Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D.

If the war against religion is real, as Republicans constantly assert, then I am one of its generals.

I am, after all, the founder and executive director of a 14,000 member organization that has as one of its primary goals the desire to ensure that evolutionary biology -- and...

Think back for a moment to the standardized tests of your youth. Included on those tests was a section on reading comprehension. You would read the paragraph or two and answer some questions about the content.

Let's try just that with the following two paragraphs:

Robin and Jill were best...

Sometimes, in conflict, important skirmishes arise purely spontaneously while at other times clashes are impeccably planned. Please be advised that the next important battle in the culture wars is scheduled to take place in Tampa. No, not at the Republican convention! The next major battle is coming to Tampa months...

Those damn experts are at it again! Once again they seem compelled to express their opinion on a topic in which they have advanced degrees. It's difficult to understand why they feel such a compulsion to speak out on a subject their research has defined. But they're making themselves heard...

Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson shocked the world and gave birth to the modern environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring. Her clear warning forever changed the way we dealt with pesticides.

Without intending to exaggerate, let me say that it is possible that my colleague at The Evergreen...

The attack on women occurring in so many state houses around the country this legislative session has received much well deserved attention. What has received far less notice, however, is the fact that science education has also been under relentless attack by many of these same legislators.

Bills attempting to...

Creationism, in all of its guises, from young earth creationism to intelligent design and beyond, is so clearly at odds with the modern scientific worldview that parodies of those who promote creationism abound. Even more than a disagreement over supposed scientific "facts," the biggest problem with all of creationism is...

Now that the Seventh Annual Evolution Weekend has concluded, it's appropriate to ask whether the event was successful. Given that I'm the founder of The Clergy Letter Project, the group that runs Evolution Weekend, and the person who created Evolution Weekend, I recognize that my opinion...

Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum just criticized President Barack Obama for not building his policy decisions on Biblical principles. He argued that the President's agenda is "about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology."

These bizarre comments open Santorum...

This coming weekend hundreds of religious congregations from all corners of the globe will take steps to re-focus the political discussion about religion. Their goals are actually as simple as they are important.

Their three most important imperatives are:

1. To protect mainstream religion from those who are attempting...

As the circus that is the Republican presidential sweepstakes pulls into New Hampshire, local legislators seem to be working overtime to shift the political pendulum even further to the right. And by doing so they're threatening to destroy both religion and science.

Two anti-evolution bills have just been introduced and...

Let me begin with the obvious. On so many levels, it is absolutely irrelevant what either Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum has to say about virtually anything. With that in mind, we shouldn't care that both again weighed in on the relationship between religion and science this past week in...

It's funny how upset some people get when they read their own words.

My most recent Huffington Post piece seems to have struck quite a nerve with significant players in the creationist movement. That essay discussed the fact that peace is increasingly the norm between religion and...

If you're one of those who believe that religion and science have been at war (and I'll explain below why some believe that that "war" is actually a manufactured conflict), you might want to know that peace increasingly seems to be breaking out.

The message that people do not...

Bryan Fischer, the extreme spokesperson for the American Family Association, spoke to thunderous applause at the recent Values Voter Summit. That he was invited to speak unequivocally defines the values the group stands for. That he was so well received should frighten those of us who care about liberty and...

A couple of weeks ago the scientific world was shaken by a report out of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) claiming that, after years of study, neutrinos were found to be traveling faster than the speed of light. The results were so shocking because, if accurate, they contradict...

Could there be a better time to think about what a college education means than at the start of a new academic year? As a long-time academic administrator, I've given countless talks about the value of a liberal arts education. Indeed, as I write this, I'm preparing to do just...

Ann Coulter has recently performed an important service for the American populace. Just in case anyone had any doubt that electing a right wing ideologue from Texas with a strong fundamentalist bent to the White House would mean a return to the past -- and by that I most assuredly...

It's not often that there's good news coming out of the Republican Party -- for science in general or for evolution in particular. That pattern was broken on Aug. 18, when GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman took to Twitter to announce: "To be clear. I believe in evolution...

For those of us who care deeply about science literacy and who work to create an appropriate, and respectful, understanding between science and religion, Rick Perry's entry into the Republican presidential race offers both good and bad news.

On the positive side, Perry has decided not to run away...