The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

The greatest show on earth by Richard Dawkins:

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The greatest show on earth by Richard Dawkins

Dawkins (2009) demonstrates that the concept of evolution is ‘an inescapable fact’ and states that,’ it is within us, around us, between us’ (p12). He argues that we may not live long enough to witness evolution and he in fact likens the discovery of evolution to the scenario of a detective coming to a crime scene long after the incident and trying to make out inferences based on the same. Dawkins ponders why Darwin took such a long time before coming up with the theory of evolution (p12). In trying to establish the facts that led to this, he attributes the delay to religious indoctrination that held the humans back or the imagination by humans that change can take a lot of time to occur. In an interesting development, he traces back this delay to ancient philosophical doctrine in what he christens as essentialism (p12).While giving out an example of the evolution of a rabbit, he points out that it is indeed difficult to notice the changes in rabbits from one generation to the other (p14). A similar example is given in reference to how human beings are not able to see the motion of the hour hand in their watches. Dawkins tries to relate facts in his effort to make a layman understand the basics of evolution.

Dawkins describes both artificial and natural selection and attempts to differentiate between them using specific examples. Instead of using complex conventional examples, he illustrates the two based on the clear evidences that supports them simple examples to that effect. Dawkins (2009) differentiates natural and artificial selection by giving the differentiating between man and nature. Whereas artificial selection is majorly influenced by humans, in natural selection, the man does not play the role but rather his role is undertaken by nature. He cites Darwin as a genius in the way he was able to establish the fact that certain roles were better played by nature. Darwin discovered that nature could play roles such as identifying the most efficient genes and assisting in ensuring the strongest species survive.

Dawkins (2009) describes in a logical order the sequence through which the three mechanisms of evolution are demonstrated by nature. By using the example of beautiful and attractive roses, he shows how human beings always tend to choose the most attractive of the flowers when considering flowers for future breeding. In this method, the genes from the attractive flowers are allowed to pass generation to generation. Dawkins (2009) also points out the fact that human beings have been aware of artificial selection for quite a long time even before Darwin himself. He is so