Michael Shermer acknowledges that his Skeptic Magazine was duped by PEER, an environmental activist group. Shermer apologizes for his credulity and role in spreading PEER's misinformation, while reaching the conclusion that "PEER is an anti-Bush, anti-religion liberal activist watchdog group in search of demons to exorcise and dragons to slay."

There are two lessons that can be drawn from this story.

First, consider this account:

Embarrassed and angered by all of this, I promptly phoned Jeff Ruch myself and inquired what evidence he has to support this claim. He initially pointed to the creationism book and the fact that the NPS has failed to address numerous challenges to the sale of same in their bookstore. When I pointed out that this is irrelevant to the claim in the press release, he then reminded me of the biblical passages that have been posted at places along the rim of the canyon. Again, I admonished, this is not evidence for his central claim. We went round and round on the phone until I finally gave up and hung up, convinced that he simply made up the claim out of whole cloth.

Apparently, Ruch thought he was dealing with a kindred spirit and that by simply expressing his own anti-religious complaints, someone like Shermer would back off. As you can see, activists are willing to stray from truth as long as it serves the higher good. But Shermer realized his credibility was at stake and needed evidence for a particular claim he passed on. He came to realize that the "skeptics" had been duped.

And that takes us to the second lesson. How is it that someone who parades the Skeptic Banner high and wide was duped by something that didn't pass the smell test for many of us? Well, it seems that even though Shermer has written about confirmation bias, he has failed to learn about it:

Unfortunately, in our eagerness to find additional examples of the inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life (as if we actually needed more), we accepted this claim by PEER without calling the National Park Service (NPS) or the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) to check it.

He admits an EAGERNESS to find ADDITIONAL examples of inappropriate intrusion of religion in American public life. Ask yourself, why would someone like Shermer be eager to see more examples of the thing he opposes? Because he has an agenda. By keeping threatiness alive, Shermer keeps his base motivated and energized. That's why you won't hear much from people like Shermer about this or this. Also, people like Shermer could very well be in the constant hunt for examples that would be rhetorically useful in the scheme of someone like Ian Lowe:

It should be relatively easy to rally against the fundies.

Pick an obnoxious trait, focus on what that would mean for the public at large, exaggerate it, and demonise that trait to the point that no rational person would consider supporting them. Caricature the entire dominionist/reconstructionist movement as nothing more than an embodiment of that trait.

Then, in every public debate or discussion, keep returning to the same obnoxious trait, referring to it the same way, giving the media their sound bite, and making sure that even if someone can't tell you one single element of a group's actual beliefs or plans, they can tell you that they have this obnoxious trait.

In this case, selling a creationist book in a bookstore was not obnoxious enough. So PEER made up something even more obnoxious in the hope of better rallying the troops and better demonizing their opponents. And Shermer fell for it. But in a way, it's not all that surprising that Shermer would fall for it. After all, he has also been credulously passing on the bogus Paul study.

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