The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

In 1859 , Charles Darwin (1809-1883 ) published his paradigm shifting work titled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection . In this volume , Darwin presented a collection of observational evidence to defend the following theories : that the world is not constant , but the product of a continuing process of evolution that all species have descended from common ancestors by a continuous process of branching that the process of evolution is gradual , and that the mechanism behind evolution is natural selection . Needless to say

, Darwin 's publication raised a firestorm of criticism from the educated and the uneducated alike . The persistence of these criticisms is such that even today evolutionary scientists still feel called upon to defend or popularize Darwin 's ideas . One Such scientist is Richard Dawkin 's . In his 2009 publication titled the Greatest Show on Earth : evidence for evolution he goes at length to provide what he calls copious examples to support evolutionary change over time through the mechanism of natural selection (Dawkins 2009 . In this , the writer will look at some of these examples in brief and respond to the set questions accordingly

1 . Five Ah-Ha ' discoveries one finds in the books

A wow ' discovery one finds in the book is that dogs are domesticated wolves , even more surprising is the fact that much of the initial domestication of the dog was self- domestication , mediated by natural not artificial , selection (p . 35 ' That is to say , long...