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 how 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 beliefs. isn't it nice -- >> are our brains charging us by the hour. >> yes, they are expensivement isn't it nice we can use that word as a known and verdict. we marshal the facts to fit our beliefs that we already hold. if are you a conservative you read "the wall street

michael shermer thank you so much. the book is the beliefing brain. we'll be right back. >> stephen: that's it for the report, everybody. good night! (cheers and applause)

we continue freedomfest 2011 with michael shermer. mr. shermer is the author of "the believing brain" and he talks about how her rational beliefs are formed. this is about 50 minutes. >> good morning. i am michael shermer is the director of the skeptic society. i think we actually have a slight of that. there we go. we are the quarterly publication of the skeptic society which is a five o. one c. organizations with claims of all kinds between good science, bad science, pathological science non-science and plain old nonsense. lsu been abducted by aliens and that i marcie know there's a lot of it out there. nonsense, that is. some people call it the boxer in some people say there is a lot of bunk and some -- and that is part of our job. why people believe weird things which is the title of my first book and the believing brain is why people believe anything at all. not just weird things. i would invite you all to go to skeptic.com and strive to get the magazine. we believe in a supreme but a rational society a society based on science. we l