The Greatest Show on Earth-Richard Dawkins

Science

 

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Richard Dawkins

 

                Richard Dawkins is perhaps the most articulate and fierce proponent of the theory of Evolution today. He has authored many books on various facets of evolution, but had not collected and discussed the extant evidence for evolution in one place. In this book he has done this. He has mounted a terrific, unassailable and mammoth counterattack on the opponents of Evolution, the so-called believers in the theory of Intelligent Design, the Creationists. He calls them ‘history-deniers’, the 40-percenters. He explains citing believable allegories how deniers of evolution deny history. And the name, 40-percenters, because forty percent Americans deny that humans evolved from animals and believe that we were created by God in last 10,000 years. He presents incontrovertible evidence, one after another, in a most coherent manner, in a brilliant and lucid prose to prove the incontrovertible truth of the theory of Evolution. One can’t help but be awed by his tremendous power to get to the kernel of the argument, to follow it tenaciously till its logical end and his incomparable adroitness in laying his arguments on difficult scientific concepts in a clear, simple and comprehensible manner that is easily accessible to a layman. He stridently puts his point across. He does not mincing his words as he tears his opponents’ arguments to pieces. It is the force of his sharp intellect and his complete understanding of the subject that gives him an unbridgeable edge over his opponents.

                He takes opponents of evolution head-on in the very first chapter as he talks about the common myth that creationists spread about Evolution, that it is just a theory, meaning it is not a fact, merely a hypothesis. He likens Evolution to a mathematical Theorem, coining a new word ‘Theorum’ for it. He then talks about domestication; the artificial breeding of animals (notably dogs) and plants by men. This is notably the most glaring instance where we all can appreciate how new varieties of living beings (both animals and plants) can emerge in mere decades or a couple of centuries of selective breeding. Darwin in his iconic book The Origin of Species, devoted a large and prominent space to this evidence. Dawkins cites various convincing examples from nature to illustrate evolution. Evolution of unbelievable body parts in insects for pollination of various flowers and evolution of stunning plumage of male birds to gain attention of their female counterparts are just two of the numerous examples he has mentioned in the book. In an attempt to explain the vastness of geological time, he delivers a masterpiece of an essay in popular science as he writes about the techniques employed to measure age of rocks and fossils. He introduces us to certain interesting cases of evolution occurring ‘before our own eyes’; like shrinking tusk size in Ugandan Elephants to prevent early death by poaching for the tusks, evolution of E-Coli over 45,000 bacterial generations studied in Lenski experiments which demonstrated clearly and stunningly, certain known features of the theory of Evolution. In two chapters Dawkins systematically debunks the most quoted evidence against Evolution, namely the ‘Missing Links’ in the chain of evolution. He unravels the evidence for Evolution as seen in animal Embryology, Morphology, Physiology and Molecular Biology. He talks about ‘Arms-races’ in nature to illustrate how nature works ruthlessly, impartially and blindly with just one aim, i.e. preservation of individuals that have such variations as will make them superior to their contemporaries in the business of life and thus encourages propagation of their genes.

                He signs off by discussing the ineffably beautiful last paragraph of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species which gives me goose bumps every time I read it. I quote few lines here.

                ‘…There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone on revolving according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.’

 

Darwin’s discovery of ‘Evolution by the process of Natural Selection’ has explained one of the most intriguing mysteries in the world; the origin of organic beings with a mind-numbing complexity. It not only paid put to the claims of theists that the creation of such magnificent lives is the crowning achievement of God and an evidence for his existence but also paved way for the understanding of certain unique attributes of humans like language, thought, instinct and ultimately the working of mind. This on-going research gives me hope that the mystery and aura shrouding concepts like human destiny, purpose of our lives, free will and determinism might dissolve one day in the light of this new science and allow us to lead a fuller, freer life in the new-gained knowledge of our selves. This book of Dawkins goes a long way in convincing us about the truth of Evolution, the only force generating complexity in organic life on our planet. It is absolutely riveting, essential and enlightening read for anyone who has ever bothered to know the facts of our origin.