Richard Dawkins is a noted and respected scientist and, with his books - notably The God Delusion (2006) -on international bestseller lists, also a popular author.
And with the strong stance he's taken in his previous books, Dawkins has also become a noted, even notorious, atheist.
With his most recent book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins takes a slightly different tack. Perhaps surprisingly, the author notes early on in the book that it is "not intended as an anti-religious book" but rather is a "book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact".
However, this search for, and emphasis on, the "positive evidence" is part of the problem with a book like this. It can seem as though the book is trying too hard. Sometimes the wording seems a little too emphatic, perhaps even a little too demanding.
"Evolution is a fact," Dawkins writes. "Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact."
Such writing can feel like beating and battering the reader into submission. Clearly the author holds evolution close to his heart but such insistence might prove counterproductive or even alienating for some readers.
Given the author's reputation for writing "anti-religious" books and achieving some fame as an atheist, it is ironic that in this book he can come across in a manner reminiscent of a proselytizing preacher, his sermon being on "the facts of evolution".
The book is very much a celebration of the process, the author noting that it is right to "celebrate the astonishing power, simplicity and beauty" of evolution, but as the title indicates, the emphasis is on the evidence.
Dawkins goes to some lengths in pointing out that discussing the "theory of evolution" is a something of a misnomer, as for him and many others, it is not merely theory but fact. This is especially highlighted in the chapter titled "Only a Theory?".
Attractive black-and-white illustrations and diagrams in all the chapters help show the "celebration of evolution", as do the four sections of glossy color illustrations.
A large amount of time and effort was clearly put into the book, in both the illustrations and the text. As one might expect of a scientist, Dawkins is meticulous in his attention to detail and exploration of the data that is the supporting evidence for evolution.
The manner in which he explores the diversification of living creatures makes for amazing and enlightening reading, and consistently so. For example, the discussion on the domestication of dogs and how humans have effectively played a hand in the evolution of breeds is interesting and evidently written by a person fond of dogs.
Dawkins' skill here is in showing how even the seemingly mundane and uninteresting can become of note in the exploration of the evidence for evolution. Who would have thought that looking at varieties of cabbages could form an interesting read? But here it does, with writing that represents the welcome and solidly scientific side of the book.
It is when this scientific approach is being used, appealing to the reader's logic, that the book works at its best. The patches where the book does not work so well tend to be when the dispassionate and cool analysis is set aside.
The author does on occasion use expressions that are less than friendly toward those who do not accept the theory of evolution, showing his own convictions with words such as "ignorant" and "ridiculous". Dawkins even refers to those who reject evolution as "the history deniers". This phrase forms the title of the book's appendix, which reports the various degrees of acceptance or denial of the theory around the world.
It is reported that more than 40 percent of Americans deny that humans have evolved from other animals and believe that God created humans within the past 10,000 years.
Although this book is filled with evidence in support of evolution and it is consistently eloquently written, it seems doubtful that the minds of many of those 40 percent would be changed by this book, indeed that they would even address this book; considerable is their loss.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
by Richard Dawkins
Bantam Press, London, 2009
470 pages
