The Greatest Show on Earth

Richard Dawkins is a world-renowned evolutionary biologist and author. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and,until recently, held the Charles Simonyi Chair of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His first book, The Selfish Gene, was an instant international bestseller, and has become an established classic work of modern evolutionary biology. He is also the author of The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, A Devil's Chaplain, The Ancestor's Tale, and most recently, The God Delusion.

出版者:Free Press

作者:Richard Dawkins

页数:480

出版时间:2009

价格:USD 30.00

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9781416594789

图书标签:科普进化论生物RichardDawkinsevolutionRichard_Dawkinsscience英文原版

In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time. In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species , shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would 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. Now the author of the iconic work The God Delusion takes them to task. The Greatest Show on Earth is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection." The Greatest Show on Earth comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is menacing as never before. In American schools, and in schools around the world, insidious attempts are made to undermine the status of science in the classroom. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance, but his unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.

读后感

趣谈生命起源，自然选择和时机突变，活化石的考古，风趣幽默 。需要补充阅读《自私的基因》-《自私的基因》充满想象力。任何生物，包括我们自己，都只是求生的机器。这本书是实实在在的认知科学，复制、变异和淘汰简单的三种机制可以演变出所有大千世界生命现象里的林林总总。...  

地球上唯一的娱乐，地球上最伟大的表演。BBC专门以“地球上最伟大的表演”为名，邀请全球顶级科学家、哲学家录制交响曲，制作纪录片全球发布（霍金、道金斯也在邀请之列），“地球上最伟大的表演”继“自私的基因”之后又将成为固定词组。 没有想到这本书的书名也有故事。道金...  

道金斯的几本书纠正了我的一系列错误观点。 1、生物有所谓高级和低级之分。人类中心论。人比蟑螂高级，不过如果美苏脑子抽筋互发核弹，人类死光了，蟑螂可能还能生存，到底谁高级呢？ 2、人是有猴子进化来的。峨眉山上那些讨厌的猴子跟人类祖先不是同一种猴子啦，人与现在的猴...  

作为一项历史事实的进化——评道金斯《地球上最伟大的表演》 辉格 2013年5月5日 作为现代进化理论和新达尔文主义最著名的通俗阐释者和辩护者，道金斯多年来致力于向公众解释进化论；和他过去出版的多部通俗作品一样，这仍是一本为进化论辩护的书，不同的是，之前的作品更像是...  

道金斯《地球上最伟大的表演》这本书，讲的是演化论无处不在、蔚为壮观的证据。演化论在我国是义务教育就普及的知识，但背后硬核证据，却提及不多。种种怀疑，民间并不罕见。本书用丰富的证据，雄辩的逻辑证明，多姿多彩的自然界，绝不是某种高高在上的大能设计师设计的，而是...  

用户评价

Dawkins 的东西质量还是有保证。看过了他的God Delusion，觉得讲得很透，逻辑严密。结果再看这本还是有收获。

本书非常易读，英文用词浅显易懂，案例丰富有趣。不过结构并不非常严谨，不是一个有系统介绍进化论的著作。综合看来非常符合其“给教育程度一般的大众驳斥上帝造物说”的定位。 Evolution is the combination of random variation and non-random passing of genetic information.

写得非常好，英语也不难。里面旁征博引很多，我懂其中一小部分，都没什么错误。其余大部分我不懂的，估计也是值得信赖的。

还是读英文版为妙。中文译者水平波动甚大，连英语原文都有拼错，也不知道是怎么做到的。

比《blind watchmaker》浅显，但是加入了新的科学发现。看来道金斯的读者群正在向低学历延伸啊。