Overview

Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous evolutionary biologist, presents a gorgeously lucid, science book examining some of the nature's most fundamental questions both from a mythical and scientific perspective. Science is our most precise and powerful tool for making sense of the world. Before we developed the scientific method, we created rich mythologies to explain the unknown. The pressing questions that primitive men and women asked are the same ones we ask as children. Who was the first person? What is the sun? Why is there night and day? The myths that address these questions are beautiful, but in every case their beauty is exceeded by the scientific truth. With characteristic clarity and verve, Dawkins answers these big questions. Looking first at some of the myths that arose to answer the question, he then, dazzles us with the facts. He looks at the building blocks of matter, the first humans, the sun--explaining the life and death of stars; why there's a night and a day--ranging from our solar system to the inner workings of our planet; what a rainbow really is--going from the rainbow in your backyard to the age of the universe; and finally, he poses a question that still baffles scientists: When did everything begin?

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9781464021794

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Exhilarating. The clearest and most beautifully written introduction to science I've ever read. Again and again I found myself saying Oh! So that's how genes work! (or stars, or tectonic plates, or all the other things he explains). Explanations I thought I knew were clarified; things I never understood were made clear for the first time. My favourite adjective of praise has always been clear, and this book has clarity all the way through. <p> --Philip Pullman, author of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ and the His Dark Materials trilogy

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