Böcker av Richard Dawkins

From one of the world's great science writers and biologists: a book that reflects on the vast arc of evolutionary history and what it tells us about life on earth.How much do we really know about our past?For centuries, we have yearned to learn more about our ancestors and piece together the story of how we came to be. But language can only record so much. And fossils can be even harder to decipher. We are left groping in the dark, forced to speculate and reconstruct ways of life based on fragments of information.But what if there was a better way?In The Genetic Book of the Dead, Richard Dawkins explores the untapped potential of DNA to transform and transcend our understanding of evolution. In the future, a zoologist presented with a hitherto unknown animal will be able to read its body and its genes as detailed descriptions of the world its ancestors inhabited. This 'book of the dead' would uncover the remarkable ways in which animals have overcome obstacles, adapted to their environments and, again and again, developed remarkably similar ways of finding solutions to life's problems. What biologists call ?convergent evolution', the way in which species separated by vast stretches of time have evolved surprisingly recognisable forms and functions, is one of the most powerful and least understood forces driving life on earth.From the bestselling author of The Selfish Gene comes a revolutionary book that unlocks the door to a past more vivid, nuanced and fascinating than anything we have ever seen.

Acclaimed as the most influential work on evolution written in the last hundred years, The Blind Watchmaker offers an inspiring and accessible introduction to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. A brilliant and controversial book which demonstrates that evolution by natural selection - the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially non-random process discovered by Darwin - is the only answer to the biggest question of all: why do we exist?

While Europe is becoming increasingly secularized, the rise of religious fundamentalism, whether in the Middle East or Middle America, is dramatically and dangerously dividing opinion around the world. In this book, the author attacks God in all his forms. It shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry and abuses children.

What are things made of? What is the sun? Why is there night and day, winter and summer? Why do bad things happen? Are we alone? Have you heard the tale of how the sun hatched out of an emu's egg? Has anyone ever told you that earthquakes are caused by a sneezing giant? This title answers all these questions.

Richard Dawkins explores the wonder of flight. A book for ages 8-80 about flying - from the mythical Icarus, to the sadly extinct but magnificent bird Argentavis magnificens, to the British Airways pilots of today.

These fantastical myths are fun - but what are the real answers to such questions?Professor Richard Dawkins has teamed up with renowned illustrator Dave McKean to take you on an amazing journey from atoms to animals, pollination to paranoia, the big bang to the bigger picture.

Charles Darwin's masterpiece, "On the Origin of Species", shook society to its core on publication in 1859. This title takes on creationists, including followers of 'Intelligent Design' and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection.

A dazzling, passionate polemic against anti-science movements of all kinds. Keats accused Newton of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours. In this illuminating and provocative book, Richard Dawkins argues that Keats could not have been more mistaken, and shows how an understanding of science enhances our wonder of the world. He argues that mysteries do not lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution is often more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering even deeper mysteries. Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, combining them in a landmark statement on the human appetite for wonder.

'Richard Dawkins is a thunderously gifted science writer.' Sunday Times'It may be a collection of shorter parts, but the book is in no sense Dawkins made simple.

With an introduction and new commentary by the author, subjects range from evolution and Darwinian natural selection to the role of scientist as prophet, whether science is itself a religion, the probability of alien life in other worlds, and the beauties, cruelties and oddities of earthly life in this one.

How could such an intricate object as the human eye - so complex and so precise - have come about by chance? In this masterful piece of popular science, Richard Dawkins builds a powerful and carefully reasoned argument for evolutionary adapatation as the force behind all life on earth. The metaphor of 'Mount Improbable' represents the combination of perfection and improbability that we find in the seemingly 'designed' complexity of living things. And through it all runs the thread of DNA, the molecule of life, responsible for its own destiny on an unending pilgrimage through time. Evocative illustrations accompany Dawkins' eloquent descriptions of astonishing adaptations in the living world.