14 quotes
The battle for evolution seems never-ending. And the battle is part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
Because of the hegemony of fundamentalist religion in the United States, this country has been among the most resistant to the fact of human evolution.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
If you can’t think of an observation that could disprove a theory, that theory simply isn’t scientific.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
A well-understood and testable hypothesis like sexual selection surely trumps an untestable appeal to the inscrutable caprices of a creator.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
Evolution tells us where we came from, not where we can go.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
We now have many of the answers that once eluded Darwin, thanks to two developments that he could not have imagined: continental drift and molecular taxonomy.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
Tiny, nonfunctional wings, a dangerous appendix, eyes that can’t see, and silly ear muscles simply don’t make sense if you think that species were specially created.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
We humans have many vestigial features proving that we evolved. The most famous is the appendix.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
It’s clear that this resistance stems largely from religion. You can find religions without creationism, but you never find creationism without religion.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
The biogeographic evidence for evolution is now so powerful that I have never seen a creationist book, article, or lecture that has tried to refute it. Creationists simply pretend that the evidence doesn’t exist.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
This book lays out the main lines of evidence for evolution. For those who oppose Darwinism purely as a matter of faith, no amount of evidence will do—theirs is a belief not based on reason.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that what conquers our ignorance is research, not giving up and attributing our ignorance to the miraculous work of a creator.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
We are the one creature to whom natural selection has bequeathed a brain complex enough to comprehend the laws that govern the universe. And we should be proud that we are the only species that has figured out how we came to be.
Why Evolution is True (2009)
Now, science cannot completely exclude the possibility of supernatural explanation. It is possible—though very unlikely—that our whole world is controlled by elves. But supernatural explanations like these are simply never needed; we manage to understand the natural world just fine using reason and materialism.
Why Evolution is True (2009)