Evolution and Religion : Questioning the Beliefts of the World's Eminent Evolutionists

by Greg Graffin

Questioning the beliefs of the world's eminent evolutionists.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Gregory Walter Graffin is an American punk rock musician and college professor. He is most recognized as the lead vocalist and songwriter of the noted Los Angeles band Bad Religion, which he co-founded in 1980 and has been its only continual member. Graffin obtained his Ph.D. at Cornell University and has lectured courses in life sciences and paleontology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Graffin attended El Camino Real High School, then double-majored in anthropology and geology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles. He went on to earn a master's degree in geology from UCLA and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. The Ph.D. dissertation was officially a zoology Ph.D., supervised by William B. Provine at Cornell. The dissertation was entitled "Monism, Atheism and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology." It is described as being essentially an evolutionary biology Ph.D. but having also relevance to history and philosophy of science.

Greg Graffin spends most of his time in Upstate New York, and teaches Life Science 1 and Earth & Space Sciences 116 (paleontology) at UCLA during the winter or fall quarters of each school year. According to a June 2008 interview with Bad Religion bassist Jay Bentley, Graffin will be teaching there from January to March 2009.

Greg Graffin received the Harvard Secular Society's "Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism" on April 26, 2008. During the award ceremony he played some acoustic versions of Bad Religion songs as well as songs from his solo career.

Preston Jones, a historian at the Christian John Brown University in Arkansas, sent Graffin an e-mail asking about one of his songs, and Graffin replied. Their resulting year-long e-mail exchange was published as a book in 2006, entitled "Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? A Professor and Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity."

In 2009 Graffin announced that he had written a book entitled "Anarchy Evolution," and that it will be published by Harper Collins with a tentative release date of April 14, 2010.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Reviews

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a phd thesis this was fairly palatable.
I still had to do some reference reading, but I imagine most religious scholarly types would easily digest this.
I found this highly interesting, well researched, and (despite Greg's personal views on religion) impartial.
I would have liked to have been there when he defended this, I think the presentation would have been fascinating.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and surprisingly approachable dissertation analyzing the world views of the world's leading evolutionists. Is belief in a god incompatible with studying evolution? Do evolutionists find it important to present naturalism and / or humanism as a rational alternative to dualist beliefs (theism / deism)? These are the questions Graffin tackles in the main body of this book.

And while that segment was interesting, I actually found the transcripts of the interviews found in Appendix IV the real draw here. They read less like interviews and more like two learned individuals commiserating and seeing what the other's beliefs and goals are.

Rather dry material, so maybe not for the casual Bad Religion fan, but certainly rewarding for someone interested in the process of belief, as it were.

[Steven Wetter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greg Graffin does a spectacular job on his dissertation with a non-partial study that polls Evolutionary biologists and how they feel about religion and it's influence on their decisions or opinions about their work. He started with the concept of Leuba's 1916 Statistical Study of scientists' attitudes towards religion that was later repeated by Edward Larson and Larry Witham in 1996. The previous studies were identical in questionnaire and broadness of focus groups. Greg Graffin took it a step further and narrowed the focus group to only renowned Evolutionary Biologists and made the study worldwide, instead of just American. He breaks down the difference between the Atheist, Agnostic, Deist, contemporary Theist, etc and gives a realistic view of how the Evolutionary Scientific community feels about religion, god, gods, atheism, naturalism, and deism. The results may be surprising to you, or not. I would highly recommend reading the Appendix IV: Interview Transcripts. They are a great plus to the entirety of the Book. Five stars! All the way and not just because I'm a Bad Religion fan. This book will disappoint you if you are reading it for that reason alone. It's a great study in general and an accredit to Greg Graffins intellectual stature.

[Navreet Dhaliwal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graffin presents a simple and concise research design that aims to improve and further precedent research done by Leuba while seeking motivations for the religious beliefs of evolutionary scientists. Graffin's questionnaire allows for the diversity of beliefs of scientists, while maintaining their individuality in thought. His findings relating to religious opinions on a superficial level are obvious, but the deeper rationale behind how his questionnaire was answered in certain instances is illuminating. Having a background in natural science makes this an interesting read for anyone who has interest in the same work and is approaching it from the humanities and or as a social scientist, particularly the applicable use of ternary diagrams. Graffin's interviews are poignant and interesting. I will admit that being a diehard Bad Religion fan was one of my motivations for reading this; however, I'm glad that I was able to approach Graffin's work as foundational and find the research accessible.

[Kat Connors · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the belief systems of modern biologists. Surprisingly accessible for a dissertation

[Hackie Laguna · Rating 5 out of 5]

👌👊

[Breno Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good scientist, bad social science. An ok book and interesting interview transcripts in the appendix.