The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
By Richard Dawkins
Free Press. 470 pages. $30
Only a prodigiously gifted writer can capture the essence of the evolutionary argument with the uncanny ability to distill it and make the scientifically complex so easy for lay readers to grasp.
Richard Dawkins has accomplished that and more in this splendid volume, replete with plentiful, full-color pictures, the latest in his ten-book output.
He abbreviated the title from a slogan on a gift tee-shirt: “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Only Game in Town.”
The original working title, “Only a Theory?,” then served to head his first chapter, but as the author wryly comments, followed by a cautionary question mark to guard against creationist quote mining.
His primary purpose in this undertaking confirms, unhesitatingly, the veracity of the fact of evolution, as incontrovertible as any in the whole field of science. He coins the term “theorum,” adapted from the mathematical term “theorem,” to mean an obviously supported fact.
The researcher cites exceptional examples of evolution occurring during one human lifetime — the change in the size of elephant tusks, the enlarged head in a certain species of lizard and the remarkable feat of creating 45,000 generations of e. coli bacteria under laboratory conditions during only two decades.
However, in the normal course of events, scientists resemble detectives who arrive on the scene of a crime but didn't witness the event and must reconstruct what must have happened based only on the surviving clues.
He tackles head-on the creationist argument that there are gaps in the fossil record — aka missing links — despite the abundant evidence for the seamless march of natural history so overwhelmingly present and entirely secure that any fossils, gaps included, only provide an evidentiary bonus.
Unintelligent Designer?
Adaptation and natural selection are the watchwords for evolution because it cannot peer into the future and anticipate needed change. However, if an Intelligent Designer (a shameless and religiously-motivated specious euphemism for a Creator) did exist, the naturalist gives numerous examples of such poor design that those defects strongly suggest Unintelligent Designer as a much more appropriate moniker.
Another favorite ploy of the ID school argues that the theory of evolution contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but that charge, says Dawkins, only reveals that the ID people comprehend the Second Law even more dimly than Darwin's greatest discovery. In one of his most memorable analogies, he portrays anti-evolutionists as history-deniers notoriously comparable with Holocaust deniers.
Because of poorly taught science, creationists can blatantly propound the fallacy that we descended from monkeys whereas the historical record clearly shows that the only link between monkeys and humans is our sharing of a common ancestor.
With regard to the tired and tiresome creationist argument, “Teach children that they are animals and they will behave like animals,” he insists that even if such an unfounded accusation were true, it would not and could not negate or nullify the truth of the scientific record.
The former Oxford professor fittingly titles his last chapter “There Is Grandeur in This View ofLlife.”
Since belief in an afterlife with guaranteed survival beyond the grave goes hand in glove with belief in creationism, he underscores the inescapable fact that our very existence is almost too surprising to bear. As we contemplate and focus on the staggering complexity, the ineffable elegance, the splendiferous forms most beautiful and wonderful, and the breathtaking beauty of our planet Earth, the fantasy of another life in the hereafter would be tantamount to complete denial of the rationalist-humanist philosophy that this world is all we can ever possibly be certain about.
And a nice, neat, succinct, three-word summation of that outlook, which Dawkins so eloquently paints for us, comes to us from the title of American poet Edward Markham's exquisite gem: “Earth Is Enough.”
Mr. Akerley may be contacted at benakerley@aol.com
