The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution - Background

Background

This book is my personal summary of the evidence that the 'theory' of evolution is actually a fact – as incontrovertible a fact as any in science. —Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, p. vii

Richard Dawkins has written a number of books about evolution, beginning with his first two titles The Selfish Gene (1976) and The Extended Phenotype (1982). These were followed by three books which attempted to clarify some common misunderstandings about evolution. His recent documentary series The Genius of Charles Darwin looks at Darwin's life and some of the evidence for evolution. Despite these works and others, he felt that there was a 'missing link' in that he had never comprehensively addressed the evidence of common descent. Dawkins believed that opposition to evolution at the time of writing the book was as strong as ever, despite overwhelming and still growing evidence for the theory. He wrote the book in his final months as Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science (Marcus du Sautoy now holds the position) and finished it in retirement. He thought that 2009, the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and 150th anniversary of his book On the Origin of Species, was the perfect time for such a work. Other authors have written similar books recently, such as Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True which Dawkins highly recommends.

Dawkins's literary agent John Brockman promoted the book to publishers under the working title Only a Theory. However, American biologist Kenneth Miller had already used that title for his own book Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul which Dawkins describes as a book-length response to Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. He kept Only a Theory? as the title for the first chapter, "with a precautionary question mark to guard against creationist quote-mining". Dawkins got the title from a T-shirt given to him by "an anonymous well-wisher" which bears the words "Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth; the Only Game in Town". He had worn it occasionally when giving lectures, and realized it was ideal for a title. His editor wouldn't allow the full title due to its length, so it was shortened to The Greatest Show on Earth. On three occasions Dawkins wanted to include recent discoveries late in the publishing process. Despite the disruption, this was accommodated and the recent findings are included in the book.

The book is dedicated to web designer Josh Timonen, who collaborated with a small group of others to set up RichardDawkins.net. Dawkins writes in the preface "Josh's creative talent runs deep, but the image of the iceberg captures neither the versatile breadth of his contributions to our joint endeavour, nor the warm good humour with which he makes them." Dawkins also thanks his wife Lalla's "unfailing encouragement, helpful stylistic criticisms and characteristically stylish suggestions", and his friend Charles Simonyi as he signs off after fourteen years and seven books.