The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution - Couverture rigide

Dawkins, Richard

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1416594787 ISBN 13 : 9781416594789

Editeur : Free Pr, 2009

Synopsis

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

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 2008, a gallup poll showed that 44% of Americans polled believed God had
created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a PewForum poll in the same year, 42% of
those polled believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time. In this
environment, 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 tell us how it all really
works.
In visceral, crystalline prose, Dawkins sets up each creationist 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 us
through the case for evolution step-by-step, Dawkins looks at DNA, selective breeding, anatomical
similarity, molecular family trees, geography, fossils vestiges and imperfections, the stages of human
evolution, and the formula for a strong scientific theory tearing down the Intelligent Design theory in the
process. This will be the last word in the evolution debate, and it will add the legions of God Delusion
readers 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 readers 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.

Présentation de l'éditeur

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 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.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Free Pr
• Date d'édition: 2009
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1416594787
• ISBN 13: 9781416594789
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 470
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible