Why Darwin Matters

by Michael Shermer

  24. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, 1859), p. 154.

  25. Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 39.

  26. Ibid., pp. 232–33

  27. Michael Behe, “Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference,” paper presented at the summer meeting of the C. S. Lewis Society, Cambridge University, United Kingdom, 1994. Available online at http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htm.

  28. Robert Pennock, Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999).

  29. Jerry Coyne, “God in the Details,” Nature, No. 383 (1996), pp. 227–28.

  30. Charles Darwin, On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing (London: John Murray, 1862), p. 348.

  31. Stephen Jay Gould and Elizabeth Vrba, “Exaptation: A Missing Term in the Science of Form,” Paleobiology No. 8 (1982), pp. 4–15.

  32. R. O. Prum and A. H. Brush, “Which Came First, the Feather or the Bird: A Long-Cherished View of How and Why Feathers Evolved Has Now Been Overturned,” Scientific American (March 2003), pp. 84–93.

  33. Kevin Padian and L. M. Chiappe, “The Origin of Birds and Their Flight,” Scientific American (February 1998), pp. 38–47.

  34. K. P. Dial, “Wing-Assisted Incline Running and the Evolution of Flight,” Science, No. 299 (2003), pp. 402–4; P. Burgers and L. M. Chiappe, “The Wing of Archaeopteryx as a Primary Thrust Generator,” Nature, No. 399 (1999), pp. 60–62; P. Burgers and Kevin Padian, “Why Thrust and Ground Effect Are More Important Than Lift in the Evolution of Sustained Flight,” in J. Gauthier and L. F. Gall (eds.), New Perspectives on the Origin and Evolution of Birds: Proceedings of the International Symposium in Honor of John H. Ostrum (New Haven, Conn.: Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2001), pp. 351–61.

  35. Alan Gishlick, “Evolutionary Paths to Irreducible Systems: The Avian Flight Apparatus,” in Young and Edis (eds.), Why Intelligent Design Fails, pp. 58–71.

  36. A. J. Spormann, “Gliding Motility in Bacteria: Insights from Studies of Myxococcus Xanthus,” Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews No. 63 (1999), pp. 621–41.

  37. S. I. Aizawa, “Bacterial Flagella and Type-III Secretion Systems,” FEMS Microbiology Letters No. 202 (2001), pp. 157–64.

  38. Ian Musgrave, “Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellus,” in Young and Edis (eds.), Why Intelligent Design Fails, pp. 72–84.

  39. Dembski, No Free Lunch, pp. 159–60.

  40. Ibid., pp. 212, 223.

  41. Ibid., pp. 166–73.

  42. Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

  43. Richard Dawkins, “Weaving a Genetic Rainbow: How Evolution Increases Information in the Genome,” Skeptic Vol. 7, No. 2 (2000), pp. 64–69.

  44. This point was well made by Kenneth Miller in his book Finding Darwin’s God (New York: Perennial, 2000).

  45. Sean Carroll, “The Origins of Form,” Natural History (November 2005), pp. 58–63; Sean Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).

  46. For examples see Douglas Futuyma, Evolution (Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer, 2005).

  47. Douglas Futuyma, “On Darwin’s Shoulders,” Natural History (November 2005), pp. 64–68.

  48. Henry Morris, The Troubled Waters of Evolution (San Diego, Calif.: Creation Life, 1972), p. 110.

  49. Peter Atkins, The Second Law: Energy, Chaos and Form (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1994).

  50. Stuart Kauffman, The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

  51. Richard Hardison, Upon the Shoulders of Giants (Baltimore, Md.: University Press of America, 1985). Independently of Hardison, and around the same time, Richard Dawkins famously conducted the same computer experiment, as reported in his book The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), except he used a different phrase—“Methinks it is like a weasel.” Neither one of them knew about the other’s program. Dawkins produced his program in 1984. There is no way he could have known about Hardison’s work because it was not published in any form that would have been available to anyone but the students in our class. And Hardison didn’t know about Dawkins’s program. When Dawkins read about Hardison’s program he queried me. I explained the origin of the coincidence, to which he responded:

  Thank you for clearing up the mystery. Yes, the coincidence is fascinating. But it is not all that surprising, and you have spotted that it makes a good lesson in paranormal debunking. Once one has grasped (from Darwin) the paramount importance of ratcheted cumulative selection when faced with the Argument from Statistical Improbability, one’s thoughts naturally turn to the famous monkeys who have so often been used to dramatise that Argument. It becomes the obvious simulation to do, to get the point across to doubters. It can easily be done with a little BASIC program, and that is what both Hardison and I did, at what must have been almost exactly the same time, 1984 or 1985. As for the superficial details, those pesky monkeys have always typed Shakespeare. Hamlet is his most famous play. To Be or Not to Be is the most famous passage from that play. I would probably have chosen it myself, except that I thought the dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius on chance resemblances in clouds would make a neat intro: hence “Methinks it is like a Weasel.”

