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Why Darwin Matters

The Case for Evolution and Against Intelligent Design

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 In Why Darwin Matters, Michael Shermer, the best-selling author of Why People Believe Weird Things, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and a monthly columnist for Scientific American, decodes the facts of evolution and shows how natural selection achieves the elegant design of life.

Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents invoke a combination of ad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology in their new brand of creationism. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.

©2006 Michael Shermer (P)2008 Michael Shermer Biological Sciences Evolution Evolution & Genetics Religious Studies Science Spirituality Intelligent Design
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Loved it. Shermer at his very best. A must read. poignant and refreshing. insightful

Shermer at his best

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This book, which is not brilliantly read, is just a school level argument setting out the reasons to accept evolution as a fact rather than a theory which is likely to be true.
There is no discussion of the different theories of evolution or why Darwin moved towards a more Lamarkian approach with successive editions of his books. He turned out to be wrong about this by the way. The lack of a proper discussion on genes is especially alarming.
The author also seemed to miss that it was human evolution and not evolution generally that prompted the great conflict in the USA about the teaching of evolution in schools.
He also completely ignores some of the issues that fuelled the arguments against evolution, for example social Darwinism and eugenics.
Generally I found it had an overly simplistic approach to a subject that is far more interesting than it would appear from this book.
Instead of this book I would recommend the Great Courses audiobook on the Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy by Edward J. Larson.

Not brilliant.

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