This chapter explores the erosion of trust in public facts and the crisis within commonsense conceptions of reality. It traces the evolution of scientific practices, emphasizing the role of early experimental scientists like Robert Boyle in grounding them. Ezrahi argues that the contemporary breakdown of epistemological norms, which previously upheld facts as sociopolitical currency, inevitably undermines the foundations of contemporary democracy. The citizens' diminished confidence in understanding why political actors behave in specific ways, coupled with the disparities between motives and visible effects, fosters the proliferation of conspiracy theories. The current breakdown of epistemological norms manifests itself in the “post truth” era and the ascent of “alternative facts.” Ezrahi scrutinizes the challenges of discerning facts from opinions in journalism and underscores the perils of exposure to fake news. The chapter investigates the erosion of a shared commonsense perception of reality through the lens of the Brexit campaign and the Trump presidency. Ezrahi highlights that the blurring of the cosmological dichotomy between Nature and humans has made it increasingly challenging for the public to differentiate between facts and fiction. Finally, he advocates for an awareness of the public’s role in defining political causes and facts.

This chapter comprises dicussion of both informal and formal arguments against belief in the God of theism. Informal arguments rely on an “anyone-can-see” atheistic intuition about nature, unveiled in Darwinian terms. Formal arguments rely on an atheistic inference made from evidence – from the configuration of evolutionary evils suffered by animals in the natural realm, past and present. A successful God-justifying account will have to weaken the atheistic force of these arguments, if not mitigate them altogether. The author proposes that the prospects for success are poor, so long as we approach the problem of God and evolutionary animal suffering on conventional ethical norms for the moral agency of God in creating species. He looks ahead to proposing that aesthetics will play a major role in his own approach to both the teleological and moral aspects of the Darwinian Problem.