For an adequate account of the world, we must take a sober look at life as it really is. Hafer shows that things are a whole lot messier and makeshift than what some intelligent design theories would incline us to believe. This book has the potential not only to alter the political terrain in wars over evolution and creationism but also to prompt believers like me to rethink how we should talk about God as Creator.
— Thomas Jay Oord, author of 'Divine Grace and Emerging Creation'

I've been dreaming of a politically edgy treatment of intelligent design and here it is at last. Abby Hafer is acutely intelligent and wonderfully witty. Read this book and laugh your way to clarity and wisdom.
— Wesley J. Wildman, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts

A delightful exploration of the quirks of our bodies which make biology so much fun, evolution so fascinating, life so explicable, and intelligent-design creationism so preposterous.
— Steven Pinker, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Three cheers for Abby Hafer! She did it and no one thought it could be done! She wrote a devastating critique of intelligent design that is clear, funny, scientifically accurate, and charming. Her book is a marvel of how popular science should be written. Oh! Were there more scientific writers like Abby ...
— Michael Martin, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Introduction, or, Why Testicles Matter
Chapter 2 Bad Design - Men's Testicles
Chapter 3 What Is Intelligent Design, and What Does It Have to Do With Men's Testicles?
Chapter 4 Testicles, Part II
Chapter 5 Why Evolution Explains the Human Body Better than Intelligent Design Does
Chapter 6 Intelligent Design According to Its Believers: Is Intelligent Design the Same as Creationism, and Is Intelligent Design Religion?
Chapter 7 The Infamous Wedge Strategy
Chapter 8 Why Denying Evolution Can Get You into Trouble and Cause Mass Hunger, Too
Chapter 9 What Science Is
Chapter 10 Why Accepting Science and Evolution Can Lead to Better Values for All Humankind
Chapter 11 Bad Design - the Birth Canal
Chapter 12 The Handy-Dandy Intelligent Design Refuter, Part 1
Chapter 13 Intelligent Design Requires a Leap of Faith
Chapter 14 Animals That Shouldn't Exist According to Intelligent Design
Chapter 15 Bad Design - the Human Throat
Chapter 16 The Handy-Dandy Intelligent Design Refuter, Part 2
Chapter 17 Irreducible Complexity, the Design Inference, and Geological Formations
Chapter 18 Irreducible Complexity and Blood Clotting
Chapter 19 Bad Design - the Human Blood Clotting System: It Led to the Communist Russian Revolution
Chapter 20 Irreducible Complexity, Flagella, and Cilia
Chapter 21 Irreducible Complexity and the Human Eye
Chapter 22 Bad Design - the Human Eye
Chapter 23 Why Denying Science is Bad for You, and Bad for Your Neighbors, Too
Chapter 24 Why Reward in Heaven Makes No Difference to Human Behavior, but Good Institutions Do
Chapter 25 Bad Design - Our Biochemical Pathways: If Cats Don't Die of Scurvy, Then Why Do We?
Chapter 26 Why Does Intelligent Design Act So Much Like the Tobacco Lobby?
Chapter 27 Bad Design - Our Teeth, or, Why Is This Animal Smiling?
Chapter 28 The Discovery Institute Hasn't Discovered Anything (Sort of Like the Tobacco Institute)
Chapter 29 The Publishing Scandal that Rocked the Discovery Institute
Chapter 30 Bad Design - Sharks Get More Reproductive Options, Too
Chapter 31 Exploding the Cambrian Explosion
Chapter 32 Why William Dembski's 'Information Theory' Isn't Very Informative
Chapter 33 Bad Design - the Human Genome
Chapter 34 Bad Design - the Human Appendix
Chapter 35 Evolution: The Greatest Indisputably True Story Ever Told

Appendix 1 - The Phylogeny of Mammalian Testicles
Appendix 2 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Statement on Intelligent Design
Appendix 3 - The Life Cycle of the Immortal Jellyfish
Appendix 4 - Credits and Notes for Illustrations and Photographs

Index