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kevin_shepherd's Reviews (563)
For me, fiction is either a conduit to some alternative reality or it’s an opportunity to see the existing world from another perspective. My go-to reads are usually the classics (Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby, Dracula, etc.) but occasionally I venture out of my comfort zone for something more contemporary. It’s not that I am afraid of taking literary chances, but… okay, maybe I am.
“I have the face of a worrier. Not a warrior, but a worrier. I looked like a hypochondriac. I didn’t look seriously ill, but I looked like I probably thought I was.”
James Thomas has created a protagonist here that I can relate to. Joseph is an intelligent, slightly successful, unmarried hot mess. He wakes one day to find himself in the mid-thirties doldrums: lonely, alone, and underemployed. Thomas masterfully evokes a sense of hopelessness; yes there is the ever-present possibility of redemption, but there is also an almost tangible abyss.
I enjoyed this more than I first thought I would. Thomas has a sense of humor that creeps into his storytelling at just the right times—keeping the arc from spiraling into something morose and out of perspective.
In spite of the somewhat dark undertone, My Name Isn’t Joe is ultimately uplifting, but in a very unexpected way.
“I have the face of a worrier. Not a warrior, but a worrier. I looked like a hypochondriac. I didn’t look seriously ill, but I looked like I probably thought I was.”
James Thomas has created a protagonist here that I can relate to. Joseph is an intelligent, slightly successful, unmarried hot mess. He wakes one day to find himself in the mid-thirties doldrums: lonely, alone, and underemployed. Thomas masterfully evokes a sense of hopelessness; yes there is the ever-present possibility of redemption, but there is also an almost tangible abyss.
I enjoyed this more than I first thought I would. Thomas has a sense of humor that creeps into his storytelling at just the right times—keeping the arc from spiraling into something morose and out of perspective.
In spite of the somewhat dark undertone, My Name Isn’t Joe is ultimately uplifting, but in a very unexpected way.
Nothing I write here is going to fully express how much I enjoyed this novel. Grass's Oskar is both heroic and villainous. He can shatter glass with his screams, manipulate minds with his drum, and seduce ladies with fizz powder. There are riddles of paternity, rites of passage, and an aroma of rancid butter coming from beneath his grandmother's layered skirts. This is jazz music and chopped onions and nurse fetishes. It's dwarfs and hunchbacks and rental Rottweilers. If you're in the mood for historical fiction intertwined with WTF?! I highly recommend The Tin Drum.
Jaws was my first experience of reading a novel AFTER seeing the film on which it was based. As it turns out, the screenplay was, with a few exceptions, so true to the source material that it enhanced rather than detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Benchley really fleshes out his characters and we see events unfolding from several different points of view. He even, very effectively, puts us inside the mind of the shark. I would be hard pressed to recall another instance when a novel and its screen adaptation complimented each other so frightfully well.
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NOTE: I probably shouldn’t review books I read 47 years ago without at least a cursory perusal. The impressions I had at age 13, like almost everything else I had at age 13 (abs, optimism, hair...), are quite likely long gone.
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NOTE: I probably shouldn’t review books I read 47 years ago without at least a cursory perusal. The impressions I had at age 13, like almost everything else I had at age 13 (abs, optimism, hair...), are quite likely long gone.
Astrophysics for people with way too much time on their hands.
Tyson’s passion for science is contagious, but after reading Origins I feel as though I just audited Astronomy 101 at Princeton. This might be deeper academic water than anyone with a mere passing interest in planetary science would like to tread. Still, the chapters on Dark Matter and Dark Energy are the most clear, most concise explanations of cosmic theory that I have ever read. This is my sixth NdGT book, he hasn’t disappointed me yet.
Tyson’s passion for science is contagious, but after reading Origins I feel as though I just audited Astronomy 101 at Princeton. This might be deeper academic water than anyone with a mere passing interest in planetary science would like to tread. Still, the chapters on Dark Matter and Dark Energy are the most clear, most concise explanations of cosmic theory that I have ever read. This is my sixth NdGT book, he hasn’t disappointed me yet.
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis may be the title character, but his role is relatively supportive to Finlayson’s descriptively detailed narrative of human evolution. And it’s not so much ‘how’ humans evolved as it is ‘where’ they evolved, ‘when’ they evolved, and ‘why’ all that matters.