  When Hardison read Dawkins’s reply in Skeptic Vol. 9, No. 4, he wrote me:

  Incidentally, I never felt that the TOBEORNOTTOBE example was entirely original with me. Bob Newhart, the comic, did a very nice skit in which he proposed an infinite number of monkeys working with an infinite number of typewriters, and then he realized that he would also need an infinite number of “inspectors” looking over the shoulders of the monkeys to see if anything meaningful occurred. Newhart then put himself into the role of one of these inspectors, spending another boring day and finding nothing. “Dum de dum de dum . . . Boring . . . Oh . . . Hey, Charlie, I think I have one. Let’s see, yeah. ‘To Be Or Not To Be, that is the acxrotphoeic.’” I simply realized that Bob’s humor might be a useful way of helping students to comprehend the selective nature of the “struggle for survival.” So you see that my contribution was minimal.

  52. Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2000).

  53. Stephen Jay Gould, “Abscheulich! (Atrocious!),” Natural History (March 2000).

  54. Isaac Asimov, foreword to D. Goldsmith (ed.), Scientists Confront Velikovsky (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 7–15. In his book Worlds in Collision, Immanuel Velikovsky proposed a radical theory of planetary history in which the planets went careening through the solar system, impacting one another like so many billiard balls, all in ancient human history and recorded in the myths of peoples around the world, which became the primary data source for Velikovsky.

  5. Science under Attack

  1. Michael Shermer, “The Chaos of History,” Nonlinear Science Today Vol. 2, No. 4 (1993), pp. 1–13; “Exorcising LaPlace’s Demon: Chaos and Antichaos, History and Metahistory,” History and Theory Vol. 34, No. 1 (1995), pp. 59–83; “Chaos Theory,” in D. R. Woolf (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Historiography (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996); “The Crooked Timber of History: History Is Complex and Often Chaotic. Can We Use This to Better Understand the Past?” Complexity Vol. 2, No. 6 (July–August 1997), pp. 23–29.

  2. Michael Shermer, Denying History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).

  3. Lynn Margulis, M. F. Dolan, and R. Guerrero, “The Chimeric Eukaryote: Origin of the Nucleus from the Karyomastigonts in Amitochondriate Protists,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences No. 97 (2002), pp. 6954–59. Lynn Margulis and
Dorion Sagan, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution (New York: Basic Books, 1998). Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

  4. Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997), pp. 18–19.

  5. William R. Overton, “Memorandum Opinion of United States District Judge William R. Overton in McLean v. Arkansas, 5 January 1982,” in Langdon Gilkey (ed.), Creationism on Trial (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 280–83.

  6. The amicus curiae brief is both concise (at 27 pages) and well documented (32 lengthy footnotes), and I discuss it at length in my book Why People Believe Weird Things, pp. 154–72.

  7. Stephen Jay Gould, “Knight Takes Bishop,” Natural History (May 1986).

  8. For a detailed account of the trial see: Burt Humburg and Ed Brayton, “Dover Decision—Design Denied: Report on Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District,” Skeptic Vol. 12, No. 2 (2006), pp. 23–29. Court documents are related materials may be found at the Web page for the National Center for Science Education: http://www.ncseweb.org/.

  6. The Real Agenda

  1. William Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 41.

  2. Quoted in Steve Benen, “Science Test,” Church & State (July–August 2000). Available online at http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs7002.htm.

  3. William Dembski, “Signs of Intelligence: A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design,” Touchstone (1999), p. 84.

  4. Quoted in Benen, “Science Test,” Church & State (July–August 2000).

  5. Quoted in Jay Grelen, “Witnesses for the Prosecution,” World (November 30, 1996). Available online at http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/11-30-96/national_2.asp.

  6. Wedge Document, Phase III. For an extensive discussion and reprinting of the Wedge Document see Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross, Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

  7. Phillip Johnson, The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

  8. William Dembski, “Intelligent Design’s Contribution to the Debate over Evolution: A Reply to Henry Morris,” 2005. Available online at http://www.designinference.com/documents/2005.02.Reply_to_Henry_Morris.htm.

  9. Dembski, Design Revolution, p. 319.

  10. Paul Nelson statement available online at http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/49#more-49.

  11. Quoted in “By Design: A Whitworth Professor Takes a Controversial Stand to Show That Life Was No Accident. Stephen C. Meyer Profile,” Whitworth Today, Whitworth College, Winter 1995. Available online at http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_bydesign.htm.

  12. Jodi Wilgoren, “Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive,” New York Times, August 21, 2005. The Discovery Institute is not alone. In Virginia, Liberty University sponsored the Creation Mega Conference with a Kentucky group called Answers in Genesis, which raised $9 million in 2003 for their efforts to teach biblical Young Earth Creationism. See “Major Grants Increase Programs, Nearly Double Discovery Budget,” Discovery Institute Journal (1999). Available online at http://www.discovery.org/w3/discovery.org/journal/1999/grants.html.

  13. John Schwartz, “Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case against Evolution,” New York Times, May 28, 2005.

