Creationists all around the world, be on your guard! Richard Dawkins’ latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, is a collection of powerful evidence for the theory of evolution, making the information regarding natural selection accessible to non-scientists everywhere.
Perhaps best known as the author of The God Delusion, Dawkins is the past holder of the Simonyi Professorship of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Although he is a famous champion of atheist ideals and fierce defender of science and reason against mysticism, in his latest book, published in September 2009, all attacks against religion are put aside. As Dawkins himself told an Irish audience at the reading he gave at the RDS last September, the book serves as an explanation of the multiple lines of evidence for evolution, which are all around us. The evidence brought forward is so simple and yet incontrovertible that it should make any proponent of “Intelligent Design” shake in his boots.
In the first chapter, we are asked to imagine we are teachers of recent history. How would we feel if Holocaust-deniers were constantly disrupting our classes, demanding that equal amounts of time should be spent teaching the “alternative” theory? Such people do indeed exist. Such a world in which people so detached from reality are given a public, state-funded platform seems ludicrous, yet the same frustration ordinary people feel at such deniers is shared by many science teachers around the world, particularly in the United States.
Evolution is in general given very little time, under the relativist claim that there is no absolute truth, and sometimes the very word is expunged from state-approved textbooks. Here is a very disturbing figure: according to an opinion poll taken in 2008 by Gallup, an American polling organisation, more than 40% of Americans deny evolution. Since ill-informed opposition to evolution is so powerful at present, there was never a more opportune time for “Darwin’s Rottweiler”, as Richard Dawkins is often called, to write such an accessible book.
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace are the two figures that laid the foundations for modern evolutionary thinking. Darwin, in The Origin of Species, as well as suggesting a mechanism for evolution, wanted to show that biological evolution was a fact. But be careful, Dawkins warns! When addressing the task of trying to prove the theory of evolution, it is important to remember that a proof, in the strictly mathematical sense of the word, cannot be formulated with regard to biological processes. It is not possible to prove evolution in the same way as it is possible to prove that √2 is irrational. Nevertheless, evolution is a fact, in the same way the theory that green plants obtain energy from the sun is a fact. Of course, not only has the theory of evolution not been disproved, but it is supported by massive quantities of evidence.
If you are not convinced, consider the quirks and imperfections present in all modern organisms. As Dawkins skilfully explains, these make no sense, unless they represent holdovers from an otherwise evolved ancestral state. For example, humans have big maxillary sinuses, or cavities, behind the cheeks on either side of the face. These have a drainage hole on their top, thus failing to efficiently use gravity to assist drainage of fluid. This can be explained as a consequence of the shift from quadruped to biped locomotion, since, in a quadruped, the “top” is actually the front, and the position of the drainage holes makes much more sense.  Thus, the evidence points to us humans as products of evolution. Our evolutionary legacy is written all over us.
Several chapters of the book are dedicated to outlining the evidence that comes from fossils, in particular transitional stages of major evolutionary changes. In fact, accepting evolution as true allows us to explain why any given fauna in Earth’s history was an intermediate, in general character, between the fauna of the immediately preceding (older) and immediately succeeding (younger) period.
There are, of course, gaps in the fossil record and Creationists often latch on to these in the vain attempt to discredit the theory of evolution.  Memorable is the passage where Dawkins responds to those Creationists who are often heard shouting “Show me a fronkey (intermediate between frog and monkey); show me a crocoduck (intermediate between crocodile and duck)!”  Dawkins suggests sarcastically that creationists should not limit themselves to mammals, but also talk of a kangaroach (intermediate between kangaroo and cockroach) or an octopard (intermediate between octopus and leopard). The fact is that every species shares an ancestor with every other one, so it’s clearly possible to find fossils that approximate a common ancestor of a frog and monkey. In fact, scientists have revealed numerous elegant examples of sequences of intermediate forms.
Even if the concept of evolution is not clear to you or if it is limited to those teenage schooldays when you learned, with some surprise, that humans and great apes are more related that you thought, this book provides an excellent introduction to many areas of science and is accessible from any level of prior knowledge. There are no boring paragraphs to be read.
