Why Darwin Matters (28 page)

4.
Michael Shermer,
Why People Believe Weird Things
(New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997), pp. 18–19.

5.
William R. Overton, “Memorandum Opinion of United States District Judge William R. Overton in McLean v. Arkansas, 5 January 1982,” in Langdon Gilkey (ed.),
Creationism on Trial
(New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 280–83.

6.
The
amicus curiae
brief is both concise (at 27 pages) and well documented (32 lengthy footnotes), and I discuss it at length in my book
Why People Believe Weird Things
, pp. 154–72.

7.
Stephen Jay Gould, “Knight Takes Bishop,”
Natural History
(May 1986).

8.
For a detailed account of the trial see: Burt Humburg and Ed Brayton, “Dover Decision—Design Denied: Report on
Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District
,”
Skeptic
Vol. 12, No. 2 (2006), pp. 23–29. Court documents are related materials may be found at the Web page for the National Center for Science Education:
http://www.ncseweb.org/
.

1.
William Dembski,
The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 41.

2.
Quoted in Steve Benen, “Science Test,”
Church & State
(July–August 2000). Available online at
http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs7002.htm
.

3.
William Dembski, “Signs of Intelligence: A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design,”
Touchstone
(1999), p. 84.

4.
Quoted in Benen, “Science Test,”
Church & State
(July–August 2000).

5.
Quoted in Jay Grelen, “Witnesses for the Prosecution,”
World
(November 30, 1996). Available online at
http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/11-30-96/national_2.asp
.

6.
Wedge Document, Phase III. For an extensive discussion and reprinting of the Wedge Document see Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross,
Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

7.
Phillip Johnson,
The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

8.
William Dembski, “Intelligent Design’s Contribution to the Debate over Evolution: A Reply to Henry Morris,” 2005. Available online at
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2005.02.Reply_to_Henry_Morris.htm
.

9.
Dembski,
Design Revolution
, p. 319.

10.
Paul Nelson statement available online at
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/49#more-49
.

11.
Quoted in “By Design: A Whitworth Professor Takes a Controversial Stand to Show That Life Was No Accident. Stephen C. Meyer Profile,”
Whitworth Today
, Whitworth College, Winter 1995. Available online at
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_bydesign.htm
.

12.
Jodi Wilgoren, “Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive,”
New York Times
, August 21, 2005. The Discovery Institute is not alone. In Virginia, Liberty University sponsored the Creation Mega Conference with a Kentucky group called Answers in Genesis, which raised $9 million in 2003 for their efforts to teach biblical Young Earth Creationism. See “Major Grants Increase Programs, Nearly Double Discovery Budget,” Discovery Institute
Journal
(1999). Available online at
http://www.discovery.org/w3/discovery.org/journal/1999/grants.html
.

13.
John Schwartz, “Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case against Evolution,”
New York Times
, May 28, 2005.

14.
Christoph Schönborn, “Finding Design in Nature,”
New York Times
, July 7, 2005.

15.
Bruce Chapman, “Ideas Whose Time Is Coming,” Discovery Institute
Journal
(Summer 1996). Available online at
http://www.discovery.org/w3/discovery.org/journal/president.html
.

16.
Wilgoren, “Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive,”
New York Times
, August 21, 2005.

1.
Francis Darwin (ed.),
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin
, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1887), Vol. 2, p. 105.

2.
Francis Darwin (ed.), Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 280–81.

3.
Janet Browne,
Charles Darwin: A Biography
(New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 503. See also Adrian Desmond and James Moore’s thoughtful discussion in their book,
Darwin
(New York: Warner Books, 1991), p. 387.

4.
Letter to J. Fordyee reprinted in Gavin De Beer, “Further Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin,”
Annals of Science
14 (1958), p. 88.

5.
Charles Darwin letter to Edward Aveling, October 13, 1880, quoted in Desmond and Moore,
Darwin
, p. 645. See also Stephen Jay Gould, “A Darwinian Gentleman at Marx’s Funeral,”
Natural History
(September 1999).

6.
The conflicting-worlds model of science and religion began in the late nineteenth century with the publication of two influential works that set the tone of the relationship for the next century: John William Draper’s 1874
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science
and Andrew Dickson White’s 1896
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
. Both Draper and White presented simplified histories of the alleged war through such prominent events as the discovery of the earth’s sphericity, Galileo’s heresy trial, and the 1860 Huxley-Wilberforce debate over evolution, all of which historians of science have discovered had a considerably more nuanced history.

7.
Pope John Paul II’s definitive statements on the relationship of religion and science, faith and reason, are presented in two encyclicals:
Truth Cannot Contradict Truth
(1996) and
Fides et Ratio
(1998).

8.
Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,”
Natural History
(March 1997). See also his expanded discussion in Stephen Jay Gould,
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1999).

9.
Karl Popper,
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
(New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp. 40–41.

10.
R. Sloan, E. Bagiella, and T. Powell,
The Lancet
Vol. 353 (2000), pp. 664–67. Michael Shermer, “Flying Carpets and Scientific Prayer,”
Scientific American
(November 2004), p. 35.

