Biography

He obtained his PhD in ethics from Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

 and then came to teach at a variety of institutions including Marquette University

Marquette University

Marquette University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1881, the school is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities...

, Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

Saint Mary's University of Minnesota is a private, comprehensive, coeducational university with an undergraduate campus in the city of Winona, Minnesota, United States...

, Thomas Aquinas College

Thomas Aquinas College

Thomas Aquinas College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college offering a single integrated academic program. It is located in Santa Paula, California north of Los Angeles. It offers a unique education with courses based on the Great Books and seminar method...

, and the Franciscan University of Steubenville

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Franciscan University of Steubenville is a Catholic institution located in Steubenville, Ohio, west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school was founded in 1946 by the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular. In 1974, Fr...

. Wiker came to attention in 2002 with the publication of Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists. In this book, Wiker aims to show how Darwinism

Darwinism

Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....

 by its very nature completely undermines the ethical foundations of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 because its materialist

Materialism

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...

 cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

 was incompatible with any concept of natural law

Natural law

Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...

. Wiker became a member of the Discovery Institute

Discovery Institute

The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...

, a think tank

Think tank

A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...

 supporting this idea, soon after the publication of the book.

His next major book, Architects of the Culture of Death, co-written with veteran Catholic ethicist Donald DeMarco, looks at how the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...

 to Peter Singer

Peter Singer

Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...

 have undermined the Christian value of "sanctity of life". 2008's 10 Books That Screwed Up the World looks at fifteen important books from The Prince

The Prince

The Prince is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus . But the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after...

to The Feminine Mystique

The Feminine Mystique

The Feminine Mystique, published February 19, 1963, by W.W. Norton and Co., is a nonfiction book written by Betty Friedan. It is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States....

and aims, following Paul Johnson and E. Michael Jones

E. Michael Jones

Eugene Michael Jones is a writer, former professor, and the current editor of Culture Wars magazine ....

, to show how the actual lives of these thinkers led to fundamentally distorted views about human nature and especially sexuality.

The Darwin Myth is a biography of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 which portrays Darwin as a good husband and a kind, charitable person and claims that Darwin was involved in an ideological conspiracy by members of the late Enlightenment which aimed to remove God from science. Wiker to uses these claims to support his own belief in a supernaturally guided theistic evolution

Theistic evolution

Theistic evolution or evolutionary creation is a concept that asserts that classical religious teachings about God are compatible with the modern scientific understanding about biological evolution...

 as an alternative to the naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

 view espoused by Darwin and modern biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

.