• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Unification Church, 110

Universal Probability Bound (UPB), 71–72

universe, dating of the, 16

University of California, Irvine, 45–46

uterus, male, 18

Velikovsky, Immanuel, 88

vestigial structures, 17–19

Virgin Mary apparitions, 61

Voltaire, 61–62

Vyse, Stuart, 38–39

Wallace, Alfred Russel, xvi, 7

“Was the World Made for Man?”, 34

“watchmaker” argument, 4–5

Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 137

Webb, John, 56–57

“Wedge, The,” 106, 109

Wedge of Truth, The (Johnson), 109

Wells, Jonathan, 83, 110

whales, vestigial organs of, 18

What Is Creation Science? (Morris and Parker), 102

Whewell, William, 12

White, Timothy, 147–48

Wilberforce, Archbishop Samuel (“Soapy Sam”), 99

Wisdom of God Manifested in Works of the Creation (Ray), 4

wisdom teeth, 18

wolves, evolution of dogs and, 14

Wonderful Life (Gould), 144

World Summit on Evolution, 2005, 140–53

World War I, social Darwinism and, 26, 27

Young Earth creationism, 102, 120, 148, 166

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MICHAEL SHERMER, PH.D., is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com), the executive director of the Skeptics Society, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Science Lecture Series at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and the co-host and producer of the thirteen-hour Family Channel television series Exploring the Unknown. About Dr. Shermer, the late Stephen Jay Gould wrote: “As head of one of America’s leading skeptic organizations, and as a powerful activist and essayist in the service of this operational form of reason, [he] is an important figure in American public life.”

Shermer is the author of numerous books. He has written a trilogy on belief: the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things, on pseudoscience, superstitions, and other confusions of our time; How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, on the origins of religion and belief in God; and The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share, Care, and Follow the Golden Rule, on the evolutionary origins of morality. He has also published two collections of essays, Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, about how the mind works and how thinking goes wrong, and The Borderlands of Science, which maps the fuzzy land between science and pseudoscience. He is also the author of a biography, In Darwin’s Shadow, about the life and science of the co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Denying History, on Holocaust denial and other forms of pseudohistory.

Shermer earned his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, his M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University at Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He was a college professor for twenty years, teaching psychology, evolution, and the history of science at Occidental College; California State University, Los Angeles; and Glendale College. He lives in Southern California.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

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

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33