 "Fascinating and approachable" | 2009-10-23 |
| - Reviewed By dlandon2000 |
Fabulous book! It is well written, logical and entertaining. Extremely informative and pursuasive. It is an honest and direct explanation of the evidence for evolution.
If you don't accept (or more likely don't know anything about) evolution I strongly urge you to read this book. If you are correct you have nothing to fear from evidence or investigation. |
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| "Excellent" | 2009-10-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3UCZ9TPAR3TD6 |
| "The Greatest Show on Earth" does for evolutionary science what Sagan's "Cosmos" did for cosmology. Dawkins does an incredible job of explaining the wonder of the evolutionary process in ways that the layman can easily understand. |
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| "There is Grandeur in this View" | 2009-10-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1RDM4ISYZNOFX |
With humor and eloquence Richard Dawkins newest book reviews the evidence for evolution and demonstrates that Creationists suffer from poverty of imagination. He walks the reader through the various types of evidence that have supported the theory of evolution. In doing this I was struck by the sheer idiocy of many public school officials who "down-play" teaching the theory and thus keep students shrouded in ignorance.
While Dawkins book (and the theory itself) in no way limit exploring the evolution of consciousness, they both help us understand the structure of life and that understanding takes time and effort. This is a key point and where learning about evolution requires dedication to learning. This is not a prized virtue in America and I think the lazy retreat to Creationism is one symptom of that laziness. I wish I'd read this before "Evolution: The First Four Billion Years" as Dawkins really does a great job teaching. |
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| "Learned many facts and concepts" | 2009-10-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3AWSD2KF5XGZ0 |
| I have read all of Dawkins books and expected this to be another interesting but redundat book. However, it was significantly different and I learned many facts concepts and methods that I was aware of, but this book expanded on them (e.g. Detail of methods of dating, genes and thier effect on embrionic growth, etc.). |
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 "A polemical book with wrong microbiology" | 2009-10-22 |
| - Reviewed By sumimus |
This is a disappointing book that has a polemical tone
with wrong microbiology. Dawkins try to prove that
evolution is really happening, but his examples, microbiology,
and tone will not convince the people that do not believe
in evolution. Here are a few reasons why the book fails.
1) Dawkins choice of analogies to convey evolution's characteristics
often proves the opposite.
2) The local rules principle proposed by Dawkins to describe the
development of organisms is factually wrong. Organisms have
many central controllers to develop and live. In particular, this is
true for unicellular organisms (e.g., E. coli).
Without master controllers to direct the functioning and growth of
a bacteria, all known bacteria would die.
3) Dawkins draws conclusions which are hypothesis from the result
of the LTEE experiment done by Blount, Borland, and Lenski. The
LTEE experiment has yet not proven anything to support random
mutation towards more complex organisms.
More details:
Point 1) Dawkins approach to try to explain evolution using analogies
often proves the opposite of what evolution is. For example, his
computer experiment based on a target sentence is just the opposite of
what evolution is: undirected random mutation. His example just proves that
direction is required for random mutation to support evolution. This
is contrary to evolution which claims that random mutation is "blind"
and selection occurs on the phenotypes (not the random mutation
themselves!).
Point 2) Dawkins claims that the development of a human, or almost any
organism, is exclusively controlled by local (biological) rules. This
is not the case at all. In prokaryotes, it is well known that some
genes regulate the transcription of large number of genes. These
regulator genes act as master controllers, or leaders, to direct cells'
development and growth. Actually there is a complex network of
transcription regulations in all known organisms where some genes act
on others which act on others, and so on. The "local rules" described
by Dawkins are imagined explanation not in contact with reality.
Point 3) The LTEE experiment (PNAS, June 10 2008, vol. 105, no. 23)
has not proven that two mutations occurred during the experiment for
E. coli to grow on Citrate in an Oxigen environment. So Dawkins
rhetoric around this hypothesis remains speculative, although at some
point Dawkins appear to take this for a fact. The double mutations is
an hypothesis in the paper so all Dawkins' rhetorics are in the domain
of speculation. And note that 31000 generations to simply express a
gene that has always been there anyway does not show great evolution
capability from random mutation. Note that E. coli can grow on
Citrate, it just needs the gene corresponding to it to be expressed,
and this could done by removing Oxygen in the flasks. And this could be
due to a cryptic gene, as Blount et al states as a possibility in the
PNAS paper. To really understand what the LTEE experiment really
proves you need to read the PNAS paper, Dawkins' explanations are too
one sided and full of rhetoric that hides the fact that the experiment
has not shown the "creative power" of random mutation. Bottom line:
The authors of the LTEE experiment do not really know for sure,
at the nucleotide level of the genes, what caused E. coli to suddenly
adapts itself to Citrate in an Oxygen environment.
Many other authors have provided a much more precise, correct, clear,
and readable account of what is really going on in microbiology and
evolution compared to this book. I am thinking of writers such as
Christian de Duve (Nobel laureate). If I wanted to understand real
microbiology, I would steer clear of this book which has quite a
polemical tone.
As Sir Peter Medawar wrote, which Dawkins tangentially quote, about
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's book "The Phenomenon of Man" : "We must
not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind." It
applies well to Dawkins latest book.
If interested, I have a copy of Dawkins latest book signed by the
author now doing nothing on my bookshelf. |
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| "What he does best" | 2009-10-16 |
| - Reviewed By bookscd11 |
Dawkins is a rock star not because of his scientific standing but for his ongoing crusade against religion. One infuriating tendency are the smartass digs he manages to insert regardless of their aptness for the current conversation whether writing or speaking. Dawkins is not an original or creative thinker as many think. No new insights or discoveries ca be recalled. Instead, he is an explicator, a teacher and debater, perhaps as important as new discoveries of great truths. He excells in connecting the dots - quotes, scientific wonderings, old and new research along with some science for the layman - all with an educated, witty style.
THE GREATEST SHOW is unlike his other books in that it deals with "evidence" that is simultaneously overwhelming and stark. He delights in berating ignorant folks (primarily Americans) who believe the world is 6,000 years old and cave folk played with T Rex. As a lifelong Bible Belt resident I can attest that this thinking exists but it is more due to lack of scientific exposure as religion. Many times, a simple explanation will set folks right or at least thinking.
The included color photos are FANTASTIC. Prose is nice but accompanying photographs add so much more. Hopefully, this will become the norm for all his future books. An initial discussion of "types" of Evolution (human-directed, other specie-directed, nature/mutation directed) is followed by several related subjects, He slowly builds a magnificent edifice of logic and data that leaves no room for doubt and covers almost all the bases - from dating to missing links. While its audience may be diehard Evolution advocates (the "saved" as Clinton was so fond of saying) it is a book that deserved to be written. My Grade - A- |
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