Michael Shermer is a science writer, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating supernatural or pseudoscientific claims. Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series, "Exploring the Unknown" and a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine.
Shermer is the author of several books that attempt to explain the ubiquity of irrational or unsubstantiated beliefs. Why People Believe Weird Things, treats a variey of "weird" ideas and cults, in the tradition of the skeptical writings of Martin Gardner. He has devoted entire books to Holocaust deniers (Denying History), and to belief in God (How We Believe). Shermer, once a fundamentalist Christian, is now, according to his book The Science of Good and Evil, a nontheist and an advocate for a materialist philosophy.
Shermer received his bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University in 1976 in Psychology/Biology, his master's degree from California State University, Fullerton in Experimental Psychology two years later, and his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in History of Science in 1991 (with a dissertation entitled "Heretic-Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Evolution of Man: A Study on the Nature of Historical Change").
Shermer is also a bicycle enthusiast and was once a marathon bicycle racer; he completed the Race Across America several times. He has produced over a half dozen documentaries on cycling.
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