Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters

by Michael Shermer

A clear-eyed look at thinking straight in a world crowded with noise, bias, and misinformation.

"Fake news." "Alternative facts." "Post-truth." Misinformation is everywhere, sparking public confusion and polarization. In Truth, best-selling author Michael Shermer cuts through the noise to argue that not only does truth still matter—but also that it's essential to our individual and collective flourishing. This sharp-sighted and accessible book provides a framework for thinking more clearly in an age clouded by doubt and distortion.

Shermer, the author of Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, explores why truth deserves our attention, how falsehoods take hold in the public's imagination, and how we can resist manipulation through reason, evidence, and open inquiry. This book introduces powerful tools for evaluating claims, including the concepts of causality, correlation, and Bayesian reasoning. Beyond these abstract ideas, he also examines how we determine truth in specific domains—such as science, history, and religion—and brings clarity to hot-button topics like UFOs, conspiracy theories, miracles, mystical experiences, consciousness, morality, God, and even existence. With his trademark wit and intellectual rigor, Shermer reveals how even the most intelligent among us fall prey to such pitfalls as "myside bias" and motivated reasoning and how a commitment to universal realism can help push back against tribalism and misinformation.

Truth offers a timely antidote to cynicism and confusion. It emphasizes critical thinking and urges readers to rebuild the intellectual foundations of a functioning democracy by embracing the pursuit of truth, however complex or inconvenient it may be.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Nonfiction, Psychology

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 27, 2026

About the author

Michael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale, California) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members.

Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Once a fundamentalist Christian, Shermer now describes himself as an agnostic nontheist and an advocate for humanist philosophy.


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Reviews

[Jerry James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read, kind of a ‘best of’ Shermer’s books. A lot of the philosophical questions he explores can be answered by “humility” in my opinion, but his command of reason is a breath of oxygen in this unreasonable time we live in.

[Micah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic! I plan to reread this over and over again to better understand the complicated chaos of irrational beliefs and Shermer's concise, objective responses and analyses of them.

My initial thought while reading the book was I don’t know why we have to continually be subjected to intelligent people who don’t have a basic understanding of science or the systematic process for pursuing truth. Rational explanations are available for those who genuinely want to know the truth. However, I think we have to accept that there are a lot of people who don't want to know the truth. Also, there are people who believe they have found the "truth" and will use their abilities to defend their version of it. I think one of the most concerning things is that the most intelligent people are the most able to support their confirmation biases and dance around the inconsistencies of their beliefs.

Yet, for skeptics and objective truth seekers we have much knowledge at our disposal to navigate the false beliefs that pervade our society. Ultimately, there is much more for humans to know and understand about the universe and the simple response to the unknowns of "I don't know" is perfectly acceptable.

[Paul Sand · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to "nudge" the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library (PPL) to get this book; fortunately, they are amazingly good at taking even my wackiest suggestions. (Although this one wasn't particularly wacky; they have a number of other books by the author, Michael Shermer, on the shelves.)

It's an interesting title, though. When I picked it up, I wisecracked to the PPL librarian at the desk: "Once I read this book, I won't need to read any of the others here," handwaving at the non-fiction stacks. She laughed. But maybe librarians are trained to laugh at customers' dumb attempts at wit.

Shermer has made a long career of "skeptically" examining factual claims, both orthodox and heterodox. (He's the Executive Director of the "Skeptic Society" and Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic magazine.) And he's written over a dozen books on various truth-related topics. My take on his 2022 book, Conspiracy, is here.

Back then, I wrote that Shermer's prose "seems to set my teeth on edge, and my brain to go into nit-picking mode." I'm happy to report that my teeth remained unedged for this one, and I have a lot fewer nits to pick.

As you might surmise from the title, this book is very wide ranging. The first few chapters engage the tools of the truth-seeker: humility, good faith, Bayesian reasoning, fallacy avoidance, and so on. He quotes liberally and admiringly from authors I admire too: Steven Pinker, Julia Galef, Richard Feynman, etc.

He then turns his skeptical eye to particular areas: religion/myth, holocaust denial, rational morality, aliens. His arguments are fairly made, and take some unexpected turns. (For example, he takes more than a few pages relating the stomach-turning behavior of Japan's invading troops in World War II (including the "Rape of Nanking"), and it's hard to deny that Japan successfully dodged the level of postwar condemnation aimed at Nazi Germany for its atrocities.

And then Shermer moves in to even more contestable territory (he admits he's dealing with "known unknowns"): consciousness, free will, the existence of God, and (yes) the thorny problems of "why is there something, rather than nothing" and "why does the universe seem to be fine-tuned to allow our very existence."

I was particularly interested in Shermer's take on free will. He summarizes (always fairly) the various camps: determinism, compatabilism, libertarianism, etc. He quotes the arguments of determinists Robert Sapolsky and Sam Harris extensively. (My own takes on Sapolsky's and Harris's anti-free will books were less sympathetic: here and here.)

But in one of those surprising turns, Shermer turns out to disagree strongly with Sapolsky/Harris determinism. Instead he advocates "self-determinism", pointing to our capacity to make decisions that can be fairly called ours. And he claims this capacity is a "self-organized emergent property": although the components of our free will (neurons, hormones, etc.) are themselves totally governed by laws of physics and biochemistry, the resulting complex interactions give rise to the ability to make rational, conscious choices for our actions.

Shermer winds up dismissing Harris and Sapolsky as having "physics envy." (Interestingly, Sapolsky provided an approving blurb on the book's back cover. Making me wonder if he read the free will stuff.)

I've blogged my "further thoughts" on the opening paragraphs of Shermer's free will chapter here: Free Will is More Than Button-Pushing.

