the official site of Michael Shermer  top navigation:  Why
Darwin Matters  Order from  ORDER paperback book ORDER the
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based on the book  Download a Chapter for free  DOWNLOAD a free
sample MP3 (20MB)  About the book  book cover  Evolution
happened, and the theory describing it is one of the most well
founded in all of science. Then why do half of all Americans
reject it? There are religious reasons, such as the fear of
atheism and the perceived loss of ultimate meaning; there are
psychological reasons, such as the ego-deflating realization
that we are mere animals; and there are political reasons, such
as the equation of evolution with moral relativism on the right,
and the connection of evolution to eugenics and social Darwinism
on the left.  In Why Darwin Matters, historian of science and
bestselling author Michael Shermer defuses these fears by
examining what evolution really is, how we know it happened, and
how to test it. Shermer then discusses