The last pages leave the reader with the truly moving message that evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are imbedded in the rocks of aeons past.  Verily, we are the children of natural selection.

This month the research journal Science published evidence produced by a Japanese research group that indicates a possible mechanism as to how the infamous drug thalidomide deformed a generation of babies.
If ever there was an argument for the dysteleological theory of “bad design”, or perhaps better worded “unintelligent design”, thalidomide would be it. No doubt the mothers of the thalidomide babies would have asked themselves where the intelligence lies in designing an antiemetic (used to treat morning sickness) painkilling drug, that coincidentally and horribly, deforms your child, or kills it. The original packaging supplied with pharmaceutical thalidomide included the following statement: “In pregnancy and during the lactation period the female organism is under great strain. Sleeplessness, unrest and tension are constant complaints. The administration of a sedative and a hypnotic that will hurt neither mother nor child is often necessary.”
The patent owner of the “unintelligently designed” thalidomide was a German pharmaceutical company, named Chemie Grünenthal. Chemie Grünenthal began as part of a soaps, cosmetics and toiletries business. Today the company produces painkillers, now for both female and male organisms. Profit for 2008 was estimated by the company to be just short of €1 billion.
In the late 50s and 60s thalidomide was prescribed as a potent painkiller and tranquiliser. However, it was through its widespread use to treat morning sickness of pregnant women that thalidomide really demonstrated its devastating capacity as a teratogenic agent, one causing developmental defects.
An estimated 10,000 unborn babies were poisoned by thalidomide, with many dying, and others left with birth defects such as the trademark absence of the long bones of the legs, known as phocomelia (from the greek for “seal limbs”), or of the arms, amelia.
According to the website for the Irish Thalidomide Association, a group battling for proper compensation for sufferers, there are still 32 survivors of the thalidomide tragedy living in Ireland today, as well as another 18 in Northern Ireland.
Whilst these people clearly cannot now benefit from research into the effects of thalidomide, there is nevertheless a large body of research being conducted across the globe to try to understand how thalidomide, and similar substances, mediate their therapeutic as well as their pathogenic effects so that no such horrifying event can ever be repeated.
Today thalidomide is still prescribed to cancer patients with multiple myeloma, and also to sufferers of leprosy. These patients are strongly advised to undertake birth control measures, and clearly, the severity of these diseases warrants the use of thalidomide, particularly in the absence of any reasonable alternative therapy.
Furthemore, as the research on thalidomide is piling up, it is being realised that it may be a potent treatment for other diseases such as a range of cancers as well as inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s disease and Behçet’s disease.
This month a research group from the Tokyo Institute of Technology led by Hiroshi Handa report that they believe they have found the mechanism as to how thalidomide causes developmental defects.
By conjugating beads to thalidomide derivatives and exposing those beads to cellular proteins Handa’s group were able to identify two protein binding partners for thalidomide, cereblon (CRBN) and DNA binding protein 1 (DDB1). They discovered that thalidomide directly binds CRBN which is itself bound to the DDB1, and that this interaction inhibits the activity of a growth factor called fgf8. This is the first such linkage between thalidomide and this growth factor pathway.
The researchers backed up their findings with a zebrafish model of the disease. Zebrafish are commonly used to study embryonic development. When Handa’s group put zebrafish embryos into thalidomide containing medium they did not develop normal pectoral fins. They also discovered that proper growth and development of zebrafish otic vesicles and pectoral fins is dependent on the zebrafish gene equivalent of CRBN.
This groundbreaking research may allow the development of thalidomide derivative drugs that will be potent treatments for a range of diseases, but without the teratogenic risk to unborn children. Simply put, a lot of sick people could one day benefit from an earthly ‘intelligent redesign’ of the infamous thalidomide.
But convincing anybody who can remember the disaster of the 50s that a thalidomide related drug is safe, might be as difficult as convincing an evolutionary biologist of intelligent design.