Evolution Stands Faith Up: Reflections on Evolution’s Wars

$58.00

Guillermo Paz-y-Miño-C, PhD
Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA

Series: Science, Evolution and Creationism
BISAC: SCI027000

… “Shot-gun marriages between evolution and faith have never worked, despite the tradition of pointing the barrel at evolution’s head. The truth is that evolution likes it single. Free, with no stoppers of thought or restrains on logic. And when lured unknowingly into the altar by those who see facts and fiction compatible, evolution has consistently stood belief up and walked away, sometimes run, toward its secular turf… [The] dream of arranging evolution’s wedding with belief will remain dormant for as long as evolution is awake.” Provocative, intriguing, a contemporary and concise analysis of the clashes between science and faith: In this book, Guillermo Paz-y-Mino-C examines the societal sequels in public education, the future of America’s science and academia of believing in a deity. For this evolutionary biologist, educator and public speaker, “science is [the only] refined device for resolving ordinary curiosity and a powerful liberator of superstition. He thinks of science as “the subsistence kit to defeat re-emerging fundamentalism” in the world.

With a journalistic style in short, yet documented essays, Paz-y-Mino-C encourages the reader to question “faith healing,” the “silly” forecast of Armageddon on two occasions in 2012 (after postponing the first engagement), or the “wrongly called” The God Particle, which scrambles fiction with facts. He considers “belief” to be a “disruptor,” which delays and stops the correct comprehension and acceptance of evidence. He alerts us about the threats of rejecting science, our African and ape evolutionary ancestry, and the epidemic growth of anti-intellectualism among decision makers, whose interest in replacing “curiosity-driven science” with profitable laboratory-bench work to secure sales of “science products” will drive the “culture of discovery in America” to vanish.

But this author also contrasts his inner “frustration in attempting to reverse, at least around [his] immediate circle of influence, such trend…” with essays in which his contagious passion for science emerges. In his prose, Paz-y-Mino-C ignites our imagination to “take off from the roof of the Boston Museum of Science and its Charles Hayden Planetarium, while flying in a helicopter that, after metamorphosing into a spaceship, leaves Earth to immerse us into galactic infinitude.” Or to hike among sea lions, while they rest on the Galapagos shores, and feel as Darwin did the magnificence of nature. Or to contemplate the night sky from the top of the largest volcano in the World, Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, and accept the fact that, one day in the distant future, all its telescopes -or their remains – will drift away on their carrier, the late “Big Island,” and sink in the Pacific when the summit of Mauna Kea succumbs to erosion, hence following the drowning fate of the Hawaiian Islands. This open-ended book assures: “Once embraced by all, this truly universal language -scientific rationalism/empiricism and evolution – shall lead us to a more cohesive understanding of nature and of our amazingly diverse human condition. Humanity’s ultimate challenge will be to collectively embrace reality, with no stoppers of thought or restrains on logic.” (Imprint: Novinka )

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface

Essay 1. Evolution Stands Faith Up: On Francis Collins’ & Karl Giberson’s “The Language of Science and Faith”

Essay 2. Faith Healing vs. Medical Science

Essay 3. Wrong at Forecasting Armageddon

Essay 4. Unforgettable Galapagos, a Summit, and Why Evolution Matters

Essay 5. Conservation Behavior in the Galapagos

Essay 6. Mauna Kea Telescopes to Sink in the Pacific – Hawaii

Essay 7. Boston’s Charles Hayden Planetarium

Essay 8. On the Wrongly Called “the God Particle”

Essay 9. A Stationary Ark on the Isle of Jersey

Essay 10. On Whales and a Whaling Museum

Essay 11. Denying Rome, the Exquisite Colosseum and Evolution

Essay 12. Lisbon’s Lesson: Honor the Value of Discovery

Essay 13. Can We Forecast the Fall of Today’s Empires?

Essay 14. All History is Black History

Essay 15. American Exceptionalism Built on Backs of the 99%

Essay 16. Rejection of Science Threatens to Be Epidemic

Essay 17. New England Professors Accept Evolution, but They are Religious

Essay 18. Massachusetts Gets an A- in Science Standards

Essay 19. Americans Want Candidates to Debate Science

Essay 20. Darwin Day Awaits Designation by the US Congress

Essay 21. Can Atheists Be Our Leaders?

Epilogue

Index

Special Feature:Dr. Guillermo Paz-y-Mino-C. was considered Secular VIP of the Week and was interviewed by The Richard Dawkins Foundation regarding his book <i>”Evolution Stands Faith Up: Reflections on Evolution’s Wars.”</i> To read the interview, which was posted to its 2 million followers, <a href=”https://www.richarddawkins.net/2014/04/secular-vip-of-the-week-guillermo-paz-y-mino-c/?category=Foundation” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>click here.

“This is an inspiring, readable collection of 21 essays of reflective value to everyone. You can dip into any of these well-crafted and thoughtful essays at leisure without concern for order. The layout of each essay is appealing, beginning with a quote extracted from the essay, which summarizes the key insight, and finishing with a list of suggested readings and resources.” <a href=”https://novapublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Book-Review-Evolution-Stands-Faith-Up-Stott.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>READ MORE… – <strong>Dr. Greg M. Stott

“The author immerses us in a broad range of topics with a common theme: why science is critical for our well-being and how “belief,” as a “disruptor,” delays and stops the correct comprehension and acceptance of evidence.” <a href=”https://novapublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Book-Review-Evolution-Stands-Faith-Up-Espinosa.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>READ MORE… – Avelina Espinosa, PhD, Professor of Biology, Roger Williams University, United States

“Many biologists and scientists in general would probably agree that the struggle against creationism as an alternative to science is a war that must be waged. However, we all know it is a difficult fight. Hence, most of us are content sitting on the sidelines, doing our own work, watching others engage this important and often thankless debate.” <a href=”https://novapublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Book-Review-Evolution-Stands-Faith-Up-GAL.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>READ MORE… – G.A.L., PhD, Evolutionary Biologist, Canada

“This is a delightful collection of essays about, as the author puts it, “evolution and its wars against superstition.” Professor Paz-Y-Miño does not try to teach evolutionary thinking in this book, or explain Darwin’s ideas in any way. But he is a firm believer in evolutionary processes, and you can easily feel his frustration at the victory of inherent belief over evidence-based thinking in our society.” <a href=”https://novapublishers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Book-Review-Evolution-Stands-Faith-Up-Pechenik.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>READ MORE…Jan A. Pechenik

“I am delighted that some of Paz-y-Mino’s finest essays and editorials have been collected in a single volume. He is a prolific essayist and I have enjoyed reading his work over the last two decades. In the tradition of Richard Dawkins he does not pull any punches, but when he cuts to the core of an argument, he does it with the flare of a true artist. Too many of our colleagues work so hard to appear open minded that their brains appear to have fallen out. When they teach our students that they can pick and choose when to be logical, critical thinkers, they are modeling the type of reasoning that leads to the politics of convenience and it’s bridesmaids: racism, sexism, and the whole host of xenophobias. When the emperor has no clothes, I want to be standing in the back row with Guillermo, pointing a finger and having a good laugh.” – Stan Braude, PhD, Professor of Practice in Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

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