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A review by ben_smitty
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins
5.0
Fascinating. The Greatest Show on Earth was definitely an enlightening read. Dawkins succeeded in presenting a case for evolution that was clear and simple enough to understand. The colored pages and the illustrations were immensely helpful in understanding different species and abstract concepts that were difficult to grasp, especially the topics of embryology and the different fossils of the "missing link". Brilliant. Even with his arrogant attitude towards creationism, I was able to pass through quickly, simply because he had the intelligence to back it up.
The problem though, is that most of the ideas and evidence for macroevolution came with the presupposition that the world was without a creator. For example, the chapter titled "The Tree of Cousin-ship" showed skeletons of different mammals, which are strikingly similar in order, but not in size. He concluded that this must be because mammals are all interrelated through Darwinian evolution. The problem could also be solved by simply adding in a creator that used the same structure of bones for all mammals (I mean if it works, I don't see why not...). With the same evidence, we see different things through different presuppositions. Most of the book covers the concept of microevolution which Christians already believe in. In the end, I finished this book with a broader definition of microevolution, but as a Christian, I could say that it was not enough to convince me of macroevolution without a creator.
The problem though, is that most of the ideas and evidence for macroevolution came with the presupposition that the world was without a creator. For example, the chapter titled "The Tree of Cousin-ship" showed skeletons of different mammals, which are strikingly similar in order, but not in size. He concluded that this must be because mammals are all interrelated through Darwinian evolution. The problem could also be solved by simply adding in a creator that used the same structure of bones for all mammals (I mean if it works, I don't see why not...). With the same evidence, we see different things through different presuppositions. Most of the book covers the concept of microevolution which Christians already believe in. In the end, I finished this book with a broader definition of microevolution, but as a Christian, I could say that it was not enough to convince me of macroevolution without a creator.