Giving the Devil his Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 4/9/2020
EAN 9781108489782, ISBN10: 1108489788
Hardcover, 366 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Who is the 'Devil'? And what is he due? The Devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety's sake because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn't you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence 'unpleasant' ideas, what's to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer. The new collection of essays and articles takes the Devil by the horns by tackling five key themes: free thought and free speech, politics and society, scientific humanism, religion, and the ideas of controversial intellectuals. For our own sake, we must give the Devil his due.
Introduction. Who is the Devil and what is he due?
Part I. The Advocatus Diaboli
Reflections on Free Thought and Free Speech
1. Giving the Devil his due
why freedom of inquiry and speech in science and politics is inviolable
2. Banning evil
in the shadow of the Christchurch massacre, myths about evil and hate speech are misleading
3. Free speech even if it hurts
defending Holocaust denier David Irving
4. Free to inquire
the evolution-creationism controversy as a test case in equal time and free speech
5. Ben Stein's blunder
why intelligent design advocates are not free speech martyrs
6. What went wrong? Campus unrest, viewpoint diversity, and freedom of speech
Part II. Homo Religiosus
Reflections on God and Religion
7. E pluribus unum for all faiths and for none
8. Atheism and liberty
raising consciousness for religious skepticism through political freedom
9. The curious case of Scientology
is it a religion or a cult?
10. Does the Universe have a purpose?
11. Why is there something rather than nothing?
Part III. Deferred Dreams
Reflections on Politics and Society
12. Another dream deferred
how identity politics, intersectionality theory, and tribal divisiveness are inverting Martin Luther King, Jr's dream
13. Healing the bonds of affection
the case for classical liberalism
14. Governing mars
lessons for the red planet from experiments in governing the blue planet
15. The Sandy Hook effect
what we can and cannot do about gun violence
16. On guns and tyranny
17. Debating guns
what conservatives and liberals really differ on about guns (and everything else)
18. Another fatal conceit
the lesson from evolutionary economics is bottom-up self-organization, not top-down government design
Part IV. Scientia Humanitatis
Reflections on Scientific Humanism
19. Scientific naturalism
a manifesto for Enlightenment humanism
20. Mr Hume
tear. Down. This. Wall.
21. Kardashev's types and Sparks' law
how to build civilization 1.0
22. How lives turn out
genes, environment, and luck – what we can and cannot control
Part V. Transcendent Thinkers
Reflections on Controversial Intellectuals
23. Transcendent man
an elegaic essay to Paul Kurtz – a skeptic's skeptic
24. The real hitch
did Christopher Hitchens really keep two sets of books about his beliefs?
25. The skeptic's chaplain
Richard Dawkins as a fountainhead of skepticism
26. Have archetype – will travel
the Jordan Peterson phenomenon
27. Romancing the past
Graham Hancock and the quest for a lost civilization.