It’s been 25 years of combatting fake news for Dr. Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society and Skeptics Magazine.
On Wednesday night, Dr. Shermer celebrates his 25th anniversary with a variety of celebrities such as Grammy-nominated artist, Mike Posner, YouTube channel ASAPScience hosts, Mitchell Moffit and Greg Brown, award-winning author Aspen Matis and his longtime “frenemy” as Dr. Shermer puts it, philosopher, Deepak Chopra.
Dr. Michael Shermer Photo Credit: Amy Soukoule
Dr. Shermer was able to bring these people together in a room for a live show called, ‘Truth? How Can We Know?’ as they talked about the role of skepticism in today’s political era.
There was a three part segment of different questions needed to be answered with experts in these fields that join both Dr. Shermer and Chopra.
Now how does the singer of ‘I took a Pill in Ibiza’ fit into all of this? Well he just recently released a philosophy podcast, ‘What does this all mean?’ that you can listen to now on iTunes. Dr. Shermer asked about Posner’s podcast that he recently aired, about the death of his father and how it truly affected his life as an artist. Posner got personal, talking about his father’s death and how partying during his tours and concert never made him truly happy or at peace.
From there Chopra and Dr. Shermer debated on many things throughout the night, but one of them is “what is reality.”
“No system of thought can give you access to reality,” Chopra said.
As the night went on, there were more segments from Dr. Shermer and Chopra with the ASAPScience hosts and Aspen Matis. Including a few bars dropped by the most nerdiest rapper ever, Baba Brinkman.
The hosts of ASAPScience, with almost 7 million subscribers on Youtube, Moffit and Brown, went on to talk about their initial start and how they bring people to have an quality attention span for science.
ASAPScience Hosts with Seth Andrews Photo Credit: Amy Soukoule
“We got the idea mainly from university where we learned about hangovers and why they happen,” Mithcell Moffit said.
The question of pop-culture and science turned into spirituality and religion and how people perceive things with the help of author of ‘Girl in the Woods: A Memoir,’ Aspen Matis.
Matis talked about how she hiked at the age of 19 through the woods of California, Oregon and Washington. She talked about how much she started to see the world around her differently.
“I remember thinking everything affects everything.” Matis said.
The live debate is in collaboration with Google and YouTube Space NY and broadcasted on The Young Turks network.
