The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism : Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters

Introduction 1(6) An Overview 7(32) So What Is Evolution Anyway? 10(1) What All Evolving Systems Have in Common 11(2) Millions and Billions of Years 13(5) What the Fossils Tell Us 18(5) So What Did Darwin Figure Out? 23(2) What Darwin Learned about Selection from Farmers 25(3) Has Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection Really Been Tested and Proven to Be True? 28(11) Supplemental Inserts for Chapter 1: The Earliest Emergence of Life 8(3) Not Everyone Wants You to Learn about Evolution 11(3) Creation Myths 14(3) Dating Techniques 17(5) Change Was in the Air 22(8) Genetic Drift and Founder Effects 30(2) The Continued Existence of Life on this Planet Is Not a Given 32(7) The Evidence of Evolution in Action is All Around Us 39(18) Evolution in Action Today 40(1) Rapid Evolutionary Change Observed in a Population of Moths 40(2) Where Would We Be Without Fruit Flies? 42(4) One Species Splitting into Two on Opposite Sides of the Grand Canyon 46(6) A Few Words on Creationists 52(5) Supplemental Inserts for Chapter 2: The Moth Flap 44(4) Evolution in Action --- The Distribution of Sickle Cell Genes in Human Populations 48(3) An Interesting Example of Evolution in Action in the Treatment of HIV Infections 51(6) Reviewing a Few Key Points About Adaptation 57(8) How Evolution Produces Whole New Species 65(18) How Do We Know Something Really Happened If We Weren't There to See It? 68(2) Speciation and the Diversification of Life Are Rooted in the Same Basic Phenomena, Including Natural Selection 70(1) Living Things Can't Help But Evolve 71(3) How Do Entirely New Species Come into Being? 74(9) Supplemental Inserts for Chapter 4: Were We Bound to Evolve?---The Role of Random and Non-Random Factors in Evolution 68(4) Evolution of Pesticide Resistance in a Population of Insects 72(11) More on Reproductive Isolation, Speciation and the Emergence of Evolutionary Novelties 83(16) Mechanisms of Reproductive Isolation 83(1) Especially Small Reproductively Isolated Populations Can Exhibit More Evolutionary ``Novelties'' and Rapid Evolutionary Change 84(1) Some Reasons Speciation Might Not Occur 85(1) What Evolutionary Biologists Argue About and What This Does and Doesn't Mean 86(1) A Few Words about the So-called ``Gaps'' in the Fossil Record 87(2) Not All Evolutionary Lines Evolve at the Same Rate 89(1) There Are No Guarantees in Evolution 90(1) The Effects of Mass Extinctions 91(3) Speciation Before Our Eyes? 94(5) Evolution is a Proven Fact -- The Evidence is Concrete and Comes from Many Different Directions 99(18) The Past Leaves its Marks on the Present 99(1) Direct Evidence of Evolution from Both the Fossil Record and the Molecular Record 100(3) Indirect Evidence of Evolution Embryo development 103(1) Vestigial (``remnant'' or ``left over'') features 104(1) Homologous features 105(1) Convergence 106(2) ``Sub-optimal design'': nature's quirks and imperfections 108(2) Geographic distribution of species around the world 110(1) The fact that the features of living organisms fit into a system of ``nested'' hierarchical classification 111(1) Supplemental Insert for Chapter 6: A Conscious ``Intelligent Designer'' Wouldn't Design Life The Way It Is 112(5) The Evolution of Human Beings 117(62) Where Did We Come From? 117(15) Human Beings Evolved Out of Pre-existing Non-human Species 120(5) Some Basic Facts of Human Evolution 125(2) And Then There Are the Fossils -- Lots and Lots of Fossils! 127(4) A Brief Summary 131(1) What It Actually Means to ``Become Human'' 132(7) We Are the New Kid on the Block 132(2) The Emergence, and Consolidation, of New Species 134(1) Key Junctures in the Evolution of Human Beings 135(4) The Clear, and Growing, Evidence of Evolution from Apes to Human Beings 139(9) Why Is Our Hominid Species the Only One Still Standing? 145(1) What Makes Us So Special, If Only to Ourselves? 