Michael Shermer appeared on the SETI Institute’s weekly science radio program, Are We Alone? In this show, Shermer shares what he learned about Darwin after having retraced his steps on a journey through the Galapagos Islands.

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Michael Shermer defended evolution in a debate against Paul Nelson — one of the world’s most noted proponents of intelligent design and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Please note: the first 2 minutes, 48 seconds of this recording has technical problems with volume and clarity, but the rest is fine.

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Retracing Darwin’s footsteps in the Galápagos shatters a myth but reveals how revolutions in science actually evolve

Among the many traits that made Charles Darwin one of the greatest minds in science was his pertinacious personality. Facing a daunting problem in natural history, Darwin would obstinately chip away at it until its secrets relented. His apt description for this disposition came from an 1867 Anthony Trollope novel in which one of the characters opined: “There ain’t nowt a man can’t bear if he’ll only be dogged … It’s dogged as does it.” Darwin’s son Francis recalled his father’s temperament: “Doggedness expresses his frame of mind almost better than perseverance. Perseverance seems hardly to express his almost fierce desire to force the truth to reveal itself.” (continue reading…)

Is life on Earth the product of a supernatural Creator or Darwinian evolution? Can science prove the existence of God? Michael Shermer goes head to head on Audiomartini with noted Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski, fellow of the Discovery Institute. The devout and the heretical alike will gain insight from this fascinating interview.

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Science only adds to our appreciation for poetic beauty and experiences of emotional depth

Nineteenth-century English poet John Keats once bemoaned that Isaac Newton had “Destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to a prism.” Natural philosophy, he lamented, “Will clip an Angel’s wings/Conquer all mysteries by rule and line/Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine/Unweave a rainbow.”

Does a scientific explanation for any given phenomenon diminish its beauty or its ability to inspire poetry and emotional experiences? I think not. Science and aesthetics are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. I am nearly moved to tears, for example, when I observe through my small telescope the fuzzy little patch of light that is the Andromeda galaxy. It is not just because it is lovely, but because I also understand that the photons of light landing on my retina left Andromeda 2.9 million years ago, when our ancestors were tiny-brained hominids. I am doubly stirred because it was not until 1923 that astronomer Edwin Hubble, using the 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson in the hills just above my home in Los Angeles, deduced that this “nebula” was actually a distant extragalactic stellar system of immense size. He subsequently discovered that the light from most galaxies is shifted toward the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum (literally unweaving a rainbow of colors), meaning that the universe is expanding away from its explosive beginning. That is some aesthetic science. (continue reading…)