  14. Christoph Schönborn, “Finding Design in Nature,” New York Times, July 7, 2005.

  15. Bruce Chapman, “Ideas Whose Time Is Coming,” Discovery Institute Journal (Summer 1996). Available online at http://www.discovery.org/w3/discovery.org/journal/president.html.

  16. Wilgoren, “Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive,” New York Times, August 21, 2005.

  7. Why Science Cannot Contradict Religion

  1. Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1887), Vol. 2, p. 105.

  2. Francis Darwin (ed.), Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 280–81.

  3. Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 503. See also Adrian Desmond and James Moore’s thoughtful discussion in their book, Darwin (New York: Warner Books, 1991), p. 387.

  4. Letter to J. Fordyee reprinted in Gavin De Beer, “Further Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin,” Annals of Science 14 (1958), p. 88.

  5. Charles Darwin letter to Edward Aveling, October 13, 1880, quoted in Desmond and Moore, Darwin, p. 645. See also Stephen Jay Gould, “A Darwinian Gentleman at Marx’s Funeral,” Natural History (September 1999).

  6. The conflicting-worlds model of science and religion began in the late nineteenth century with the publication of two influential works that set the tone of the relationship for the next century: John William Draper’s 1874 History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and Andrew Dickson White’s 1896 A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. Both Draper and White presented simplified histories of the alleged war through such prominent events as the discovery of the earth’s sphericity, Galileo’s heresy trial, and the 1860 Huxley-Wilberforce debate over evolution, all of which historians of science have discovered had a considerably more nuanced history.

  7. Pope John Paul II’s definitive statements on the relationship of religion and science, faith and reason, are presented in two encyclicals: Truth Cannot Contradict Truth (1996) and Fides et Ratio (1998).

  8. Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” Natural History (March 1997). See also his expanded discussion in Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999).

  9. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1959), pp. 40–41.

  10. R. Sloan, E. Bagiella, and T. Powell, The Lancet Vol. 353 (2000), pp. 664–67. Michael Shermer, “Flying Carpets and Scientific Prayer,” Scientific American (November 2004), p. 35.

  11. John Paul II, Truth Cannot Contradict Truth. Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996.

  8. Why Christians and Conservatives Should Accept Evolution

  1. Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham, “Scientists Are Still Keeping the Faith,” Nature Vol. 386 (April 3, 1997), p. 435. The survey of 1,600 scientists was conducted by Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University. See Lea Plante, “Spirituality Soars among Scientists,” Science and Theology News (October 2005), pp. 7–8.

  2. If someone fully accepts the findings of science but privately believes that the forces of nature as described by science were God’s way of creating the world and its inhabitants, I see no reason to go out of my way to object.

  3. President Jimmy Carter’s written statement, issued by the Carter Center on January 30, 2004, and reported widely in the media. See, for example, http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/georgia.evolution/.

  4. John Paul II, “Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,” reprinted in The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 72, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 381–83.

  5. Pew Research Center for People & the Press survey data available online at http://peoplepress.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=254. Results for this survey were based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationwide sample of 2,000 adults eighteen years of age or older between July 7 and 17, 2005. Harris poll data available online at http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=581.

  The Harris poll was conducted by telephone within the United States among a nationwide cross section of 1,000 adults eighteen years of age or older between June 17 and 21, 2005.

  6. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray, 1871), Vol. 1, pp. 71–72.

  7. T. H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1894).


  8. David M. Buss, The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex (New York: Free Press, 2002). See also David P. Barash and Judith E. Lipton, The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People (New York: W. H. Freeman, 2001).

  9. Paul Ekman, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Marriage, and Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Paul Ekman, Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life (New York: Times Books, 2003).

  10. Adam Smith (R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, gen. eds., W. B. Todd textual ed.), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 14. Originally published in 1776.

  11. Ibid., p. 423. Emphasis added.

  12. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London: John Murray, 1859), p. 84. Emphasis added. The parallels between natural selection and the invisible hand are salient. Although Darwin does not reference Smith directly, when he matriculated at Edinburgh University for medical studies in October of 1825, he read the works of such great Enlightenment thinkers as David Hume, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith. A decade later, upon his return home from the five-year voyage around the world on the Beagle, Darwin revisited these works, reconsidering their theoretical implications in light of the new data he had collected. Darwin scholars are largely in agreement that he modeled his theory of natural selection after Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, and there is a sizable literature on the connection between them. See, for example, Toni Vogel Carey, “The Invisible Hand of Natural Selection, and Vice Versa,” Biology & Philosophy Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 1998), pp. 427–42; Michael T. Ghiselin, The Economy of Nature and the Evolution of Sex (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwin’s Middle Road,” in The Panda’s Thumb (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), pp. 59–68; Stephen Jay Gould, “Darwin and Paley Meet the Invisible Hand,” in Eight Little Piggies (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993), pp. 138–52; Elias L. Khalil, “Evolutionary Biology and Evolutionary Economics,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics Vol. 8, No. 4 (1997), pp. 221–44; Silvan S. Schweber, “Darwin and the Political Economists: Divergence of Character,” Journal of the History of Biology Vol. 13 (1980), pp. 195–289.