Let us forget the rather grandiose conceptualizations of our ancestral Out-Of-Africa exodus. We are an invasive rather than a migratory species. Finlayson frequently uses the Eurasian collared dove, another invasive species, as an analogy:
“…the collared doves settled in suitable areas in south-eastern Europe… Their offspring could not stay where the parents lived, so they moved a kilometer or two down the road to the next park. Like this, kilometer by kilometer, the birds got across Europe… There was no migration of collared doves; it was simply a demographically triggered geographical expansion.”
From there it is a somewhat awkward and slightly problematic leap to:
“…there was nothing particularly special about human geographical expansion in prehistory, and it most certainly was not a migration of peoples.”
Kudos to the author for equating hominid expansion to something as visually aesthetic as the collared dove. Personally, I would have opted for something less adorable like Australia’s cane toad or the brown tree snakes of Guam.
As it turns out, Finlayson is full of interesting and thought provoking ideas. Take for instance his theory on bipedalism:
“Orangutans share something with humans that gorillas and chimpanzees do not. All of them can stand upright but when chimpanzees and gorillas do so, the hind limbs are flexed. Orangutans and humans, on the other hand, stand on straight hind limbs. This way of walking on tree branches gives the orangutan great benefits.”
From there it is a somewhat awkward and slightly problematic leap to:
“…the old idea that walking on two feet started when our ancestors ventured away from the forest into the open savannahs no longer holds. It now looks likely that bipedal walking may have started on the trees themselves.”
It’s not that the author’s ideas are without merit. Quite the opposite. His theories are exceptional and plausible and intriguing. It is his leap-of-faith logic of progression that saps away some of his credence.
Where were we? Oh yes, I remember - the plight of the Neanderthals:
[SPOILER ALERT] It turns out that Finlayson’s hypothesis on the extinction of the Neanderthals is perhaps the least controversial thing in his book. He attributes their disappearance to a combination of factors, the least of which is the encroachment of modern humans. In his analysis, what little interbreeding there was between Neanderthals and so-called ‘modern humans’ was incidental and inconsequential. It was climate change, their calorie-dependent physical build, their proclivity for ambush hunting and ambush hunting technology, and an unhealthy dose of sheer bad luck that did them in. From what paleoanthropologists can discern from the fossil record, Neanderthal populations were declining before Homo sapiens appeared on the scene. Their demise might have been accelerated by the competition and encroachment, but their fate was already sealed.
“Irrespective of the position that we might take regarding the causes of the extinction of the Neanderthals, it is undeniable that by the time the Ancestors reached their strongholds in southern Europe and Asia these ancient peoples of Eurasia were already on the way out.”
Let me end with a quote from the last chapter of The Humans Who Went Extinct. It reads as Finlayson venting a little steam and is probably my favorite passage in the whole book:
“[The Agricultural Revolution] marked the start of the illusion of progress towards a world of unsustainable growth, a dream that has turned into a nightmare as we procrastinate today while the current state and the future of our planet hang in the balance as a result of our voracity. How could we have reached such an unhealthy state of affairs? The answer lies in the way in which we got to the present, not as evolutionary superstars but as pests that invaded every nook and cranny that became available.”
3.5 stars, rounded up
Let us forget the rather grandiose conceptualizations of our ancestral Out-Of-Africa exodus. We are an invasive rather than a migratory species. Finlayson frequently uses the Eurasian collared dove, another invasive species, as an analogy:
“…the collared doves settled in suitable areas in south-eastern Europe… Their offspring could not stay where the parents lived, so they moved a kilometer or two down the road to the next park. Like this, kilometer by kilometer, the birds got across Europe… There was no migration of collared doves; it was simply a demographically triggered geographical expansion.”
From there it is a somewhat awkward and slightly problematic leap to:
“…there was nothing particularly special about human geographical expansion in prehistory, and it most certainly was not a migration of peoples.”
Kudos to the author for equating hominid expansion to something as visually aesthetic as the collared dove. Personally, I would have opted for something less adorable like Australia’s cane toad or the brown tree snakes of Guam.
As it turns out, Finlayson is full of interesting and thought provoking ideas. Take for instance his theory on bipedalism:
“Orangutans share something with humans that gorillas and chimpanzees do not. All of them can stand upright but when chimpanzees and gorillas do so, the hind limbs are flexed. Orangutans and humans, on the other hand, stand on straight hind limbs. This way of walking on tree branches gives the orangutan great benefits.”
