THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

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 Amer