Reddit reviews The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Nothing I have read comes to quite the same level of history and science but if I had to suggest a few readable books I would go with:

Marcus Chown - The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead for some physics things (even if some of the stuff is a little too out there to be fully appropriate to day to day life)

for further physics Michio Kaku is normally very accessible or if you feel a bit braver either of the schrodingers cat books by John Gribbins

Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution is the most intuitive guide to evolution I have read.

These all focus on one area as opposed to Short History which moved on from topic to topic fairly fast preventing boredom but hopefully you will be ok with them.

> Could you please tell me where to find the documentation to show that (macro) evolution has been proven?

A good place to start would be Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution". This is a book written by a leading evolutionary biologist in a way that laymen can understand, and it's a fascinating read. The book describes the various ways in which evolution has been proven, including the math you ask for. It also includes an extensive list of scientific papers and other sources for further reading.

I can also fully recommend /r/askscience. Also, unless you've already read it, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution - Dawkins, is a fantastic (quite simplified scientifically, but explained beautifully) book.

However, the two programmes I'd most strongly recommend are Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe; both presented by Prof. Brian Cox and produced for the BBC.

I recommend "The Greatest Show On Earth".

You didn't like "The God Delusion"? I thought it was awesome.

Definitely read it. About evolution, I recommend Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth

It's a gradual ramp of tiny little improvements over millions/billions of years.

Because all living things compete for finite resources like sunlight and/or food, the organisms with the optimal traits (perhaps it's a cheetah with enough speed to chase down prey) get to live and pass on their genes. These genes are inherited by offspring. With each generation there are subtle changes in the genetic information being passed on — in response to the environment. This is called epigenetics. With massive amounts of geological time, all these subtle little response modifications eventually add up to something really substantial like human beings with a complex immune system.

An easy way to convince yourself of it is to look at artificial selection and how animal breeders "play god". Take pigeon breeders: They decide what kind of bird they want — perhaps it's one with a long beak — and out of the hundreds of pigeons they have they select two with the most prominent beaks and mate them. They continue doing this over the generations. Several years later, you would already see the massive difference in the beak length of the youngest experiment pigeon when compared with the other normal pigeons.
Natural selection works in a very similar way to this.



Edit: As for book recommendations? Dawkins is the best at explaining it if you ask me:


Richard Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth

Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmarker

A reasonable reply. Why don't you learn a bit more about evolution before trying to use it in an argument. Try these....Why Evolution Is True - Jerry Coyne or The Greatest Show On Earth - Richard Dawkins

Try having a watch of this... and then buy the book and educate yourself properly by learning the science behind evolution in a summarized manner accessable to the average educated person Can get it in audio or text format here

Welcome to the Church of Richard Dawkins.

Start with this - Read it a few times.

Then try this - This one is heavy but worth it.

When your done, go back to your original faith and research it. You mentioned you were a christian. Read the bible again having absorbed these books. To be an effictive Atheist you need to understand the perspective of the religious.