The Humor of Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic Magazine and columnist for Scientific American, represents the best and worst of modern science. On the plus side, he writes well, typically picks interesting topics, and gives me a lot material to write about. On the negative, he displays the sort of overly-confident, “it is true because I said it is” attitude that is all too prevalent in modern science. One of his favorite topics, which he writes about in the October 2015 issue of Scientific American, is the distinction between science and pseudoscience. This time he pokes fun at the Electric Universe conference at which he was recently asked to speak. The Electric Universe community apparently believes that electricity, instead of gravity, is the dominant force in the universe. And so Shermer, of course, ridicules this group for straying from mainstream science. He points out that because the Electric Universe community has no peers it...
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