Michael Shermer

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Missouri

The Case Against Intelligent Design

Shermer, a creationist-turned-scientist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection.

Why Darwin Matters

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#hardcover #nonfiction #billnye #evolution #science #climate #earth #globalwarming 

California

Evolution and the Science of Creation

Revealing the mechanics of evolutionary theory, the scientist, engineer and inventor presents a compelling argument for the scientific unviability of creationism and insists that creationism's place in the science classroom is harmful not only to our children, but to the future of the greater world as well.

Undeniable

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Colorado

In The Pattern of Evolution, Niles Eldredge -- one of the world's most accomplished scientific thinkers -- examines the history of ideas on evolution from the beginning of the modern scientific era about two centuries ago to the present. Seizing on evidence of similar patterns across disciplines, he shows how key issues and events have brought us to the brink of a more comprehensive understanding of the Earth. Eldredge believes that exploring these similarities will lead to the realization that biological evolution is driven by the same underlying forces that shape the geology of our planet.Full of fascinating events, from global geologic catastrophes and mass extinctions to the fine-scale events of day-to-day ecology, The Pattern of Evolution explores the Earth's past to explain its present, and to light the way toward the future. But it also tells the story of modern science itself -- an intellectual "system" that has had to diversify and subdivide in order to advance. The result is a fascinating exploration of the way we investigate and understand the evolution of Earth and the life on it.

The Pattern of Evolution

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Duane T. Gish

Texas

The Fossils Say No!

Evolution?

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#science #relgion #bigbangtheory #evolution #creationism #soul #God #ethics #scientists

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Maryland

Are They Compatible?

In recent years a noticeable trend toward harmonizing the distinct worldviews of science and religion has become increasingly popular. Despite marked public interest, many leading scientists remain skeptical that there is much common ground between scientific knowledge and religious belief. Indeed, they are often antagonistic. Can an accommodation be reached after centuries of conflict?

In this stimulating collection of articles on the subject, Paul Kurtz, with the assistance of Barry Karr and Ranjit Sandhu, have assembled the thoughts of scientists from various disciplines. Among the distinguished contributors are Sir Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and numerous other works of science fiction); Nobel Prize Laureate Steven Weinberg (professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin); Neil deGrasse Tyson (Princeton University astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium); James Lovelock (creator of the Gaia hypothesis); Kendrick Frazier (editor of the Skeptical Inquirer); Steven Pinker (professor of psychology at MIT); Richard Dawkins (zoologist at Oxford University); Eugenie Scott (physical anthropologist and executive director of the National Center for Science Education); Owen Gingerich (professor of astronomy at Harvard University); Martin Gardner (prolific popular science writer); the late Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize-winning physicist) and Stephen Jay Gould (professor of geology at Harvard University); and many other eminent scientists and scholars.

Among the topics discussed are the Big Bang and the origin of the universe, intelligent design and creationism versus evolution, the nature of the "soul," near-death experiences, communication with the dead, why people do or do not believe in God, and the relationship between religion and ethics.

Science and Religion

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#karma #reincarnation #patterns #influences #ethos #evolution #spiritual #karmicresearch #karmiclaws

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Working With Destiny II

#hardcover #science #darwin #darwinism #evolution 

Darwin and the Primeval Soup

Where did we come from? Though researchers have done much work on this question in recent years, the answer remains elusive. In The Spark of Life , Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada examine the enduring mysteries surrounding life's origin: Did life arise on earth or on some other planet? What did the earliest primitive organisms look like? Were they based on RNA, DNA, or on something we would hardly recognize today? Untangling a century of contentious debate, the authors explore current theories of "the source"-from Martian meteors to hydrothermal vents-and then present their own elegant and compelling scenario: Life arose not in the subterranean depths, as many believe, but on Earth's tumultuous surface, where a primitive form of natural selection spawned the first genetic material, perhaps in the form of a proto-virus. The book ends with a whirlwind tour of one of the most exciting scientific endeavors: the search for extraterrestrial life. Knowing exactly how life began on Earth will not only teach us more about ourselves, it will bring us much closer to finding life elsewhere.

