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Thursday, September 17, 2009

The evidence for evolution

I speak of evolution as a fact. I do so, of course, because it is. And most of my readers understand that. But in case I should be visited by someone not yet in the know, I have good news today of an informative book on the subject, published this very month, Richard Dawkins's:

Extract from Chapter One

Evolution is an inescapable fact, and we should celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past. Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.

That comes from a longer extract at The Times Online.

Listen to Dawkins talk about the book.

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