The reason is that in a group, individual errors on either side of the true figure cancel each other out.
Michael ShermerMachine intelligence of a human nature could be a century away, and immortality is at least a millennium away, if not unattainable altogether.
Michael ShermerMyths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.
Michael ShermerBelieving that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is only the wind does not cost much, but believing that a dangerous predator is the wind may cost an animal its life.
Michael ShermerWhat can be more soul shaking than peering through a 100-inch telescope at a distant galaxy, holding a 100-million-year-old fossil or a 500,000-year-old stone tool in one's hand, standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon, or listening to a scientist who gazed upon the face of the universe's creation and did not blink?
Michael Shermer