The Spark of Life

33019658-1124-4d62-ac08-e984741da166-1

John S. Allen

New Jersey

Human Evolution and the Organ of Mind

Though we have other distinguishing characteristics (walking on two legs, for instance, and relative hairlessness), the brain and the behavior it produces are what truly set us apart from the other apes and primates. And how this three-pound organ composed of water, fat, and protein turned a mammal species into the dominant animal on earth today is the story John S. Allen seeks to tell. Adopting what he calls a “bottom-up” approach to the evolution of human behavior, Allen considers the brain as a biological organ; a collection of genes, cells, and tissues that grows, eats, and ages, and is subject to the direct effects of natural selection and the phylogenetic constraints of its ancestry. An exploration of the evolution of this critical organ based on recent work in paleoanthropology, brain anatomy and neuroimaging, molecular genetics, life history theory, and related fields, his book shows us the brain as a product of the contexts in which it evolved: phylogenetic, somatic, genetic, ecological, demographic, and ultimately, cultural-linguistic. Throughout, Allen focuses on the foundations of brain evolution rather than the evolution of behavior or cognition. This perspective demonstrates how, just as some aspects of our behavior emerge in unexpected ways from the development of certain cognitive capacities, a more nuanced understanding of behavioral evolution might develop from a clearer picture of brain evolution.

The Lives of the Brain

58f3452d-9615-4e10-b327-53c7d465a0c6-1

Delaware

Potrait of a Beautiful, Middle-Aged, Stressed Out World

In this portrait of Planet Earth--at just about the mid point of its probable lifespan--a biologist discusses the evolution of the network of life and the crucial role played by humans in determining the future of our world.

Unlike most books on earth history, which present the story of life on our planet in terms of one chronological period after another, the author discusses Earth's teeming diversity in terms of pivotal evolutionary developments. Among these he stresses the importance of symbiosis, sex, and altruism as key determinants of the Earth's biodiversity.

Symbiosis--when single cells began working together--sparked the sudden appearance of complex animals. Much later symbiotic relationships led to flowering plants that depended on animals for pollination and seed dispersal.

With the advent of sexual selection, there developed an astonishing world of complex behavior and a dizzying array of life forms. In humans, sexual selection exerted a great influence on the development of our large brains.

Altruism--when species learned to work together--resulted in even greater variety and complexity. In early humans, altruism gave rise to ever-widening social circles and the spread of culture.

The author also discusses the role of photosynthesis in establishing and maintaining life on earth; the evidence for ancient natural catastrophes, which caused widespread extinctions; and the importance of religion and the recent use of scientific reasoning in the development and the future of the human species.

This eloquent, panoramic perspective is well designed to foster an appreciation for the scope of life on Earth and to encourage wise stewardship of the natural world on which our survival depends.

Life of Earth

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The Evolution of Growth and Development

Have you ever wondered how evolution produced the wing of a bat, the foot of the first amphibian, the tiny arms of the Tyrannosaurus, or the eye and brain that allow you to read these words? Conventional wisdom would say natural selection. But can this alone explain the subtle nuances and wonders of evolution? Shapes of Time explores evolution down another, much neglected avenue that links natural selection and genetics -- the effect of changes to the rates and timing of growth and development. Kenneth J. McNamara delves into the living and fossil worlds to show how animals and plants have evolved when the carefully orchestrated pattern of embryological development is gently nudged off-course -- producing species that may have developed "beyond" their ancestors, or others that have developed less, looking more like overgrown juveniles. McNamara shows how this phenomenon -- known as heterochrony -- has affected many aspects of evolution, including the mechanism behind the selection of different breeds of animals, differences between sexes, and animal behavior. Heterochrony accounts for the "Peter Pan syndrome," in which some species look like their ancestors' children. It explains what was really behind the evolution of flightless birds, how the dinosaurs got so big, how pterosaurs managed to produce a wing supported only by their fourth fingers, and what has driven the evolution of the animal closest to our hearts -- the largest primate species with the biggest brain and longest childhood -- Homo sapiens.

