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Full Description
A clear-eyed look at thinking straight in a world crowded with noise, bias, and misinformation.
"Fake news." "Alternative facts." "Post-truth." Misinformation is everywhere, sparking public confusion and polarization. In Truth, best-selling author Michael Shermer cuts through the noise to argue that not only does truth still matter—but also that it's essential to our individual and collective flourishing. This sharp-sighted and accessible book provides a framework for thinking more clearly in an age clouded by doubt and distortion.
Shermer, the author of Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, explores why truth deserves our attention, how falsehoods take hold in the public's imagination, and how we can resist manipulation through reason, evidence, and open inquiry. This book introduces powerful tools for evaluating claims, including the concepts of causality, correlation, and Bayesian reasoning. Beyond these abstract ideas, he also examines how we determine truth in specific domains—such as science, history, and religion—and brings clarity to hot-button topics like UFOs, conspiracy theories, miracles, mystical experiences, consciousness, morality, God, and even existence. With his trademark wit and intellectual rigor, Shermer reveals how even the most intelligent among us fall prey to such pitfalls as "myside bias" and motivated reasoning and how a commitment to universal realism can help push back against tribalism and misinformation.
Truth offers a timely antidote to cynicism and confusion. It emphasizes critical thinking and urges readers to rebuild the intellectual foundations of a functioning democracy by embracing the pursuit of truth, however complex or inconvenient it may be.
Contents
Prologue. Why Truth Matters
Skepticism as an Agent of Reason Against Organized Irrationalism
Part I. Known Knowns
Chapter 1. The Truth About Post-Truth Truthiness
Why We Are Not Living in a Post-Truth, Postmodern, Fact-Free World
Chapter 2. What Is Truth, Anyway?
Justified True Belief, the Principle of Universal Realism, and Why Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Chapter 3. The Truth About Why
Causation, Correlation, Bayesian Reasoning, Signal Detection Theory, and the Determination of Cause and Effect
Chapter 4. The Truth About Coincidences and Miracles
How to Think About Highly Unlikely Events
Part II. Known Unknowns
Chapter 5. Religious and Mythic Truths
How to Think About the Resurrection and Other Myths
Chapter 6. Historical Truths
The Noble Dream of Pursuing Objective Truth About the Past
Chapter 7. Moral Truths
Science and the Search for Objective Universal Values
Chapter 8. Alien Truths
UFOs and the Search for Sky Gods
Part III. Known Unknowables
Chapter 9. The Truth About Consciousness
What Is It Like to Be You?
Chapter 10. The Truth About Free Will
Determinism, Self-Determinism, and Your Future Self
Chapter 11. The Truth About God
Arguments For and Against the Divine
Chapter 12. The Truth About Existence
Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
Epilogue. Like Gods
The Expanding Sphere of Knowledge and My God Gambit
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
