The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Background

This book is my personal summary of the evidence that the 'theory' of evolution is actually a fact—as incontrovertible a fact as any in science.

Richard Dawkins has written a number of books about evolution. beginning with The Selfish Gene (1976) and The Extended Phenotype (1982). These he followed with three books that attempted to address common misunderstandings about evolution. His documentary series The Genius of Charles Darwin looks at Darwin's life and some of the evidence for evolution.

However, when he looked back at the work he had published, he felt that he had never comprehensively addressed the evidence of common descent. Dawkins believed that opposition to evolution was as strong as ever, despite the overwhelming, and growing, body of evidence for the theory. He started writing The Greatest Show on Earth during his final months as Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science (Marcus du Sautoy now holds the position) and finished it in retirement. He thought that 2009, the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and 150th anniversary of his book On the Origin of Species, was the perfect time for such a work. Other authors have written similar books recently, such as Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True which Dawkins highly recommends.

Dawkins's literary agent John Brockman promoted the book to publishers under the working title Only a Theory. However, American biologist Kenneth Miller had already used that title for his own book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul (2008). He kept "Only a Theory?" as the title for the first chapter, "with a precautionary question mark to guard against creationist quote-mining". Dawkins got the title from a T-shirt given to him by "an anonymous well-wisher" which bears the words "Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth; the Only Game in Town". He wore it occasionally when giving lectures, and realised it was ideal for a title. However, since his editor would not permit such a long title, they shortened it to The Greatest Show on Earth. On three occasions, Dawkins wanted to include new scientific findings that emerged late in the publishing process; despite the disruption, the publisher accommodated them.

Dawkins dedicated the book to Josh Timonen, who worked with others to build the website RichardDawkins.net. Dawkins writes in the preface: "Josh's creative talent runs deep, but the image of the iceberg captures neither the versatile breadth of his contributions to our joint endeavour, nor the warm good humour with which he makes them." Dawkins also thanks his wife Lalla's "unfailing encouragement, helpful stylistic criticisms and characteristically stylish suggestions", and his friend Charles Simonyi as he signs off after fourteen years and seven books.

Synopsis

The book is divided into 13 chapters spanning over 400 pages, and includes an appendix called "The history-deniers" in the end material.

1. Only a theory? (nature of scientific theory and fallibility)
2. Dogs, cows and cabbages (artificial selection)
3. The primrose path to macro-evolution
4. Silence and slow time (age of the Earth and the geologic time scale)
5. Before our very eyes (examples of evolution observed)
6. Missing link? What do you mean, 'missing'? (the fossil record)
7. Missing persons? Missing no longer (human evolution)
8. You did it yourself in nine months (a statement attributed to J. B. S. Haldane; discusses developmental biology)
9. The ark of the continents (biogeography and plate tectonics)
10. The tree of cousinship (the tree of life, homology and analogy)
11. History written all over us (vestigiality and unintelligent design)
12. Arms races and 'evolutionary theodicy' (coevolution and evolutionary arms races)
13. There is grandeur in this view of life (based on the final passage of On the Origin of Species)

Critical reception

The book received a positive critical reception on its release. Writing in The Times, Anjana Ahuja described Dawkins's account of the evidence for evolution as "fine, lucid and convincing". Though she criticised him for aggrandising the role of Islam in the spread of creationism and suggested that his writing style is unlikely to persuade disbelievers, Ahuja described these as merely "quibbles" and recommended the book to all readers. The Economist also featured a favourable review, praising Dawkins's writing style as "persuasive" and lauding its educational value. Mark Fisher in The List called Dawkins a "compelling communicator", adding that the book was "illuminating" and praising the use of humorous anecdotes throughout. The Sunday Telegraph awarded it "Book of the Week", with reviewer Simon Ings describing Dawkins as a "master of scientific clarity and wit". Although Ings felt that anger had interfered with Dawkins's creativity to an extent, he also praised sections of the book as "magical" and "visceral", concluding that there was a "timeless merit" to the overall theme.

The New York Times reviewer, Nicholas Wade, while praising the work overall, criticised Dawkins's assertion that evolution can be treated as an undeniable fact and asserted that Dawkins's insistence that it is a fact makes him as dogmatic as his opponents. Moreover, characterising his opponents as "history-deniers," "worse than ignorant" and "deluded to the point of perversity" Wade asserts, "is not the language of science, or civility." Wade sees both Dawkins and his creationist opponents as wrong. Wade's review was subsequently criticised in multiple letters to The New York Times. In one, Daniel Dennett asserted that creationism deserves as much respect as believing that the world is flat. The second letter, from Philip Kitcher, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, asserted that evolution and other scientific findings "are so well supported that they count as facts".