The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species, shook society to its core on publication in 1859. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke but he would surely have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. In The Greatest Show on Earth Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of 'Intelligent Design' and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. Like a detective arriving on the scene of a crime, he sifts through fascinating layers of scientific facts and disciplines to build a cast-iron case: from the living examples of natural selection in birds and insects; the 'time clocks' of trees and radioactive dating that calibrate a timescale for evolution; the fossil record and the traces of our earliest ancestors; to confirmation from molecular biology and genetics. All of this, and much more, bears witness to the truth of evolution. The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is now flourishing as never before, especially in America. In Britain and elsewhere in the world, teachers witness insidious attempts to undermine the status of science in their classrooms. Richard Dawkins provides unequivocal evidence that boldly and comprehensively rebuts such nonsense. At the same time he shares with us his palpable love of the natural world and the essential role that science plays in its interpretation. Written with elegance, wit and passion, it is hard-hitting, absorbing and totally convincing

With this tremendous follow-up to his blockbuster The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins takes advocates of intelligent design by the scruff of the neck and unfolds the evidence for evolution with characteristic panache. In a world in which Creationism is being taught in schools and educators are being asked to "teach the controversy" behind evolution, a delightfully exasperated Dawkins has decided to explain how it all really works.

In visceral, crystalline prose, Dawkins sets up each creatonist objection to evolution and takes it to task, bit by bit destroying the idea that the natural world needed an intelligent designer. But this is more than an argument. This is a thrilling tour into our distant past and into the interstices of all life on earth. Taking listeners through the case for evolution step-by-step, Dawkins looks at DNA (Fingerprints, Footprints, and Bloodstains), selective breeding (Wolf Pygmalion) anatomical similarity (The Kindred Garden and the Tree of Ancestry), molecular family trees (Molecular Minuet) geography (The Ark of the Continents), fossils (No rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian) vestiges and imperfections (Past Imperfect), a catchall q&a (The Handy Dandy Creation Refuter), the stages of human evolution (Portraits of Grancestors), and the formula for a strong scientific theorytearing down the Intelligent Design theory in the process. This will be the last word in the evolution debate, and it will add God Delusion fans to the already science-hungry audience who bought the latest Steven Pinker or devoured Bill Bryson's The History of Nearly Everything.

The God Delusion stimulated, even set the terms of, one of the world's most vigorous public debates: the question of God's existence. The Greatest Show on Earth will provide listeners with the tools to join this vital debate effectively. And Dawkins' infectious passion for the world's beauty will convert all but the most doctrinaire creationists.