the official site of Michael Shermer

The link between Adam Smith’s invisible hand and Charles Darwin’s natural selection is just one reason why conservatives should embrace the theory of evolution

Charles Darwin is back in the news, with Kansas school board members once again shifting seats Left and Right (with liberals this time winning out). Is there really a liberal-conservative split over the theory of evolution? There is. According to a 2005 Harris Poll, 63 percent of liberals but only 37 percent of conservatives believe that humans and apes have a common ancestry. Similarly, a 2005 Pew Research Center poll found that 60 percent of Republicans are creationists while only 11 percent accept evolution, compared to 29 percent of Democrats who are creationists and 44 percent who accept evolution. (continue reading…)

Intelligent Design (ID) creationism has resurfaced in the news again after President George W. Bush’s remarks were (mis)taken by IDers to be a solid endorsement by the president for the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms. (Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.”)

There was considerable media hype over the story, and I did a number of interviews, including a query from a reporter who asked for my opinion about whether one can believe in God and the theory of evolution. (continue reading…)

Charles Darwin famously described the origin of species as the “mystery of mysteries,” a phrase he cribbed from the astronomer John Herschel, whom Darwin visited in Capetown, South Africa during the five-year round-the-world voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. The meeting happened a few months after Darwin departed the Galapagos islands, at which point he had not yet solved the “grand mystery,” despite the myth that Darwin first understood the mechanism of evolution in this magnificent archipelago. (continue reading…)

According to Intelligent Design Theory (IDT), life is too specifically complex (complex structures with specific functions, like DNA) and irreducibly complex (reduce a complex structure by one part and it loses its function, like eyes) to have evolved by natural forces. Therefore, life must have been created by a supernatural force – an Intelligent Designer (ID). (continue reading…)

A review of Michael Ruse’s Darwin and Design: Does Evolution have a Purpose?.

Psalms 19:1 declares: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” The divine design inference is not confined to the ancient Hebrews. (continue reading…)