Shapes of Time

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#hardcover #science #evolution #creationism

And the Failure of Creationism

Eldredge presents the most up-to-date examination of the creation-evolution confrontation available.


The Triumph of Evolution

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JOsh McDowell

Don Stewart

"A Campus Crusade for Christ book"--T.p. verso. Bibliography: p. 222-249.

Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity

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Keith Stewart Thomson

New York

This book is the first to inquire into the range of influences and ideas, the mentors and rivals, and the formal and informal education that shaped Charles Darwin and prepared him for his remarkable career of scientific achievement. Keith Thomson concentrates on Darwin's early life as a schoolboy, a medical student at Edinburgh, a theology student at Cambridge, and a naturalist aboard the Beagle on its famous five-year voyage

The Young Charles Darwin

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#hardcover #science #nature #evolution #life

The Macroevolution of Life

At the Water's Edge delves into evolution's most dramatic transitions -- the journey of animal life from water to land, and the return of some land creatures to the sea. In a story that encompasses four billion years, Carl Zimmer describes the changes -- in bodies, minds, and living habits -- that occurred as descendants of fish evolved to become a dynasty of animals ranging from dinosaurs and snakes to elephants and human beings. He then tells the mirror tale of how wolf-like mammals took to the sea and became today's whales and dolphins.

With first-person accounts by scientists in the forefront of these macroevolutionary studies, and detailed drawings of fossils, this entertaining, accessible book demonstrates how newly discovered ecological, developmental, and behavioral evidence is shedding new light on the patterns and processes of nature. Like The Song of the Dodo and The Beak of the Finch, At the Water's Edge presents fascinating and authoritative answers to age-old questions.

At the Water's Edge

49f1302e-70d2-4a18-bdca-6c65097fc0f6-1

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions

Takes a close-up look at island biogeography, the science of the geographic distribution of life on islands, and its significance in terms of evolution and extinction

The Song of the Dodo

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Elizabeth Gilbert

Florida

A Novel

A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love, Big Magic, and City of Girls In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist—but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life. Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who—born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution—bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.

The Signature of All Things

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Who We Are, Where We Came from, and Where Are We Going

Our Kind

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Alison Jolly

Tennessee

The Evolution of Primate Behavior

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#hardcover #science #evolution #nonfiction

The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution

Are we still evolving? Scientists have grappled with this question since the time of Darwin. Now, in this provocative book, biologist Christopher Wills argues that we are not only continuing to evolve but that our pace of change is accelerating. He examines the rapid, short-term evolutionary change taking place in people living at the earth’s extremes (even as babies, Tibetans can draw in more oxygen than lowlanders), and the new physiology of those who participate in extreme sports. But the more we shape our environment, the more it seems to shape us: Whether the future has us wiring our brains into vast electronic databases, or popping "smart drugs” that alter the brain’s very biochemical structure, new environmental pressures are speeding up our evolution in ways that we cannot now predict but that will help us to survive the future.

Children of Prometheus

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An Evaluation of Modern Evolutionary Thought from a Biblical Perspective 

The Case for Creation

How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change

Evolution is not only the slow process that ruled the rise and fall of the dinosaurs over hundreds of millions of years. It also happens quickly -- so quickly and frequently that it changes how all of us live our lives: drugs fail because diseases evolve; insects overcome the most powerful pesticides; HIV and tuberculosis develop resistance to the newest drugs in a few months. This is evolution with teeth.

While the ecological scars of human technology have been well publicized, the broad evolutionary consequences of antibiotic and antiviral use, insecticide applications, and herbicide bioengineering are largely unexplored. Does the human impact on evolution falter at the borders of our own species? Or do we, in fact, generate our own evolutionary pressure?