146(2) The Two Biggest Leaps in Hominid Evolution 148(8) A Series of Transitions from More Ape-like to More Human Features 150(2) Were the Earliest Hominids ``Just Apes''? The Significance of the Evolution of Bipedalism on the Road to Becoming Human 152(3) So, Are We Just an Accident? 155(1) Summary and Overview 156(23) A Possible Environmental Connection 160(4) One Species -- All Over the World -- A Species Radically Transforming the World 164 Supplemental Inserts for Chapter 7: Humans and Dinosaurs?! Another Creationist Absurdity 124(3) Chimp and Human DNA: How Close Are We? 127(2) Was Toumai One of Our Ancestors? 129(12) Meave Leakey's Take on Her Latest Fossil Find 141(2) Was Homo erectus the First Human Species to Leave Africa? 143(21) We All Came from Africa 164(2) What Does the Science of Evolution Tell Us about Human ``Races''? 166(5) ``Social Darwinism'' Is Not Based on Science and Has Nothing to Do with Darwinism 171(1) Are Humans Still Evolving? 172(7) Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault on All of Science, in the Name of God 179(122) Without the Science of Evolution There Would Be No Science---It's Just That Fundamental 181(8) Evolution Science and the SARS Virus 182(2) Evolution Science, Organ Transplants and the ``Spare Parts'' of the Future 184(1) What Everyone Should Know about the Creationists 185(4) Snake Oil Salesmen and Charlatans at Court 189(5) They Want You! 194(18) ``But How can We Ever be Sure Anything is True?'': Such Philosophical Relativism Offers Creationists Easy Pickings 212(7) The ``Theory of Evolution'' -- What a Scientific Theory Is 214(5) Recognize, Demand and Fight for Scientific Truth 219(3) A Guide to the Creationist Zoo 222(8) The Young Earth Creationists (YECs) 223(3) The Old Earth Creationists (OECs) 226(1) The Progressive Creationists (PCs) and Evolutionary Creationists (ECs) 227(1) Theistic Evolutionists (TEs) 227(2) The Intelligent Design Creationists (IDCs) 229(1) Refuting the Old-School ``Scientific Creationists'' 230(15) The Second Law of Thermodynamics 234(1) Another Typical Example of Creationist Methods: God in the Gaps? 235(3) Another Example of Step-Wise Evolution: The Evolution of Elephants 238(1) Mutants Are Not Monsters 238(2) The Age of the Earth (and of the Universe) -- A Big Problem for the Creationists 240(4) ``Maybe God Just Made It Look Old, and Maybe God Also Just Made It Look Like Life Has Evolved'' 244(1) Would an All-Knowing God Make Sloppy Designs? 244(1) Creationism's New Wrapper Won't Fool Us: Intelligent Design Theory Is Still Just Religion -- It's Still Not Science -- and It's Still Wrong! 245(29) Dembski's ``Design Filter'' Idea 251(1) Behe and the Idea of ``Irreducible Complexity'' as ``Evidence'' of ``Intelligent Design'' 252(17) The Entirely Natural Evolution of Complex Multi-Part Biochemical Processes 269(5) A Question of Methods, a Question of Struggle 274(13) How can we get at the actual truth of things? 276(5) More on what is wrong, methodologically, with Intelligent Design Creationism and the idea of ``irreducible complexity'' as evidence of divine design 281(6) Creationism and the Morality Police 287(5) Author's Postscript 292(9) Supplemental Inserts for Chapter 8: In the Very Beginning and Looking to the Future 190(5) The Cambrian Explosion, Punctuated Equilibrium and the ``God of the Gaps'' Argument 195(5) Misrepresenting Working Scientists---A Favorite Creationist Tactic 200(3) Rare Variants of the Almost Entirely Universal Genetic Code Are Evidence of Evolution, Not Design 203(6) Look Who's In Bed With Whom! 209(4) ``Project Steve'': Evolutionists Use Humor to Make a Serious Point 213(3) Reality and Distortions of Reality---Objective Truth and Subjective Influences 216(6) Some Things You Can Do to Learn More about Creationist Lies and Distortions 222(31) Evolution is Not ``Just a Chance Process'' 253(5) Do Lottery Winners Win By Design? 258(43) Appendix A Glossary 301(15) Appendix B Selected Bibliography 316(3) Appendix C Geological Timeline 319(1) Appendix D Defend Science Statement 320(5) Index 325(12) About the Author 337