Scientific explorations by a radiacal Darwinian biologist.

Caught at the Porterhouse pub, at meetup. Lovely to meet you, LizzieM, and thanks very much for the book! It just so happens that I went to a philosophy lecture on Saturday, where the feud between Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould was under discussion. Very interested in comparing the two scientists.

A great book. Fascinating science, demonstrating that natural selection is a perfectly adequate theory to explain the evolution of life on Earth or anywhere else without resorting to fantasy (ie. creationism. Please note that that doesn't necessarily rule out a creator, just the Adam-and-Eve story). Even that tired old "proof" of creationism, the mind-bogglingly perfect eye, is given reasoned and plausible treatment here, based on various modern, existing eye types. (There are six kinds, of varying practicality. But evolution doesn't go backwards. If an inferior adaptation doesn't kill a species, they're stuck with it to the end.) (No, there is no fossil evidence of the evolution of the eye. It's soft tissue, it doesn't fossilize, duh! There will probably never be fossil evidence of it, so get over it. Dawkins' theory is still far more believeable than the eye popping into existence perfectly formed.)
Now crasy is reading the book, and also enjoying it.
Thanks!

One of the more interesting and informative books I have read for a long while. Amazing what you can achieve a few incremental steps at a time.

Well written, don't need to be a science genius to understand.