11.
John Paul II,
Truth Cannot Contradict Truth
. Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996.

1.
Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham, “Scientists Are Still Keeping the Faith,”
Nature
Vol. 386 (April 3, 1997), p. 435. The survey of 1,600 scientists was conducted by Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University. See Lea Plante, “Spirituality Soars among Scientists,”
Science and Theology News
(October 2005), pp. 7–8.

2.
If someone fully accepts the findings of science but privately believes that the forces of nature as described by science were God’s way of creating the world and its inhabitants, I see no reason to go out of my way to object.

3.
President Jimmy Carter’s written statement, issued by the Carter Center on January 30, 2004, and reported widely in the media. See, for example,
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/georgia.evolution/
.

4.
John Paul II, “Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,” reprinted in
The Quarterly Review of Biology
Vol. 72, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 381–83.

5.
Pew Research Center for People & the Press survey data available online at
http://peoplepress.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=254
. Results for this survey were based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationwide sample of 2,000 adults eighteen years of age or older between July 7 and 17, 2005. Harris poll data available online at
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581
.

The Harris poll was conducted by telephone within the United States among a nationwide cross section of 1,000 adults eighteen years of age or older between June 17 and 21, 2005.

6.
Charles Darwin,
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
(London: John Murray, 1871), Vol. 1, pp. 71–72.

7.
T. H. Huxley,
Evolution and Ethics
(New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1894).

8.
David M. Buss,
The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex
(New York: Free Press, 2002). See also David P. Barash and Judith E. Lipton,
The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People
(New York: W. H. Freeman, 2001).

9.
Paul Ekman,
Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Marriage, and Politics
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Paul Ekman,
Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life
(New York: Times Books, 2003).

10.
Adam Smith (R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, gen. eds., W. B. Todd textual ed.),
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 14. Originally published in 1776.

11.
Ibid., p. 423. Emphasis added.

12.
Charles Darwin,
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
(London: John Murray, 1859), p. 84. Emphasis added. The parallels between natural selection and the invisible hand are salient. Although Darwin does not reference Smith directly, when he matriculated at Edinburgh University for medical studies in October of 1825, he read the works of such great Enlightenment thinkers as David Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith. A decade later, upon his return home from the five-year voyage around the world on the
Beagle
, Darwin revisited these works, reconsidering their theoretical implications in light of the new data he had collected. Darwin scholars are largely in agreement that he modeled his theory of natural selection after Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, and there is a sizable literature on the connection between them. See, for example, Toni Vogel Carey, “The Invisible Hand of Natural Selection, and Vice Versa,”
Biology & Philosophy
Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 1998), pp. 427–42; Michael T. Ghiselin,
The Economy of Nature and the Evolution of Sex
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwin’s Middle Road,” in
The Panda’s Thumb
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), pp. 59–68; Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwin and Paley Meet the Invisible Hand,” in
Eight Little Piggies
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), pp. 138–52; Elias L. Khalil, “Evolutionary Biology and Evolutionary Economics,”
Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics
Vol. 8, No. 4 (1997), pp. 221–44; Silvan S. Schweber, “Darwin and the Political Economists: Divergence of Character,”
Journal of the History of Biology
Vol. 13 (1980), pp. 195–289.

1.
From Charles Darwin’s diary. See R. D. Keynes (ed.),
Charles Darwin’s
Beagle
Diary
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 353. I was able to snorkel in the bay and observe from beneath the waves the remarkable ability of the blue-footed boobies to penetrate several meters of water to nab their prey.

2.
The conference was the brainchild of Carlos Montufar, the co-founder of the sponsoring institution—the Universidad San Francisco de Quito—and a reader of
Skeptic
magazine who invited me to speak on the evolution-creation controversy. The five-day conference (June 8–12) was hosted by the Galápagos Academic Institute for the Arts and Sciences (GAIAS), a high-tech facility flanked by low-tech homes and businesses. GAIAS is operated by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, which obtained additional support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (which paid the way for graduate students in evolutionary biology to attend), Microsoft (which provided computers and Internet technology for GAIAS), UNESCO, and OCP Ecuador S.A., an oil conglomerate that provided additional funding.

3.
Donald Rumsfeld quoted in Hart Seely, “The Poetry of D. H. Rumsfeld,” Slate.com, April 2, 2003. Available online at
http://slate.msn.com/id/2081042.
See also the
New Yorker
article elaborating on Rumsfeld’s souce for the quote: “Rumsfeld’s work on the ballistic-missile commission convinced him that intelligence analysts were not asking themselves the full range of questions on any given subject—including what they didn’t know. Rumsfeld gave me a copy of some aphorisms he had collected during the process of assessing the ballistic-missile threat. ‘Some of these are humorous,’ he said, not quite accurately. One was ‘There are knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.’ (The saying is attributed, naturally, to ‘Unknown.’) ‘I think this construct is just powerful,’ Rumsfeld said. ‘The unknown unknowns, we do not even know we don’t know them.’” Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Unknown: The C.I.A. and the Pentagon Take Another Look at Al Qaeda and Iraq,”
The New Yorker
, February 10, 2003. Available online at
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/030210fa_fact
.