From there it is a somewhat awkward and slightly problematic leap to:
“…the old idea that walking on two feet started when our ancestors ventured away from the forest into the open savannahs no longer holds. It now looks likely that bipedal walking may have started on the trees themselves.”
It’s not that the author’s ideas are without merit. Quite the opposite. His theories are exceptional and plausible and intriguing. It is his leap-of-faith logic of progression that saps away some of his credence.
Where were we? Oh yes, I remember - the plight of the Neanderthals:
[SPOILER ALERT] It turns out that Finlayson’s hypothesis on the extinction of the Neanderthals is perhaps the least controversial thing in his book. He attributes their disappearance to a combination of factors, the least of which is the encroachment of modern humans. In his analysis, what little interbreeding there was between Neanderthals and so-called ‘modern humans’ was incidental and inconsequential. It was climate change, their calorie-dependent physical build, their proclivity for ambush hunting and ambush hunting technology, and an unhealthy dose of sheer bad luck that did them in. From what paleoanthropologists can discern from the fossil record, Neanderthal populations were declining before Homo sapiens appeared on the scene. Their demise might have been accelerated by the competition and encroachment, but their fate was already sealed.
“Irrespective of the position that we might take regarding the causes of the extinction of the Neanderthals, it is undeniable that by the time the Ancestors reached their strongholds in southern Europe and Asia these ancient peoples of Eurasia were already on the way out.”
Let me end with a quote from the last chapter of The Humans Who Went Extinct. It reads as Finlayson venting a little steam and is probably my favorite passage in the whole book:
“[The Agricultural Revolution] marked the start of the illusion of progress towards a world of unsustainable growth, a dream that has turned into a nightmare as we procrastinate today while the current state and the future of our planet hang in the balance as a result of our voracity. How could we have reached such an unhealthy state of affairs? The answer lies in the way in which we got to the present, not as evolutionary superstars but as pests that invaded every nook and cranny that became available.”
3.5 stars, rounded up
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” ~Dylan Thomas
Ivan Ilych is slipping away and he knows it. His progression (regression?) into darkness is one of introspection and regret. Interspersed amid the episodes of physical pain, brought about by injury and illness, are Ilych’s contemplations on the meaning of life.
Being led inside the head of a dying man isn’t my idea of a good time, but Tolstoy, being Tolstoy, does it masterfully. Let’s face it, we are all going to be there someday. We know it’s coming. Some of us (most of us?) deal with this inevitability by ignoring it. We either pretend it isn’t there or we embrace the myth that if we do this or that we can somehow circumvent the unavoidable and plant our ass in an eternity of perpetual bliss. Tolstoy’s Ilych isn’t above all that, but his situation forces him to examine not the ‘what’ of it all, but rather the ‘why’ of it all.
Tolstoy was a genius. I read that some critics believe that this, The Death of Ivan Ilych, is the best short fiction he ever wrote. They will get no argument from me.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” ~Dylan Thomas
Ivan Ilych is slipping away and he knows it. His progression (regression?) into darkness is one of introspection and regret. Interspersed amid the episodes of physical pain, brought about by injury and illness, are Ilych’s contemplations on the meaning of life.
Being led inside the head of a dying man isn’t my idea of a good time, but Tolstoy, being Tolstoy, does it masterfully. Let’s face it, we are all going to be there someday. We know it’s coming. Some of us (most of us?) deal with this inevitability by ignoring it. We either pretend it isn’t there or we embrace the myth that if we do this or that we can somehow circumvent the unavoidable and plant our ass in an eternity of perpetual bliss. Tolstoy’s Ilych isn’t above all that, but his situation forces him to examine not the ‘what’ of it all, but rather the ‘why’ of it all.
Tolstoy was a genius. I read that some critics believe that this, The Death of Ivan Ilych, is the best short fiction he ever wrote. They will get no argument from me.
David Reich is a Harvard educated geneticist with a keen interest in ancient DNA and how it relates to human migrations and the mixing of populations.
Reich may write with the authority of an Ivy League intellectual, but he projects the enthusiasm of a child at christmas. It is that enthusiasm that propels Reich’s narrative of human evolution, population dispersal, integration and (sometimes) looping reintegration.
