 Literal vs. mythological truth in religion
35:00 Why Jews don’t accept the resurrection
36:14 String theory, Brian Greene, and the fine-tuning argument
44:28 Brian’s case: the universe is poorly tuned
49:58 Flat Earthers, moon landing deniers, and the ego of secret knowledge
57:40 Daniel Dennett, free will, and consciousness as an impossible problem
01:00:00 What’s it like to be something else? The wrong question.
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Featured Guest:
Michael Shermer website: https://www.michaelshermer.com
Skeptic magazine: https://www.skeptic.com
Truth (book): https://michaelshermer.com/truth-what-it-is-how-to-find-it-why-it-still-matters/
Michael Shermer on Twitter/X: https://x.com/michaelshermer?lang=en
My books:
Losing the Nobel Prize (memoir): http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA
Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https:/
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