Michael Shermer Quotes
You have to know evolution to understand the natural world. And that cannot be a threat to people of faith. There's a serious problem if you are forced by your faith to reject the most well-supported theory in all of science.
Shermer, Michael. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. Times Books, 2006, p. 15.
Conflict between religion and evolution does not exist in most churches. There are exceptions of some orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. However, in this case the highest prelate of the American Episcopal Church not only sees no conflict but urges that evolution be taught in schools.
In 1877 Wasburn was dropped from the List of Ministers by the Unitarian Church. He had become very critical of organized and orthodox religion of all kinds. He felt that literal interpretations of the Bible harmed religions as it made a mockery of God to claim His truths were the anachronistic and demonstrable falsehoods of the Book of Genesis. Today most Christians and Jews do not take the Old Testament Literally and in this sense Washburn was one of the early religious reformers of America. There is still a significant number of fundamentalist Christians and orthodox Jews who still believe in the literal truth of everything in the Bible.
This was not only the case in 1852, but also true 150 years later. The only difference is that there is much more proof of Evolution, and there is a much smaller proportion of the population that questions Evolution as the fundamental mechanism by which all species have developed.
The Science Guy
Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members. Shermer engages in debates on topics pertaining to pseudoscience and religion in which he emphasizes scientific skepticism.
