BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

From the Publisher:

"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."


From an online reviewer:

"If you like intelligent debunking of the strange, weird, and ridiculous in current culture, Michael Shermer is always a good read. His monthly column in Scientific American is always the first thing I turn to when I get the magazine. His sceptical arguments hit their mark every time.

This book offers much more, however, than debunking the current rage, in religious circles, of intelligent design. Yes he does do that, but he sets these critical arguments in the context of a richer discussion of the development of the creationist turned IDist movement in the last several decades.

He starts with a chapter that neatly sums up the massive evidence for evolution, pointing out that it is not simply the fossil record that makes the case for the theory (as so many creationists/IDists seem to believe), but a convergence of many lines of evidence. Then follows a couple of chapters concerning why people reject evolutionary theory and accept theism. In the fourth chapter, the longest of the book, "Debating Intelligent Design," we have an example of Shermer's debunking, and he does it with his usual eloquence, and quite thoroughly. He takes each argument from the IDists and shows how the argument either is extraordinarily weak or is based in gross misconceptions of evolutionary theory. In further chapters Shermer examines cases of attempts to introduce ID into classrooms, and reveals the real motivations of IDists: the desire to return our nation to a Christian culture in every arena, not just the classroom.

Its interesting to compare another chapter of Shermer's book, chapter 7, "Why Science Cannot Contradict Religion," with Richard Dawkins' recent book "The God Delusion." Dawkins takes a hardline against a view known as NOMA (for "nonoverlapping magisteria"), a view first forwarded by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, that would see science and religion as not in conflict at all, whereas Shermer embraces the view. For Shermer, in essence, religion cannot conflict with science since religion has nothing to do with what science does. For Dawkins, on the other hand, the developing sophistication of science to explain the natural world is strong argument against the belief in the supernatural. Dawkins and Shermer would seem to be at complete odds with one another. But yet perhaps not. Shermer stresses that insofar as religion is seen as offering some explanation of natural phenomena it oversteps its very basis in faith. Dawkins would seem to be in agreement. Dawkins stresses that evolutionary theory has eliminated any reason to postulate a supernatural designer. Shermer would seem to be in agreement with that. It seems the difference here is less a matter of position than attitude. Dawkins, the staunch atheist, would say to the religious community "Reason demands you be an atheist." Shermer, on the other hand, (who by the way was once a committed theist) would say to the same community "Reason has no part in supporting what you believe, so believe away, but don't think it your province to do what science does." I must confess my own preference for Shermer's attitude when confronting the religious world. I would not put demands on the belief of a theist, but I would most definitely put the demand that religion has no business trying to compete with science.

All in all a very satisfying read. It will be quite informative to anyone outside of the controversy of ID vs. evolution. It also could be a quite illuminating book for those deeply religious people who tend to side with ID. This book offers in an honest and nonhostile manner the other side of the issue."

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS