World Famous Comics: Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
By: Michael Shermer Publisher: Holt Paperbacks Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 224 Publication Date: July 24, 2007 Release Date: July 24, 2007 Studio: Holt Paperbacks
“Shermer is savage about the shortcomings of intelligent design and eloquent about the spirituality of science . . . An invaluable primer.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and intelligent-design campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology.
In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not “just a theory” and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that intelligent-design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
Book Description:
Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and “Intelligent Design” campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology.
In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life’s complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not “just a theory” and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself.
Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
Good book on why intelligent design is irrelevant ^ A highly readable book that precisely discusses the current debates around evolution, intelligent design, why people belief in God and why Darwin matters. Shermer knows exactly what the issues are and presents them in a straightforward way. I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in this topic, whether believer or skeptic.
Why Shermer is clueless ^ This is just a start as I have just started reading the book.
However before the first chapter is finished Shermer already made several errors.
1- Creationists do NOT argue for the fixity of species
2- Shermer's example of wolves "evolving" into dogs is perfectly acceptable for young earth creationists. They call it "variation within a Kind".
3- Shermer then conflates Creation with Intelligent Design proving he doesn't understand ID.
Effective if somewhat politically correct ^ I have liked every book Shermer has written, and this is no exception. He is an eloquent voice for science, surpassed today perhaps only by Neil Tyson. I also recommend his magazine, Skeptic. Why Darwin Matters does a good job of explaining to a non-scientist why evolution is true and intelligent design is nonsense. My only caveat about the book is that Shermer is too soft on religion. He protests--a little too much--that evolution (and science in general) are compatible with Christianity. I simply don't agree with this assumption; I think he tries too far to accomodate superstition (i.e. religion) in this book. Notwithstanding this flaw, I highly recommend Why Darwin Matters.
Kindle Version is Unreadable ^ If you are thinking of buying this book for the Kindle, don't. At least if you have a 1st generation Kindle.
This book is formatted in the new Amazon "topaz" formatting that allows for fonts to be embedded in the book, rather than using the default system font. And the font chosen for this book is hard to read on my Kindle-1. It appears fainter than the default system font, and letters and words often have gaps, making them appear split.
The other big flaw, is that the endnotes aren't linked. Every other e-book I own links the note number with the actual note, allowing me to jump to and read the note and then return to my place in the book. Not this book. You can see the note numbers, but they're not linked, just pretty little superscripts sitting there with nothing to do. How in the world does Amazon expect me to read the endnotes without taking five minutes to go to the table of contents, find the label for endnotes, link to the beginning of the notes, page through until I find the note I want, read it, and then backtrack to the page I am reading. And don't forget that if you can't remember the title of the chapter you are currently reading (it's not displayed on the kindle), then you have to page back to the beginning of the chapter before you can go find the note.
Overall, the flaws with the font and endnotes made this book unreadable on my Kindle-1. I returned it and bought the book in paperback from my local B&N.
Good Book for Evolution Junkies ^ This book by Michael Shermer is the case against intelligent design, how it's probably very unlikely that the universe and world we know of was not created by a designer.
This books presents the facts about evolution and debunks the idea that intelligent design is not of scientific theory. Simply put, evolution is real and isn't going away anytime soon. The idea that public schools are getting pushed by creationists and intelligent designers doesn't make the case against evolution. They lack one thing, the facts and scientific theory.
Shermer details the facts of evolution in a way that anyone of any age can understand. If you are already on the evolution side or an atheist, this book gives more insight to the facts that evolution does exist and is real. If you are religious, this is still a good read to maybe sway you with more details that our universe and life as we know it probably wasn't created by some divine designer.
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