Skeptic founder Michael Shermer on TEDTalks

Skeptic Magazine founder Michael Shermer takes us on a hilarious romp through the strange claims we humans put forth as truth - from alien encounters to Virgin Mary sightings on pizza pies, to hidden messages revealed while playing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards - and explains the evolutionary and cognitive basis for these lapses in reason. Don't miss the one-minute challenge testing your own observational skills... Shermer is the founder/publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and author of several books, including Why People Believe Weird Things. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:29)

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Comments

[Jason Che-han Yip]

The MP4 link doesn't seem to work

[Neave]

It should be http://ted.streamguys.net/ted_shermer_m_2005.zip
not 2006.

[solarblast]

Woe is the person without broadband.

It would be helpful if you stated the true time length and size of the file used for the Schermer icon above. It appears it may be 17+ minutes, or is that for "Why People ..."? There's an implication the icon is just the 1 minute challenge. There's also an implication that, if one isn't watching carefully, the '1 minute' segment is 1/2 loaded already. Of course, one really needs to click the underlined text to really view what is there (and discover it's longer than 1 minute).

Further the downloads (mp3, and mp4) suggest there's an audio only version and perhaps a video/audio (mp4) version. It's not clear, and maybe less so, since I'm not using broadband. Length and size, again, would be helpful.

I will head for another facility which does have broadband, since this looks like good material.

[Sheldon Helms]

I love me some Michael Shermer!

For more daily critical thinking, be sure and check out Julia Sweeney's blog at http://www.JuliaSweeney.blogspot.com !

Her presentation at TED was her one-woman show "Letting Go of God," which was just released on CD. It's hillarious, and very thought-provoking.

[solarblast]

OK, it looks like the download is something like 60M and is an mp4 file. What will play mp4?

[Carl]

Why was the 2-3 minutes with the video of the man in the gorilla suit cut out?

I think that was a very important part, that left me baffled (I didn't see it the first time).

I haven't noticed any parts of other talks removed. What's up?

[Bob Lane]

This talk is the first one I watched and now of course I am hooked. Shermer is entertaining and interesting and the content is excellent!