The Greatest Show on Earth

Richard Dawkins transformed our view of God in his blockbuster, "The God Delusion, "which sold more than 2 million copies in English alone. He revolutionized the way we see natural selection in the seminal bestseller "The Selfish Gene." Now, he launches a fierce counterattack against proponents of "Intelligent Design" in his latest "New York Times "bestseller, "The Greatest Show on Earth." "Intelligent Design" is being taught in our schools; educators are being asked to "teach the controversy" behind evolutionary theory. There is no controversy. Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence--from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics--to make the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." His unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument, exposing the absurdities of the creationist position, into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.