From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Richard Dawkins

Start date: March 24, 2010

Finish date: April 30, 2010

Discussion: Book Club 2010 & Prior

Why we're reading this: This was the runner up book for March 2010 and a hot-pick for the April/May advance poll, so we're going …more
[close] This was the runner up book for March 2010 and a hot-pick for the April/May advance poll, so we're going with it now!

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Book Club 2010 & Prior

March Book Club "A Short History of nearly Everything"
By William · 14 posts · 147 views

last updated Aug 06, 2014 12:20PM

November 2010 - Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End / The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
By S. · 62 posts · 80 views

last updated Apr 19, 2012 04:58PM

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What Members Thought

Apr 14, 2011 David S. T. rated it really liked it

Shelves: science

This isn't the best introductory book I've read on evolution, Dawkins loves to insult the people who don't hold his views, goes way to far sometimes to get his point across and has a tendency to ramble on and mention interesting but irrelevant stuff. Once you get past the flaws this actually is a pretty good book, oddly by the end some of those qualities I hated about the book in the beginning, I started to appreciate more in the end (I kind of enjoy the almost pointless side stories and facts). This isn't the best introductory book I've read on evolution, Dawkins loves to insult the people who don't hold his views, goes way to far sometimes to get his point across and has a tendency to ramble on and mention interesting but irrelevant stuff. Once you get past the flaws this actually is a pretty good book, oddly by the end some of those qualities I hated about the book in the beginning, I started to appreciate more in the end (I kind of enjoy the almost pointless side stories and facts).

When I started reading this book, I put it down for a while because I got tired of the creationist rants, which apparently the high number of people who deny evolution is why this book is written. Dawkins even goes as far as comparing an evolution denier as the equivalent of someone denying the existence of the roman civilization or even worse a holocaust denier. I'm sorry but lacking the understanding or denying evolution is nothing like denying the holocaust. For one thing we've never really witnessed one animal evolving into another completely different species, meaning one "kind" into another "kind", in our lifetime (which is far too short of a time scale) or even more a bacteria evolving into a mammal, this doesn't mean evolution is false (its not), but it is far different than denying the holocaust. Anyways eventually I picked the book back up and it was far better as I got further into it. Also expect to hear the word “history-deniers” every few pages, I guess he wants us to remember just how terrible the evolution deniers are. Since this book is written to convince the 40% of American who deny evolution, Dawkins should realize by now that insulting your target audience isn't the best way to get them to listen to you. If anything his books do more help to the young earth creationist movement and intelligent design.

The subtitle of this book is “The Evidence for Evolution”, which is kind of an unfitting title, I found that Coyne's Why Evolution is True contains far more evidence in far fewer pages and is overall a better introduction to evolution. You see Dawkins often goes off on rants which do not to move the evidence along. For example in a chapter he discusses the age of the earth, he spends several pages discussing getting the age from tree rings. You see you can match the width of tree rings with others and go back to earlier dates, but then he says that the chain of tree rings goes back 11,000 years only, well the pages he spent on this argument do nothing to convince a young earth creationist of the age of the earth, in fact the argument works in their favor. The book is full of these little side notes and stories which causes the page numbers to go up, but the relevant information doesn't follow. Also expect tons of foot notes with mostly rants about TV shows he wants to be on, his childhood, or why we should call the Beijing Man, the Peking fossil, ect.

I know I've complained some but don't get me wrong, this book, once you look past the flaws, is still very interesting and worth reading (assuming that you're not a creationist). Many of the side stories which I complained about are actually interesting if you don’t mind frequent diversions and he goes into DNA a little more than the other non DNA specific evolution books I've read. So in the end I do think its pretty good, just not as a first book on evolution. ...more

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May 02, 2010 Sandra rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science

This is an important book, chock-full of wonderful information, and beautifully crafted arguments to quash purveyors of creationism and intelligent design. It left me immensely depressed because, of course, Dawkins is preaching to the choir here. Said purveyors of creationism and intelligent design will not read this book, nor will they let you try to explain it to them. According to Dawkins, 44% of Americans believe God created human beings pretty much in their present form sometime during the ...more

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Mar 04, 2010 Patricrk patrick rated it really liked it

Shelves: science

Good review of the evidence supporting evolution. Writer/educator obviously cares about the sorry state of education in Britian and the United States. The footnotes are very amusing.

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Feb 28, 2010 Chantel marked it as to-read