Enthusiastically written for a wide audience, The Evolution Explosion examines these practical and critical aspects of modern evolution with simplicity, force, and humor.

The Evolution Explosion

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How Two Geologists' Dramatic Discoveries Changed Our Understanding of the Evolutionary Path to Modern Humans

With their revolutionary discovery about human origins, a pair of maverick geologists single-handedly shook the foundations of science and philosophy. Here, for the first time, is the inside story.

For much of the twentieth century, anthropologists believed in a simple, linear picture of evolution: the human family was born in Africa and remained there until "Homo erectus," a relatively advanced form of human, migrated into eastern Asia about one million years ago. All later humans, these anthropologists thought, developed through a steady modernization process from "Homo erectus." But when Garniss Curtis and Carl Swisher of the Berkeley Geochronology Center applied advanced potassium/argon dating techniques to previously studied -- and incorrectly dated -- fossils in Indonesia, their findings shocked the anthropological community and drastically altered our current view of human evolution.

With lucid prose and infectious enthusiasm for the subject, the authors take us on a journey tothe Indonesian island of Java, where Curtis and Swisher made two important discoveries: first, that human ancestors left the Cradle of Mankind -

Java Man

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The Struggle for Darwin's Soul

Introduced in 1859, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution generated hot debate and controversy. Today, nearly all reputable scientists agree: evolution did happen and natural selection was its main driving force. And yet, a century and a half after Darwin, the theory of evolution is still being fought over with a ferocity that has rarely been equaled in the annals of science. What are scientists arguing about? And why are their exchanges sometimes so bitter?
In "The Evolutionists," Richard Morris vividly portrays the controversies raging today in the field of evolutionary biology. With a clear and unbiased eye, he explores the fundamental questions about the evolutionary process that have provoked such vehement disagreement among some of the world's most prominent scientists, including Stephen Jay Gould, fellow paleontologist Niles Eldredge, geneticist John Maynard Smith, and zoologist Richard Dawkins.
As he elucidates the issues of contention, Morris also positions them within the broader context of evolutionary thought as a whole. He explains the theory of evolution in detail, reviews the main trends of evolutionary science since Darwin, and assesses how the field is changing today--from ground-breaking new research to the emergence of scientific disciplines like complexity theory and evolutionary psychology.
A vibrant account of contemporary evolutionary biology, "The Evolutionists" is a fascinating look at how controversy and debate shape the scientific process.


Save this search

Michael Shermer

Why Darwin Matters

Bill Nye; Corey S. Powell (Editor)

Undeniable

Niles Eldredge; Eldredge Eldredge

The Pattern of Evolution

Duane T. Gish

Evolution?

Paul Kurtz (Editor); Barry Karr (Contribution by); Ranjit Sandhu (Contribution by)

Science and Religion

..

Working With Destiny II

Christopher Wills; Jeffrey Bada

The Spark of Life

John S. Allen

The Lives of the Brain

Stanley A. Rice

Life of Earth

Kenneth J. McNamara

Shapes of Time

Niles Eldredge; Susan Pearson

The Triumph of Evolution

Josh McDowell; Don Stewart

Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity

Keith Stewart Thomson

The Young Charles Darwin

Carl Zimmer

At the Water's Edge

David Quammen

The Song of the Dodo

Elizabeth Gilbert

The Signature of All Things

Marvin Harris

Our Kind

Alison Jolly

The Evolution of Primate Behavior

Christopher Wills

Children of Prometheus

Wayne Frair, P. William Davis

The Case for Creation

Stephen R. Palumbi

The Evolution Explosion

Roger Lewin; Carl C. Swisher; Garniss H. Curtis; Carl Swisher

Java Man

Richard Morris

The Evolutionists

Bill Nye; Corey S. Powell (Editor)

Undeniable