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Sparked by the a provocative comment to BigThink.com last fall, and fueled by a highly controversial debate with Creation Museum curator Ken Ham, Bill Nye's campaign to confront the scientific shortcoming of creationism has exploded in just a few months into a national crusade. In Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he expands the points he has made, and claims that this debate is not so much about religion versus science, as about the nature of science itself. With infectious enthusiasm, he reveals the mechanics of evolutionary theory, explains how it is rooted in the testable and verifiable scientific method, and why it is therefore a sound explanation of our beginning. He argues passionately that to continue to assert otherwise, to continue to insist that creationism has a place in the science classroom is harmful not only to our children, but to the future of the greater world as well.
1. Me and You and Evolution, Too
2. The Great Creationism Debate
3. Creation and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
4. Bottom-Up Design
5. A Deep Dive into Deep Time
6. On the Origin of Evolution
7. Lamarck and His Not-Acquired Traits
8. My Prom and Sexual Selection
9. The Tale of the Red Queen
10. Dogs Are All Dogs
11. The Tree of Life-Or Is It a Bush?
12. Biodiversity Comes in the Territory
13. Fossil Records and Explosions
14. Mass Extinctions and You
15. Ancient Dinosaurs and the Asteroid Test
16. Punctuated Equilibrium
17. Contingency, Bottlenecking, and Founding
18. Mosquitos in the Tube
19. Convergence, Analogy, and Homology
20. What Good Is Half a Wing?
21. Human Bodies Are Walking, Talking, and Good-Enough
22. Evolution Is Why We Don't Believe in Evolution
23. Micro or Macro-It's All Evolution
24. Michael Faraday and the Joy of Discovery
25. Medicine and You-Evolution at the Doctor's Office
26. Antibiotic Drug Resistance-Evolution Strikes Back
27. The Irresistable Urge of Altruism
28. Games Species Play
29. Costly Signals
30. Genetically Modified Foods-What the GMF?
31. Human Cloning-Not Cool
32. Our Skin Colors
33. Is the Human Species Still Evolving?
34. Astrobiologically Speaking: Is Anyone There?
35. The Sparks That Started It All
36. A Second Genesis-of Life?
37. Life's Cosmic Imperative
Acknowledgments
Index
Bill Nye is a scientist, engineer, comedian, and inventor. He has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University where he studied under Carl Sagan, and worked on the 747 as an engineer at Boeing before creating and hosting his much-loved Emmy award-winning PBS/Discovery Channel show "Bill Nye the Science Guy." He holds three Honorary Doctorate degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Goucher College, and Johns Hopkins, and teaches at Cornell regularly as a visiting professor.
"With his charming, breezy, narrative style, Bill empowers the reader to see the natural world as it is, not as some would wish it to be. He does it right. And, as I expected, he does it best."
– Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ph.D, host of COSMOS
"This gracefully written book provides a tour through not just the big ideas of evolution, but why evolution is such a captivating idea scientifically, philosophically, and emotionally. Written from the heart – but science always comes from the heart with Bill Nye."
– Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D., author of Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction
"Bill Nye has penned one of the clearest and most moving explanations of that process since Darwin's On the Origin of Species. With clarity and passion, Nye brings evolutionary theory to life."
– Michael Shermer, Ph.D., author of Why Darwin Matters and The Moral Arc
"Bill Nye has written a wonderfully clear, readable, and enjoyable explanation of what evolution is and is not. In his casual, humorous style, he [...] describes the gigantic mountain of evidence that demonstrates that evolution not only happened in the past, but is happening in real time."
– Donald Prothero, Ph.D., author of Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters
"Following right in his mentor Carl Sagan's footsteps, this call to action and awareness of the lingering 'debate' over the reality of Evolution will further cement Bill Nye's place as our time's premier spokesman for science and reason."
– Dr. Jim Bell, president of The Planetary Society and author of The Interstellar Age