“Now that the genome revolution has arrived, with its power to reject longstanding theories, we need to abandon the practice of approaching questions about the human past with strong expectations. To understand who we are, we need to approach the past with humility and with an open mind, and to be ready to change our minds out of respect to the power of hard data.”
Reich has the intestinal fortitude to go where the hard data leads him, even when that data disproves his own theories, because that is how science (real science) works. This is not a fluff piece of conjecture and speculation (if it’s conjecture you’re craving, Reich suggests A Troublesome Inheritance by journalist Nicholas Wade). ‘Archaeogenetics’ is a science still in its infancy, but it is building a database that has already brought new and unexpected perspectives to anthropology and archeology. Old paradigms are being challenged, new ones are being formulated, change is inevitable. Even this book, first published in 2018, is already in need of revision. If you’re a science nerd like me, these are exciting times.
Reich may write with the authority of an Ivy League intellectual, but he projects the enthusiasm of a child at christmas. It is that enthusiasm that propels Reich’s narrative of human evolution, population dispersal, integration and (sometimes) looping reintegration.
“Now that the genome revolution has arrived, with its power to reject longstanding theories, we need to abandon the practice of approaching questions about the human past with strong expectations. To understand who we are, we need to approach the past with humility and with an open mind, and to be ready to change our minds out of respect to the power of hard data.”
Reich has the intestinal fortitude to go where the hard data leads him, even when that data disproves his own theories, because that is how science (real science) works. This is not a fluff piece of conjecture and speculation (if it’s conjecture you’re craving, Reich suggests A Troublesome Inheritance by journalist Nicholas Wade). ‘Archaeogenetics’ is a science still in its infancy, but it is building a database that has already brought new and unexpected perspectives to anthropology and archeology. Old paradigms are being challenged, new ones are being formulated, change is inevitable. Even this book, first published in 2018, is already in need of revision. If you’re a science nerd like me, these are exciting times.
The Divine Feminine in the African Religious Traditions…
I must admit, I was drawn in by the beautiful cover, the clever subtitle, and the association of the author with the words “anthropology” (back cover) and “anthropologist” (pg 15). Unfortunately, this book is to anthropology what Jeane Dixon’s Astrological Cookbook is to astronomy. That’s not to say that there aren’t tidbits of useful study here, ethnographically speaking, but even those are suspect and based primarily on the author’s conjecture.
“Common African traditional religions include, but are not limited to, Ifa, La Regla Lucumi, Haitian Vodou, New Orleans Voodoo, Palo, 21 Divisions, Hoodoo and Conjure, Candomble, Umbanda, and more… There is no guidebook or Bible for these religions; they are instead handed down from person to person.”
Oral transmission was often the only means of preserving African religions in slave populations since so-called “pagan rituals” were almost always forbidden. As such, they were subject to individual interpretations and very often came to incorporate christian iconography and, later, new age accoutrements such as crystals and magnets. To sieve through all the chaff of appropriation would be the task of a true anthropologist but here, as a “practitioner,” author Lilith Dorsey embraces and indeed encourages their utilization.
The Voodoo Mafia?
“…many of the rites and initiations come with a hefty price tag. Some say this is in lieu of a tithe, or an actual full-time apprenticeship… once you have joined a house, leaving it can be as difficult if not more difficult than separating yourself from your blood family.”
Dorsey goes on to tell of a woman she knows who initiated with a Haitian Vodou house but later changed her mind and attempted to leave. According to the author, the woman spent years trying to distance herself from her “spiritual family” and still, to this day, suffers consequences.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” ~Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part III
In short summary, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend any book that promotes and promulgates crystals and spells and tarot cards as effectual and legitimate. And before anyone rips into me for viewing Santeria through Judeo-Christian optics, let me just say that I gave Lilith Dorsey twice as many stars as I gave the Reverend Billy Graham:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2845632165
I must admit, I was drawn in by the beautiful cover, the clever subtitle, and the association of the author with the words “anthropology” (back cover) and “anthropologist” (pg 15). Unfortunately, this book is to anthropology what Jeane Dixon’s Astrological Cookbook is to astronomy. That’s not to say that there aren’t tidbits of useful study here, ethnographically speaking, but even those are suspect and based primarily on the author’s conjecture.
“Common African traditional religions include, but are not limited to, Ifa, La Regla Lucumi, Haitian Vodou, New Orleans Voodoo, Palo, 21 Divisions, Hoodoo and Conjure, Candomble, Umbanda, and more… There is no guidebook or Bible for these religions; they are instead handed down from person to person.”
