Why Darwin Matters

Also by Michael Shermer

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The Science of Good and Evil

In Darwin’s Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace

The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience
(general editor)

The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense

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How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God

Why People Believe Weird Things

WHY DARWIN MATTERS

MICHAEL SHERMER

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shermer, Michael.
   Why Darwin matters: the case against intelligent design / Michael Shermer.—1st ed.
       p. cm.
   ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8121-3
   ISBN-10: 0-8050-8121-6
       1. Evolution (Biology) 2. Intelligent design (Teleology) I. Title.

   QH366.2.S54 2006                                                                      2006041243
   576.8—dc22

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To Frank J. Sulloway

“There ain’t naught a man can’t bear if he’ll only be dogged.
It’s dogged as does it.”

In Darwin’s footsteps in all ways

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved
.

—Charles Darwin,
On the Origin of Species
, 1859

Prologue:
Why Evolution Matters

1. The Facts of Evolution

2. Why People Do Not Accept Evolution

3. In Search of the Designer

4. Debating Intelligent Design

5. Science under Attack

6. The Real Agenda

7. Why Science Cannot Contradict Religion

8. Why Christians and Conservatives Should Accept Evolution

9. The Real Unsolved Problems in Evolution

Epilogue:
Why Science Matters

Coda:
Genesis Revisited

Appendix:
Equal Time for Whom?

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Hence both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact—that mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth.

—Charles Darwin,
Journal of Researches
, 1845

In June 2004, the science historian Frank Sulloway and I began a month-long expedition to retrace Charles Darwin’s footsteps in the Galápagos Islands. It turned out to be one of the most physically grueling experiences of my life, and as I have raced a bicycle across America five times, that is saying something special about what the young British naturalist was able to accomplish in 1835. Charles Darwin was not only one sagacious scientist; he was also one tenacious explorer.
¹