Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

  • How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
  • By: Steven Novella
  • Narrated by: Steven Novella
  • Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (206 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe cover art

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

By: Steven Novella
Narrated by: Steven Novella
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Demon-Haunted World cover art
Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills cover art
Existential Physics cover art
Conspiracy cover art
Paranormality cover art
The Dream cover art
The Ethical Brain cover art
Science Friction cover art
Conspiracy cover art
Complexity cover art
Good Thinking cover art
Failure: Why Science Is so Successful cover art
What's Our Problem? cover art
Skeptic cover art
No Sacred Cows cover art
The Critical Thinker's Dictionary cover art

Summary

An entertaining and all-encompassing guide to skeptical thinking for the age of misinformation.  

In this tie-in to their popular The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, Steven Novella, along with 'Skeptical Rogues' Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella and Evan Bernstein, explain the tenets of skeptical thinking and debunk some of the biggest scientific myths, fallacies and conspiracy theories (anti-vaccines, homeopathy, UFO sightings and many more.) They'll help us try to make sense of what seems like an increasingly crazy world using powerful tools like science and philosophy.   

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is your guide through this maze of modern life. It covers essential critical thinking skills as well as giving insight into how your brain works and how to avoid common pitfalls in thinking. They discuss the difference between science and pseudoscience, how to recognise common science news tropes, how to discuss conspiracy theories with that crazy colleague of yours and how to apply all of this to everyday life.  

As fascinating as it is entertaining, this enthralling audiobook is your essential guide to seeing through the fake news and media manipulation in our increasingly confusing world. 

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.

©2018 SGU Productions LLC (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A fantastic compendium of skeptical thinking and the perfect primer for anyone who wants to separate fact from fiction." (Richard Wiseman, author 59 Seconds)

"Thorough, informative, and enlightening...If this book does not become required reading for us all, we may well see modern civilisation unravel before our eyes." (Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry)

What listeners say about The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    176
  • 4 Stars
    24
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    155
  • 4 Stars
    29
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    160
  • 4 Stars
    21
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderfull sourcebook

Great book about critical thinking. Very important information and tools to cope In our modern world.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A solid foundation for a fact based world

The crew of the SGU, read by Steven Novella, delivers an A-Z rendition of the skeptical tool kit.

It's not given that every human dialog should be fact based or scientifically accurate, but everybody who care about truth, transparency and collective human endeavors should be able to present and consume a position based on its factual standing and adjust your position as new information becomes available.

And find that the world becomes more fascinating and breathtaking than your imagination could make it.as the true world reveals itself to you through the eye of the skeptic. To build your understanding of the world and hone your skeptical chops in the society where both information, disinformation and misinformation fights for your mind.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Comes across as a bit egotistical

It's very revealing about arguments and bias, unfortunately, it is swamped with references to both good and bad research, so much so it seems tricky to find the point of his rambling. He appears to have a huge aversion to pseudo-scientists too. Quite the rant.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Great Performance but Empty Rhetoric

In a nutshell, this book conflates extreme nonsense such as ghost hunters with climate sceptics. This book promotes the political concept of a consensus as scientific fact. Not one single serious scientific topic for which there is polarisation and disagreement was tackled. Instead example after example of their stunning takedowns of ghost hunters, faith healers and the whole panoply of snake oil salesmen in general. This book is a manual on how to use sceptical terms to effectively mask appeals to authority and ad-hominem derision such as labelling anti-vaxers as conspiracy theorists (that didn't age well) and the old 'but it is peer-reviewed science' defence.

On the plus side, there is some talk of p-hacking, but it is dismissed as not that relevant, and other scientific problems such as publishing bias, mates-review (aka fake peer review), circular references, salami slicing, significance testing flaws were not tackled properly if at all.

All in all, a shallow and agenda-driven attempt to steer the notion of scepticism as acceptance of reported (i.e. what they call mainstream) scientific opinion and quite an intellectually dangerous read for the uninitiated.

If you want a window into the world of disinformation and scepticism, start with Nassim Taleb's The Black Sawn. Probably the most unbiased and objective perspectives of reality out there.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Should be read by all

This is not a self-help book, but a useful, educational and entertaining guide to ourselves, mostly on how to understand and try to overcome our own biases, cognitive traps and misconceptions. This book should be read by all. Humanity would be better off.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Critical thinking gets serious.

An antidote to cultural hypnosis, delusion, wish thinking, denial, and a demonstration of the truth-seeking potency of the grey blob between our ears.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Do yourself a solid relax & listen to this work

A wonderful experience delivered to the gold standard i have learned to expect from this small band of rogues! 😉 The world needs more critical thinkers... yesterday.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book to teach you critical thinking.

Loads of interesting topics covered to start you on the road to critical thinking and makes you aware of the amount of pseudo science that exists today.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great introduction to Skepticism, and good listen.

Easy listen, I would definelty raccomomend as a good intro to critical thinking and Skepticism, and why they matter.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Pretty much everything you need to know

A fantastic compendium. Really helps you understand how humans can be simultaneously brilliant and flawed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!