Acknowledgments

All my long-suffering, magnificent friends will be happier than I am when this book is finally finished so that I will stop pestering them to read chapters and can resume pestering them to read only my columns. The ones I bother the most are: Robert Caplain, Steve Gilbert, Melanie Graham, James Higgins, Jim Moody, and Ned Rice. Also, Hans Bader, Trish Baker, Jon Caldera, Mallory and Thomas Danaher, John Harrison, Gary Lawson, Jim Hughes, Mark Joseph, Mark Kielb, Merrill Kinstler, Jon Ledecky, David Limbaugh, Gene Meyer, Dan Travers, Jon Tukel, Joe Sobran, Jeff Schwartz, Rich Signorelli, Edward Sisson, Suzy Vasillov, and Bill Zachary. So many of my friends have helped me, I apologize now for the seven I’ve forgotten.

I am eternally indebted to Ned Rice, who gives me more jokes than I will ever admit. Jim Downey gives me enough ideas in a single phone call for an entire chapter, several of which are included here.

I couldn’t have written about evolution without the generous tutoring of Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and William Dembski, all of whom are fabulous at translating complex ideas, unlike liberal arts types, who constantly force me to the dictionary to relearn the meaning of quotidian. Michael Fumento has been cheerfully exposing scientific frauds for decades and consequently gave me a lot of help with chapter 7—and anything else I could slip into his in-box. Doug Johnson and everyone at National Right to Life are a font of information and can always be counted on for the truth.

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the people I’ve tortured by getting my book in many months late: my publisher, Steve Ross; my editors, Doug Pepper and Jed Donahue; David Tran for his always brilliant book covers; my now-exhausted copy editor, Toni Rachiele; my sainted agent-for-life, Joni Evans; and my fabulous new agents, Suzanne Gluck and Mel Berger. Thanks in advance to my book publicists, Diana Banister and Anne Tyrrell.

And thanks always to my family, especially my mother and father, to whom all my books should be dedicated.