Read Why Darwin Matters Online
Authors: Michael Shermer
I would also like to recognize
Skeptic
magazine’s board members: Richard Abanes, David Alexander, the late Steve Allen, Arthur Benjamin, Roger Bingham, Napoleon Chagnon, K. C. Cole, Jared Diamond, Clayton J. Drees, Mark Edward, George Fischbeck, Greg Forbes, the late Stephen Jay Gould, John Gribbin, Steve Harris, William Jarvis, Lawrence Krauss, Gerald Larue, William McComas, John Mosley, Richard Olson, Donald Prothero, James Randi, Vincent Sarich, Eugenie Scott, Nancy Segal, Elie Shneour, Jay Stuart Snelson, Frank Sulloway, Julia Sweeney, Carol Tavris, and Stuart Vyse.
As always, I wish to thank my agents, Katinka Matson and John Brockman, for the always professional manner in which they treat the literary business, as well as to acknowledge Paul Golob at Henry Holt / Times books, who oversaw the project, and most notably Robin Dennis, my editor, whose opinions on literary matters I trust more than my own. Jessica Firger in the Holt publicity department has unfailingly supported our long-range mission of promoting science and critical thinking by reaching larger audiences, and for this I am deeply grateful. I also thank Emily DeHuff for
sharp-eyed copy editing of the manuscript, Lisa Fyfe for the creative cover design, Victoria Hartman for the elegant interior design, and Rita Quintas for the editorial production process.
Thanks as well go to David Baltimore, Kip Thorne, Christof Koch, Susan Davis, Chris Harcourt, and Ramanuj Basu at Caltech for their continued support of the Skeptics Science Lecture Series at the institute. Larry Mantle, Ilsa Setziol, Jackie Oclaray, Julia Posie, and Linda Othenin-Girard at KPCC 89.3 FM radio in Pasadena have been good friends and valuable supporters for promoting science and critical thinking on the air. Robert Zeps, John Moores, Thomas Glover, Robert Engman, Gerry Ohrstrom, and Glenn Camni have been especially supportive of the Skeptics Society, and to them I am especially appreciative.
Finally, I acknowledge Kim and Devin for being my family and all that that means—which is everything; and most notably for this book, special thanks go to Frank J. Sulloway, who has taught me more about science and evolution than I could learn from a library of books, and whose influence is reflected in the dedication of this book.
adultery,
134
–35
Ahmanson, Howard, Jr.,
112
Ahmanson Foundation,
112
AIDS virus,
75
allopatric speciation,
10
–11
Ancestor’s Tale, The
(Dawkins),
14
–15
Anthropic Cosmological Principle
(Barrow),
55
Anthropic Principle,
54
–59
appendix as vestigial organ,
18
Aquinas, Thomas,
124
Archeaeopteryx
,
69
Aristotle,
124
artiodactyls,
51
Asimov, Isaac,
88
atheism,
118
–19
Aveling, Edward,
118
bacteria flagellum, irreducible complexity argument and,
66
–67,
69
,
70
–71
bait-and-switch logic,
67
Baltimore Sun
,
25
Bardwell, James,
75
–77
Barrow, John,
56
–57
Bengston, Stefan,
144
birds:
vestigial organs of,
18
wings, functions of,
68
–69
black holes,
58
blood clotting process,
68
Brattstrom, Bayard,
xxi
British Association for the Advancement of Science,
1
Browne, Janet,
118
quotes,
21
–23
Scopes trial,
23
–29
Bryan’s Last Speech: The Most Powerful Argument against Evolution Ever Made
,
24
Bush, George W.:
court appointments,
102
Buss, David,
134
Cambrian “explosion of life,”
143
–44
Candide
(Voltaire),
61
–62
capitalism,
136
–37
Carroll, Sean,
78
Carter, Jimmy,
127
–28
Case for Creation, A
(Davis),
102
cause-and-effect relationships,
60
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca,
15
Chaney, Lee Anne,
111
Chapman, Bruce,
113
–14
Christians, American:
acceptance of evolution,
127
–28
evangelical,
see
evangelical Christians
reasons to accept evolution,
129
–36
Clark, Russell,
134
Clarke, Arthur C.,
40
coccyx,
18
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,
159
comparative method,
15
competition,
131
complex adaptive systems,
64
complex design:
complex specified design argument,
82
–83
explanations of complex life,
145
–46
Explanatory Filter argument,
62
–65
Irreducible Complexity argument,
66
–71
complex specified information (CSI),
71
–72
Computer Assisted Design (CAD),
77
conclusions, scientific,
97
conflicting-worlds model of relationship between religion and science,
119
–20
Conservation of Information argument,
71
–75
conservatives, reasons to accept evolution for,
136
–38
dogs, ancestry of,
14
cooperation,
131
coral reef evolution, theory of,
2
–3
Arkansas trial of 1981,
95
–96
Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District
,
10
,
99
,
100
–105
Louisiana case of 1987,
96
–99
pending,
113
Scopes trial,
see
Scopes trial
Cox, Kathy,
127
Coyne, Jerry,
67
–68
creationism and creationists,
xxii
court cases,
see
court cases
as cultural issue,
xvii
–xviii
Darwin as,
xv
debating,
see
debating Intelligent Design
demographics of belief in,
xviii
different positions of,
166
–67
fears about theory of evolution,
24
geographic differences in attitudes,
xviii
liberal,
31
–32
Scopes trial,
23
–24
theologians, arguments of,
4
–5
creation stories of other cultures,
168
Crowell Trust, Henry P. and Susan C.,
112
Dalai Lama,
120
Darwin, Charles,
139
–40
autobiography,
3
–4
background of,
116
–17
coral reefs, theory of,
2
–3
creationism and,
xv
death of daughter Anne,
118
Descent of Man
,
130
–31