Evolutionist fills the gap

Richard Dawkins might be making progress.

The English scientist and best-selling author has for years been a fearless critic of organised religion and makes no bones about his feelings about believers.

Dawkins is one of the big name attractions - if not the biggest - at next year's New Zealand International Arts Festival. He intends to devote his address in March to his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Evidence for Evolution, which has been on the New York Times best-seller list for weeks.

He wrote the book, he says, to fill a rather large gap which he felt was missing from his previous popular science works - namely "the evidence for the fact of evolution".

The Greatest Show on Earth , Dawkins' 10th book and a lavish tribute to Charles Darwin, lays out in 400-odd pages details - from the fossil record to molecular physics to recent genetic discoveries - which state categorically that we are all relatives, no matter how distant, of every other living thing.

Along the way he explains why a particular moth has a tongue that stretches more than 20cm, how wild foxes can turn tame and doglike in a few short generations, why there is no such creature as a "crocoduck" - a jibe at creationists.

He throws in for good measure everything from dogs, chimps, the so-called 'missing link' and even tree rings.

He finds evidence for evolution at every turn. Those goosebumps you experience when things get scary - they derive from hair-raising reactions to fear in animals from primates to dogs.

"Evolution is a fact," he states, with the evidence "at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eyewitnesses to the Holocaust".

And: "It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips ... continue the list as long as desired."

Not that Dawkins expects the "history deniers" - his term for people who prefer the creation story - to be persuaded by his account, which was partly driven by his determination to challenge the depth of attachment to creationism.

In the United States, the Gallup polling organisation has consistently found that more than 40 per cent of Americans totally deny evolution, whether or not it is guided by God.

"The implication," writes Dawkins, "is that they believe the entire world is no more than 10,000 years old. As I have pointed out before, given that the true age of the world is 4.6 billion years, this is the equivalent to believing that the width of North America is less than 10 yards [9m]."

He is distressed that surveys in Britain have found as many as 39 per cent favour some sort of creationism.

The evolutionist in Dawkins bristles at the advocates who teach creationism. He is not so much agitated as contemptuous. Why?

"Because they are denying manifest facts of history, denying evidence, and deliberately misleading people, misleading children. Imagine if you were a mathematician and someone tried to persuade you that two plus two equals five. You'd feel a bit agitated."

His explanation for the "40-per centers" as he sometimes calls them is typically blunt.

"Ignorance. I think that's really about it. Ignorance fostered by religious prejudice. What scientists must do is get out there and get the evidence out. The people who believe the world is only 10,000 years old would rather stick their fingers in their ears."

But despite the powerful grip which creationists exert in America, Dawkins packs out halls when he lectures there. "When I go to places which people call the Bible Belt, I get huge enthusiastic audiences. I think they feel beleaguered, a minority in their local community."

As a choice for the arts festival Dawkins ticks the boxes: he has sold books by the thousands, his diatribe against organised religion still reverberates - The God Delusion called the Old Testament God a "capriciously malevolent bully" - and he remains an active supporter of atheist groups.

Last year he helped fund a campaign which stuck banners on English buses declaring: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

As a scientist, Dawkins says he remains far from certain about some things. But he does get exercised about people who are certain of things for "which there is absolutely not a shred of evidence, such as particular religious positions. There are things for which science is certain about.

For example, the world is round, not flat; evolution is a fact. But there are plenty of other things for which we are uncertain. That's very exciting because it gives scientists a lot of work to do."

For Dawkins, the work never seems to stop. His book includes a transcript of an interview from a television documentary he made last year for a programme about Darwin, who the author calls one of his great heroes.

The exchange involved Dawkins and Wendy Wright, a stubborn creationist from a group called Concerned Women for America, who insisted there was no evidence for evolution, while the author kept pleading for her to visit a museum.

That fossil record just keeps expanding, as Dawkins reports. On the eve of publication, he managed to include references to a fossil primate found in Germany and an Arctic fossil which could be 20 million years old.

The animal appeared to live and catch food in the water but run on land - Dawkins suggests this was a land animal adapting to life in the water.

Dawkins, 68, is now turning his talents to a myth-busting book for teens.

He plans to debunk legends about the natural world with clear-sighted scientific explanations.

His visit to New Zealand, he says, could furnish him with raw material from Maori myths - which next year might be wilting under the heat of Dawkins' blowtorch.