The God Delusion

The God Delusion
Read by
Richard Dawkins &
Lalla Ward

Released: January 5, 2007

288 Pages

Published by Tantor Media; Unabridged edition

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Read the first chapter of The God Delusion

Description
Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin"s Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.

He critiques God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme
improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence. In so doing, he makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just irrational, but potentially deadly.

Dawkins has fashioned an impassioned, rigorous rebuttal to religion, to be embraced by anyone who sputters at the inconsistencies and cruelties that riddle the Bible, bristles at the inanity of "intelligent design," or agonizes over fundamentalism in the Middle East?or Middle
America.

About the Author
RICHARD DAWKINS is one of the most influential scientists of our time. The New York Times Book Review has hailed him as a writer who "'understands the issues so clearly that he forces his reader to understand them too."' Recently awarded the distinction of "'public intellectual"' in Britain, Dawkins is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

The Ancestor's Tale

The Ancestor's Tale
Read by
Richard Dawkins &
Lalla Ward
Released: 15 Sep 2005

Published by Orion

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Description
Just as we trace our personal family trees from parents to grandparents and so on back in time, so in The Ancestor's Tale Richard Dawkins traces the ancestry of life. As he is at pains to point out, this is very much our human tale, our ancestry. Surprisingly, it is one that many otherwise literate people are largely unaware of. Hopefully Dawkins's name and well deserved reputation as a best selling writer will introduce them to this wonderful saga.

The Ancestor's Tale takes us from our immediate human ancestors back through what he calls ‘concestors,’ those shared with the apes, monkeys and other mammals and other vertebrates and beyond to the dim and distant microbial beginnings of life some 4 billion years ago. It is a remarkable story which is still very much in the process of being uncovered. And, of course from a scientist of Dawkins stature and reputation we get an insider's knowledge of the most up-to-date science and many of those involved in the research. And, as we have come to expect of Dawkins, it is told with a passionate commitment to scientific veracity and a nose for a good story. Dawkins's knowledge of the vast and wonderful sweep of life's diversity is admirable. Not only does it encompass the most interesting living representatives of so many groups of organisms but also the important and informative fossil ones, many of which have only been found in recent years.

Dawkins sees his journey with its reverse chronology as ‘cast in the form of an epic pilgrimage from the present to the past [and] all roads lead to the origin of life.’ It is, to my mind, a sensible and perfectly acceptable approach although some might complain about going against the grain of evolution. The great benefit for the general reader is that it begins with the more familiar present and the animals nearest and dearest to us—our immediate human ancestors. And then it delves back into the more remote and less familiar past with its droves of lesser known and extinct fossil forms. The whole pilgrimage is divided into 40 tales, each based around a group of organisms and discusses their role in the overall story. Genetic, morphological and fossil evidence is all taken into account and illustrated with a wealth of photos and drawings of living and fossils forms, evolutionary and distributional charts and maps through time, providing a visual compliment and complement to the text. The design also allows Dawkins to make numerous running comments and characteristic asides. There are also numerous references and a good index.-- Douglas Palmer

'On the Origin of Species' by Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species
Read by
Richard Dawkins
Released: August 1, 2008

Published by CSA Word; Abridged edition

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Description
On the Origin of the Species ranks as one of the most important and influential books ever written, and one that remains as controversial today as upon its initial publication 150 years ago. Here, eminent biologist and staunch Darwinist Richard Dawkins narrates his own expertly abridged version of Darwin’s groundbreaking book. In cutting passages that are now proven to be wrong, mostly those dealing with genetics, Dawkins streamlines the book for modern tastes while preserving its sound scientific underpinnings. What’s truly remarkable, Dawkins notes, is how much Darwin got right. Remarkable, too, is the clarity of Darwin’s prose, which, while necessarily technical in nature, makes the scientific basis for his theory of natural selection accessible to laypeople. For those wavering between creationism and evolution, or for anyone who wants a better understanding of Darwinism, Dawkins’ brilliant reading is the perfect entry into a book that truly changed the world.