Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design

Michael Shermer

Henry Holt and Company, Aug 8, 2006 - Science - 199 pages

A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda
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.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Razinha - LibraryThing

Excellent book, well-documented, well-reasoned and goes on the "must read" list for our homeschoolers, if only to learn from Shermer in how to frame and refute the arguments.It's not a long read, and ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - quantum_flapdoodle - LibraryThing

A short, easy-to-read book from the editor of Skeptic Magazine. Shermer discusses the difference between the science of evolution and the idea of intelligent design, and explains why the one is taught ...

About the author

Michael Shermer is the author of The Believing Brain, Why People Believe Weird Things, The Science of Good and Evil, The Mind Of The Market, Why Darwin Matters, Science Friction, How We Believe and other books on the evolution of human beliefs and behavior. He is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the editor of Skeptic.com, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University. He lives in Southern California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design; Times books
• Author: Michael Shermer
• Edition: revised
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, 2006
• ISBN: 0805081216, 9780805081213
• Length: 199 pages
• Subjects: Science / Life Sciences / Evolution