Why People Believe Weird Things — A Crisis in Perception (Sagan & Shermer Deep Dive)
In this Deep Dive, we explore why otherwise intelligent people come to believe false, unsupported, or irrational ideas—and why those beliefs are so difficult to dislodge.
Drawing from Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things, this episode examines the psychological, cultural, and systemic forces that make humans vulnerable to pseudoscience, superstition, and conspiracy thinking.
Rather than focusing on individual ignorance, we look at how cognitive biases, social incentives, media structures, and institutional failures shape belief itself—and…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.