{"id":8438,"date":"2009-12-01T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T15:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=8438"},"modified":"2014-05-19T20:03:49","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T00:03:49","slug":"why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/12\/Why-Evolution-is-True.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-29373\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/12\/Why-Evolution-is-True.jpg\" alt=\"Why Evolution is True\" width=\"323\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>Here&#8217;s the assertion: &#8220;Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.&#8221; In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me &#8230; only 40% of Americans deemed this statement true, a whopping 39% said it false, and 21% answered they were unsure. Is that possible? Six out of 10 Americans do not believe in or are unsure of the science of evolution! Which means, at the very least, that six out of 10 Americans clearly need to read this book.<\/p>\n<p>Even more shocking, creationism \u2013 repackaged (rather ironically) as &#8220;intelligent design&#8221; \u2013 is gathering support. Since 1985, 5% fewer Americans are sure of evolution. Some UK schools now offer creationism as an alternative to evolution, which officially would be illegal in U.S. public schools (the Constitution still insists on the separation of church and state). Both evangelical Christianity in Europe and fundamental Islam in the Middle East, <a href=\"http:\/\/jerrycoyne.uchicago.edu\/about.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jerry Coyne<\/a> reports, are expanding the numbers of contemporary followers of creationism. &#8220;And \u2013 the ultimate irony \u2013 creationism has even established a foothold in the Gal\u00e1pagos archipelago. There on the very land that symbolizes evolution, the iconic islands that inspired Darwin, a Seventh-day Adventist school dispenses undiluted creationist biology to children of all faiths.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Go ahead and call me simplistic, but any belief in creationism ended for me when my 4th grade CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, otherwise known as Catholic Sunday School) teacher couldn&#8217;t answer what seemed an incredibly obvious question: if all of humankind (what a misnomer!) was descended from Adam and Eve, where did Cain&#8217;s wife come from as the disobedient first couple only had two sons with one murdering the other? &#8230; Rather disturbing to think we started off so dysfunctional right from the very beginning!<\/p>\n<p>Evolution, if nothing else, is thankfully less messy. The modern theory of evolution &#8220;is easy to grasp,&#8221; Coyne offers, consisting of six components: &#8220;evolution, gradualism, speciation, common ancestry, natural selection, and nonselective mechanisms of evolutionary change.&#8221; If you&#8217;re already one of the believers (like me), you might find his almost-300 pages of\u00a0careful research and irrefutable scientific evidence that follow a little too much of good thing. But make it through and you&#8217;ll have some great little party gems &#8230; I can&#8217;t, for example, look at those shivering, wide-eyed, worrying chihuahuas anymore without thinking about the Toltec Indians who probably bred them as a food source. Eee-yew &#8230; oh, humanity!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the assertion: &#8220;Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.&#8221; In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me &#8230; only 40% of Americans deemed this statement true, a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,60,20],"tags":[6608,24,2766,309,364,2767,2768],"class_list":["post-8438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-nonethnic-specific","category-nonfiction","tag-bookdragon","tag-historical","tag-jerry-a-coyne","tag-nature","tag-sociology","tag-victor-bevine","tag-why-evolution-is-true"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s the assertion: &#8220;Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.&#8221; In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me &#8230; only 40% of Americans deemed this statement true, a...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-01T15:00:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-20T00:03:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/12\/Why-Evolution-is-True.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"323\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne - BookDragon","og_description":"Here&#8217;s the assertion: &#8220;Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.&#8221; In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me &#8230; only 40% of Americans deemed this statement true, a...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2009-12-01T15:00:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-20T00:03:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":323,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/12\/Why-Evolution-is-True.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/","name":"Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-12-01T15:00:48+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-20T00:03:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/why-evolution-is-true-by-jerry-a-coyne\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8438"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29387,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8438\/revisions\/29387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}