Giving the Devil His Due

Reflections of a Scientific Humanist

By: Michael Shermer

Narrated by: Michael Shermer

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 best-selling 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.

©2020 Michael Shermer (P)2020 Michael Shermer

Critic reviews

"Michael Shermer is our most fearless explorer of alternative, crackpot, and dangerous ideas, and at the same time one of our most powerful voices for science, sanity, and humane values. In this engrossing collection, Shermer shows why these missions are consistent: it’s the searchlight of reason that best exposes errors and evil." (Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress)

"As always, Michael Shermer is hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and brilliant. The fascinating essays in this wide-ranging book will make you think - and then rethink." (Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations)

"Michael Shermer is the voice of reason, and this is a book of his best essays - the ones we most need to read to understand the madness of our time and to imagine a more reasonable future. The range of questions Shermer addresses and the breadth of his knowledge make this book a delight to read." (Jonathan Haidt, New York University, author of The Righteous Mind, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind)

Cleaning up

5 stars all around, Shermer is a once in a lifetime mind. The problem I had was the editing and cutting wasn’t up to Audible standards. Many time you hear Shermer start sentences over. That type of issue should be nonexistent.

Needs Editing but Still Great

Probably just an early version, but this initial version was not edited. Long pauses, repeat sentences, and a few times where the author is heard saying things like “try again. Still an important public intellectual and a wonderful book. Content is great, and I’m sure they will edit and make it a more seamless audio experience.

Upholding rationality and scientific skepticism.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A rousing defense of free speech and free thought and a clarion call for the abolishment of censorship.
Upholding rationality and scientific skepticism.
Remarkable insights into diverse subjects from morality to economics, from a scientific, evolutionary perspective.

interesting

very interesting to say the least. I enjoyed the prospective of listening to both sides.

Flawed Audio

I'm into chapter three and there are many audio clips that sound like the audio is skipping and jumping ahead a half second.

I attempted re-downloading the book and, and also tried playing though multiple devices, the audio skips seem to be part of the download itself.

If this is fixed someone let me know. one example is chapter 3 about 9min 30sec into the chapter it skips at the word "propaganda"

informative

an amazing listen with tons of academic and wonderful ideas and information. I would highly recommend for all critical thinkers in today's world.

Edits

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a book that had this many misses in editing.

A great story, HOWEVER

This is another in a long line of great and insightful books by Michael Shermer. I have read or listened to most of his previous books. Shermer reads many of his books. In the past he has done a fairly good job. But with this book he does a TERRIBLE job of reading his own book! After about the first third of the book, he begins making mistakes frequently. He will begin a sentence, stop, restart the sentence over, etc. This is very annoying, and I found myself losing the train of thought. On a number of occasions he restarts a sentence 3-4 times. In several instances he repeats the sentence 4 times and he mutters his annoyance. If he simply made this error on 2-3 times during the reading of the entire book, I could easily forgive him. But, I would estimate that he makes ~50 errors in reading the book. That is why I strongly urge anyone interested in this book to read a physical book. DO NOT BUY THE AUDIBLE VERSION.

It has finally reached the point where Michael Shermer needs to do one of 2 things if he is going to continue to produce audiobook versions of his books: 1. hire a professional reader or 2. hire an audio engineer to edit out Shermer's "flubs" in his reading. I will no longer buy audio versions of his future books.

Michael Shermer is a highly intelligent person who write terrific books from which I always learn a great deal, including this book. But he needs to produce better audio versions of his future books! I think he needs to hire a professional reader.

Bad audio file

Raw audio. Lots of false starts, throat clearing, and long pauses. I don't know if this was the wrong audio file or they didn't think to edit out the bloopers.

A Good Listen, But With Reservations

I really wanted to like this book more than I actually did. However, it suffered from the problem to which all compilations of previously published articles incline: repetition. For example, I can think of at least 3 instances in which the origin myth of scientology was stated in full detail. In addition, the exact same wording was employed multiple times for certain issues. I also found the choice of topics awkward in their progression. They did not flow into each other well. Several times I found myself rolling my eyes, forwarding on to the next section because I was hearing nothing that hadn't already been made abundantly clear. That said, there were moments of inspiration (e.g., the difference in world views between progressives and conservatives). However, I regret to say that I was not unhappy to reach the end of the narrative. Perhaps the book would have been more forgiving in a print format where one could skip a few pages ahead at times. Otherwise, cut-and-paste previously published work is not as attractive as a continuous analysis of current research and thought. I was also surprised to hear verbal stumbling and repetition of phrases afterward; I don't think I have listened to an Audible book wherein that happened.