Otherwise, I have only a few nits to pick. Shermer misuses (in the usual way) "begs the question" on page 301. On page 305, he claims "physicists Barrow and John Walsh … have demonstrated how the speed of light, gravitation, and the mass of the electron have in fact been inconstant over time"; I am pretty sure this has not been "demonstrated", and it's far from established fact.

At least in the edition PPL got, there's a weird typo on page 309: "… one part in 1010123 at least." (If you're reading this at Goodreads: Goodreads doesn't understand "sup" and "sub" HTML tags, sorry. It looks OK on my blog.)

And on page 317, he analogizes the progress of scientific knowledge to an expanding sphere: as the sphere grows in volume, the boundary layer between the "known" and the "unknown" grows too. Since the sphere's volume increases as the cube of the sphere's radius, its surface area only goes up as the square of the radius. And so "the volume of the known increases by a ratio of 3:2 over the surface area of the unknown.

As Wolfgang Pauli said (albeit in German): "That is not only not right; it is not even wrong!"

Still, a lot of good stuff here. Might be an especially good book to give to a bright high school or college kid. Although maybe not if you want to keep him or her a church-goer; Shermer's pretty hard on the God stuff.

[Greg Talbot · Rating 2 out of 5]

If we are basing the exploration of truth only on "objectivity" and "falsifiability," then Shermer's Truth checks all the boxes. Like its spiritual father, Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World, Shermer explores areas where a scientific worldview enlightens a civilization. The superstitions, alien encounters, and Biblical prophecies require a preponderance of evidence which they do not generally have.

While I admired the breadth of the book, its exploration of humane rationality from faith to free will, I also thought it was lacking in two respects. The information environment we live in is notably atomized — we as a culture lack a shared set of facts, and therefore lack shared beliefs. The accretive progress of science may be inexorable, but I'm not sure the knowledge of "truth" and the assimilation of "truth" go hand-in-hand. Whether it's anti-vaxxers, QAnon conspiracists, the political underpinnings of Christian nationalism, or the regular incredulous lies of the Trump administration, we live in a time where there is money and power in pushing falsehoods algorithmically. I appreciate the philosophical puzzle box of the book, but thought it didn't touch the moment many Americans like myself are living in. As AI-generated content, from art to political propaganda, injects itself into our culture, I would think the cultural understanding of truth, though a loaded conversation, is worth having.

My second issue with the book can be summed up by a quote from Rainn Wilson about his podcast SoulPop: "The God you don't believe in is the same one I don't believe in." Shermer treats mythical truths as their own category of facts — myths with social identity. I thought there were opportunities to be in conversation with poets and religious figures in a more thoughtful, earnest way. We know there are dialogues with faith communities and scientific leaders — consider, for instance, the meditation conversations with the Dalai Lama and University of Wisconsin's Richard Davidson. If we only ground ourselves in left-brained, deductive thinking, we miss a chance to incorporate the power of will, the innate, the romanticism of the world. The latest book by Michael Pollan, "A World Appears" — investigated consciousness in a way that honored those subjective experiences and suggested boundaries beyond our current science, like panpsychism, that may require a leap of faith in our moment. Perhaps we must choose scientific worldviews over faith when it comes to the hard sciences, but we risk losing the wisdom of our species if scientific determinism overrides everything else that makes our lives worth living: relationships, empathy, care, purpose, and the indomitable desire to create. I've always thought God seems more logical, if less provable, the older I get — if only to honor the brilliant irrationality of our lived experience.

There are some great sections, particularly the "known knowns" section, but ultimately I thought the book lost its relationship with me as a reader, and seemed a bit smug when it could have been more open, especially regarding religion.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good and solid foundation on how to think about truth in the modern context where pseudoscience and echo chambers make it hard to know what to believe.
Lost a few stars for the handling of the more philosphically tricky concepts like free will and morality. The latter was definitely worth tackling and the basic groundwork was good, but the arguments weren't particularly convincing for anyone other than those who already buy into his approach.

For a general audience, many of whom don't have a good grasp of science or philosophy, this is definitely worth a read to understand how people who don't like to take things at face value or on faith think about what information to trust.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong overall message, I wish he would talk more about mass communication when discussing pluralistic ignorance.

He goes into depth at the end of the book regarding Human capabilities and Moore's Law but doesn't really apply that to its ability to affect information or population control to inhibit the "Truth".

Great book, though I really think he may have been writing it to gain academia bragging rights as opposed to trying to pass hus message on to the masses who need to hear it.

Everyone I know who needs this book wouldn't pick it up, and if they did would quit after page 4.

[Hamid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book argues that objective truth exists, can be pursued through reason and evidence, and remains essential for trust, justice, and meaningful discourse. It’s a clear, accessible defense against postmodern relativism and “alternative facts,” though its traditional approach may feel unadventurous to seasoned philosophers. Worth reading for anyone frustrated by spin, cynicism, or the erosion of shared reality.

[David Provost · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title of this book is fairly straight forward. The book itself, however, is not. Rather, it reads like a college level philosophy text book, with a myriad of technical jargon that is difficult to follow. I am a rather well educated person, but I had to reread a number of the book's sections in order to follow the author's drift.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. Clearly and effectively written with supporting examples and persuasive discussion. The range and nature of the many types of truths which he covers are impressive. Shermer’s words are thought provoking as well as informative.

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This made my head spin ...

[Daniel DeLappe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author always writes a great book. Kind of a hard read, but very much worth the effort

[Kamal R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating overview of a millennia old idea from early Greeks to today and putting them in easy to follow chapters. Dr. Shermer is an amazing writer and communicator of science.