. >> stephen: hines beinholtz, everybody. he will be in the city animal shelter euthanizing room follow. we'll be right back. >> welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight has written a book about where our beliefs come from. the belief fairy. please welcome michael shermer. (cheers and applause) good to see you. thanks for coming back. >> great to be back. >> you are the founding publisher of skeptic magazine. you have a new book called the beliefing brain, from goess and gods it to politics and conspiracys, how we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths. what is it about our brains that makes us give such long titles to them? (laughter) believing brain, what dow mean believing brain. >> well, the rule on that is something to tell you what the book is about. what it is about is h our briefs are formed first, for a variety of social, psychological, personal, emotional, subjective reasons and then we find the evidence to fit it. our brains are like lawyers, not scientists. our brains want to lawyer the data to fit our be