Oral transmission was often the only means of preserving African religions in slave populations since so-called “pagan rituals” were almost always forbidden. As such, they were subject to individual interpretations and very often came to incorporate christian iconography and, later, new age accoutrements such as crystals and magnets. To sieve through all the chaff of appropriation would be the task of a true anthropologist but here, as a “practitioner,” author Lilith Dorsey embraces and indeed encourages their utilization.
The Voodoo Mafia?
“…many of the rites and initiations come with a hefty price tag. Some say this is in lieu of a tithe, or an actual full-time apprenticeship… once you have joined a house, leaving it can be as difficult if not more difficult than separating yourself from your blood family.”
Dorsey goes on to tell of a woman she knows who initiated with a Haitian Vodou house but later changed her mind and attempted to leave. According to the author, the woman spent years trying to distance herself from her “spiritual family” and still, to this day, suffers consequences.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” ~Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part III
In short summary, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend any book that promotes and promulgates crystals and spells and tarot cards as effectual and legitimate. And before anyone rips into me for viewing Santeria through Judeo-Christian optics, let me just say that I gave Lilith Dorsey twice as many stars as I gave the Reverend Billy Graham:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2845632165
“Raising those black boys as if they were family. Talk about Christian sacrifice.”
Julia Scheeres’ memoir is a chronicle of a childhood spent in a Christian-fundamentalist nightmare. And it’s not just HER nightmare; when Julia was very young her parents decided that adopting black children would be the ultimate test of their religious convictions and zeal. Thus came David—and later, when it was decided that David needed a “black playmate,” came Jerome.
Discipline (read: indoctrination) in the Scheeres household was swift and strict, but doubly so for the adopted (read: black) children.
“I don’t get whipped like they do when I talk back or get caught in a lie. I get grounded. I’m spared the rod, and it’s a dirty privilege that makes me feel guilty. I hate sharing genes with the man who hurts them, our father. Our father, who heals the sick and dying by day, and causes injury at night.”
This uneven (read: racist) application of Proverbs 13:24 (spare the rod, spoil the child) served to segregate David and Jerome from the rest of the family. But, in spite of all the obvious inequalities, David and Julia remained close and protective of one another.
As the children grew older they started to chafe under the constraints imposed upon them by their religiously zealous parents. Jerome ran away. Julia and her brother David were ultimately sent to a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic; a dubious and horrific little hellhole called “Escuela Caribe.”
“I still can’t believe that a place like Escuela Caribe exists, and that I find myself enrolled in it. All I did was try to wring some happiness from life, a little fun and a little affection, and as a result I was banished to an island colony ruled by sadistic Jesus freaks.”
Once securely incarcerated at EC, the theological indoctrination was stepped up.
“I swallow dryly. “The Rapture’s due any day now,” he shouts… “The signs of the End Times are here, just like the Book of Revelation prophesized. We’ve got nuclear bombs and legalized abortion and gay homos on prime-time TV. Evil surrounds us.” I don’t recall the Bible mentioning any of those things, but perhaps I wasn’t reading it hard enough.”
And…
“The Pastor leans forward until his face is a few inches from mine, blocking out the rest of the room. His breath smells of boiled cabbage… “I took that little whore, and I stripped her naked and I beat her black and blue,” The Pastor says, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Beat the Devil right out of her. And believe you me, I would not hesitate to do it again.””
Wouldn’t it be great if evangelical philosophy could stand on its own merits? If the brain-washing of children wasn’t essential to its continued existence? Imagine a world where parents encouraged and promoted critical thinking; a world where a mother could simply say, “Your father and I believe the Prophet Muhammad took a trip to heaven on a winged horse” or “Your father and I pray to Ganesha who has four arms and the head of an elephant” or “Your father and I believe a rib-woman ate fruit from a magic tree” and the kids could have all the time they needed to think this through…
…but instead we have places like Escuela Caribe and the Magdalene Asylums and the infamous Canadian “residential schools”—each an example of church sanctioned child abuse.
Excluding the epilogue, Jesus Land isn’t an indictment of faith. It is simply an accounting. It is an honest, often self-deprecating, autobiography—courageously written and, for me, uncomfortably close to home.
