Why Darwin Matters_ The Case Against Intelligent Design - Michael Shermer [87]
4. Stephen Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (June 2004). For an analysis of this paper and how it got published, see Robert Weitzel, “The Intelligent Design of a Peer-Reviewed Article,” Skeptic Vol. 11, No. 4 (2005), pp. 44–48.
Epilogue: Why Science Matters
1. Richard Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), p. 339.
2. Sagan quotes from the DVD edition of Cosmos; the opening quote is from DVD 1, scene 1, and the subsequent quotes are from DVD 13, scene 11. See also the book version of the documentary series: Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), pp. 4, 345.
3. Sagan’s biographer, Keay Davidson, in fact, called Sagan’s novel Contact“one of the most religious science-fiction tales ever written.” Keay Davidson, Carl Sagan: A Life (New York: Wiley, 1999), p. 350. Consider what happens when the heroine of the story, Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster in the film version), discovers that pi—the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter—is numerically encoded in the cosmos, and that this is proof that a super-intelligence designed the universe: “The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle—another circle, drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature. Standing over humans, gods, and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe.” Carl Sagan, Contact (New York: Pocket Books, 1986), pp. 430–31.
4. Quoted in Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p. 40. Dawkins’s own essay on the spiritual beauty of science is a classic in this genre. He writes, for example: “Science is poetic, ought to be poetic, has much to learn from poets and should press good poetic imagery and metaphor into its inspirational service.” Dawkins then proceeds to do just that, in such elegant passages as this: “I believe that an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation even if we still have a long way to go before we find it, is a more beautiful, more wonderful place than a universe tricked out with capricious, ad hoc magic.” Richard Feynman also expounded on the aesthetics of science: “The beauty that is there for you is also available for me, too. But I see a deeper beauty that isn’t so readily available to others. I can see the complicated interactions of the flower. The color of the flower is red. Does the fact that the plant has color mean that it evolved to attract insects? This adds a further question. Can insects see color? Do they have an aesthetic sense? And so on. I don’t see how studying a flower ever detracts from its beauty. It only adds.” Richard Feynman, What Do YOU Care What Other People Think? (New York: Bantam Books, 1988.)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Reader’s Guide to the
Evolution–Intelligent Design Debate
Intelligent Design creationists are nothing if not prolific. Their arguments summarized in this book can be found in a number of works published over the past decade, the most prominent and widely quoted of which include:
Behe, Michael. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: Free Press, 1996.
Campbell, John Angus, and Stephen C. Meyer, eds. Darwinism, Design, and Public Education. East Lansing: