Michael Shermer: How Scientific American Got Woke

The science writer and journalists talks identity politics, wokeness, trans athletes, and why his goal is to find out what is true rather than to “be right.“ “I think the second-wave feminists I’ve talked to are very worried about the kind of woke, gender-identity movement because it’s reducing women to just body parts,“ says Michael Shermer. “A guy can say, ’Well, if I just get breast implants [and] then I can have a vaginal plastic made out of a piece of my skin, I’m in. I’m a woman, right?’ Well, no, because women are not just tits and ass. There’s more to it than that, a lot more.“ For decades, Shermer has been one of the most popular—and provocative—explicators of science to popular audiences, having authored bestselling books such as Why People Believe Weird Things, Why Darwin Matters, The Moral Arc, and The Mind of the Market. He founded Sk