“…I can no longer have blind faith in creeds because I am no longer blind.” ~Julia Scheeres, 2005
"The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it.” ~Carl Sagan, 1995
Julia Scheeres’ memoir is a chronicle of a childhood spent in a Christian-fundamentalist nightmare. And it’s not just HER nightmare; when Julia was very young her parents decided that adopting black children would be the ultimate test of their religious convictions and zeal. Thus came David—and later, when it was decided that David needed a “black playmate,” came Jerome.
Discipline (read: indoctrination) in the Scheeres household was swift and strict, but doubly so for the adopted (read: black) children.
“I don’t get whipped like they do when I talk back or get caught in a lie. I get grounded. I’m spared the rod, and it’s a dirty privilege that makes me feel guilty. I hate sharing genes with the man who hurts them, our father. Our father, who heals the sick and dying by day, and causes injury at night.”
This uneven (read: racist) application of Proverbs 13:24 (spare the rod, spoil the child) served to segregate David and Jerome from the rest of the family. But, in spite of all the obvious inequalities, David and Julia remained close and protective of one another.
As the children grew older they started to chafe under the constraints imposed upon them by their religiously zealous parents. Jerome ran away. Julia and her brother David were ultimately sent to a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic; a dubious and horrific little hellhole called “Escuela Caribe.”
“I still can’t believe that a place like Escuela Caribe exists, and that I find myself enrolled in it. All I did was try to wring some happiness from life, a little fun and a little affection, and as a result I was banished to an island colony ruled by sadistic Jesus freaks.”
Once securely incarcerated at EC, the theological indoctrination was stepped up.
“I swallow dryly. “The Rapture’s due any day now,” he shouts… “The signs of the End Times are here, just like the Book of Revelation prophesized. We’ve got nuclear bombs and legalized abortion and gay homos on prime-time TV. Evil surrounds us.” I don’t recall the Bible mentioning any of those things, but perhaps I wasn’t reading it hard enough.”
And…
“The Pastor leans forward until his face is a few inches from mine, blocking out the rest of the room. His breath smells of boiled cabbage… “I took that little whore, and I stripped her naked and I beat her black and blue,” The Pastor says, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Beat the Devil right out of her. And believe you me, I would not hesitate to do it again.””
Wouldn’t it be great if evangelical philosophy could stand on its own merits? If the brain-washing of children wasn’t essential to its continued existence? Imagine a world where parents encouraged and promoted critical thinking; a world where a mother could simply say, “Your father and I believe the Prophet Muhammad took a trip to heaven on a winged horse” or “Your father and I pray to Ganesha who has four arms and the head of an elephant” or “Your father and I believe a rib-woman ate fruit from a magic tree” and the kids could have all the time they needed to think this through…
…but instead we have places like Escuela Caribe and the Magdalene Asylums and the infamous Canadian “residential schools”—each an example of church sanctioned child abuse.
Excluding the epilogue, Jesus Land isn’t an indictment of faith. It is simply an accounting. It is an honest, often self-deprecating, autobiography—courageously written and, for me, uncomfortably close to home.
“…I can no longer have blind faith in creeds because I am no longer blind.” ~Julia Scheeres, 2005
"The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it.” ~Carl Sagan, 1995
"Belief in god depends on religious faith. Acceptance of evolution depends on empirical evidence. This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. If you attempt to reconcile and combine religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity; for any question about nature, if your answer is "God did it," a scientist will ask such questions as "How did god do it? What forces did god use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the creation process?" The end result can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena." (pg 123)
Michael Shumer is meticulous, thorough, and articulate. He first exposes the evangelical "Intelligent Design" philosophy for what it really is, then proceeds to dismantle it, brick by brick. Shumer writes about the not-so-hidden agenda of ID legislation and litigators, points out the flaws and falsehoods at its foundation, then proposes real world, constructive, fact-based solutions. This is not an attack on faith, it is an exposé on the idiocy of theocrats and other nefarious, self-righteous blowhards.
Michael Shumer is meticulous, thorough, and articulate. He first exposes the evangelical "Intelligent Design" philosophy for what it really is, then proceeds to dismantle it, brick by brick. Shumer writes about the not-so-hidden agenda of ID legislation and litigators, points out the flaws and falsehoods at its foundation, then proposes real world, constructive, fact-based solutions. This is not an attack on faith, it is an exposé on the idiocy of theocrats and other nefarious, self-righteous blowhards.