Joe Rogan Experience #1888 - Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer joins Joe Rogan to discuss his book on conspiracy theories and the psychology behind belief in them. The conversation ranges across the JFK assassination, MK Ultra, UFOs/UAP, the satanic panic, recovered-memory cases, and scientific fraud, with Shermer arguing that some suspicion is 'constructive conspiracism' while Rogan pushes back on several points like the magic bullet. They cover signal-detection reasoning, eyewitness unreliability, and how real government conspiracies (Operation Northwoods, Tuskegee, Operation Paperclip) make people reasonably distrustful. The second half drifts into moral progress, trans athletes in sports, religion as moral scaffolding, and a long exchange on psychedelics and whether DMT/ayahuasca reveal another reality or just brain chemistry.

• Shermer says he's convinced Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone after reading Posner and Bugliosi, while Rogan argues Oswald was a patsy in a larger plot.
  00:02:08
• Shermer lays out 'constructive conspiracism': it's rational to over-assume conspiracies because enough are real that missing one is the costlier error.
  00:13:27
• They discuss the Alzheimer's amyloid scandal, where falsified images and fabricated data may have steered decades of drug research.
  00:47:18
• Shermer recounts the Frank Olson case: the CIA paid the family ~$750,000 after he fell from a NYC window during MK Ultra, possibly pushed.
  01:15:20
• Shermer, a former Race Across America director, argues post-puberty male-to-female trans athletes have an advantage equivalent to doping.
  01:53:40
• Shermer admits a standing invitation to try ayahuasca and genuine uncertainty over whether psychedelics reveal another reality or just brain chemistry.
  02:31:08

• Operation Northwoods was a real Joint Chiefs plan to stage attacks and blame Cuba, signed by the chiefs but vetoed by Kennedy and McNamara.
  00:20:44
• Shermer's Last Law: any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence would be indistinguishable from God.
  00:43:06
• A 1950s Breen censorship board forced 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' to change a line so aliens couldn't claim the power of life and death.
  00:41:32
• Elizabeth Loftus's 'lost in the mall' studies showed adults can be made to vividly remember childhood events that never happened.
  01:02:35
• Operation Paperclip recruited Nazi scientists, with a paperclip on a file meaning the U.S. would adopt him before the Russians could.
  01:10:42
• Gigantopithecus, a real giant bipedal ape, coexisted with early humans and may underlie Bigfoot legends.
  02:16:34
• Per Leslie Kean, 90-95% of UFO sightings have normal explanations; the real debate is the remaining anomalies.
  00:33:45
• The Salem witch trials may be partly explained by ergot poisoning, an LSD-like fungus, on frost-damaged grain.
  01:38:31

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.