Talk:The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Too early for an article?

I don't really think we need an article this early. The only information we present is what the book is about and who it is going to be published by, which is duplicated in the article Richard Dawkins more or less word for word. Shouldn't this wait until the article can be expanded beyond a couple of lines? It's clearly a stub but it has no real potential for expansion until more information becomes available. What is the advantage of having the article when it can be covered by other existing articles without problems? Richard001 (talk) 00:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

You make good points, but the book will be released, and it will be notable, and people will be interested in it before release. So if this stub is deleted now, it will only have to be created again in a few months. If you were asking "should this stub be created now?", I would "no". However, I see no reason to delete it. --Johnuniq (talk) 07:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually I have managed to add a couple more lines to it; now contains some unique information. There will probably be sources available soon anyway. Richard001 (talk) 06:43, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Cover art

Uploaded cover art, rationale checks out. Can't for the life of me get it to work. image —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxwells.plum (talk • contribs) 05:24, 11 May 2009

I edited the infobox using The Ancestor's Tale as a guide. I do not understand all the copyright stuff, but there is a message on the new image which might require an answer? See File:AncestorsTale2.jpg for how it was handled there. Johnuniq (talk) 07:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems OK. Pic is very lo-res so should be fair use. Maxwells.plum (talk) 23:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Pre-order

The book isn't actually available for pre-order on Dawkins' site, it just links to stores where it can be ordered. AC+79 3888 (talk) 11:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Synopsis needed

Okay so we have a bit about reception now that it's out but we need a good synopsis of the book. Would anyone like to step forward? Richard001 (talk) 05:51, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I wrote the following synopsis for Chapter 11: History written all over us:Condmatstrel (talk) 19:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Dawkins, in this chapter, provides several prominent examples of "bad designs" in nature, such as the retina of the human eye. Such design artifacts are the kinds of things that one does not expect from an "intelligent designer". In contrast, such phenomena find their natural explanation within the evolution theory, where organisms are evolved in time via non-random selection leading to incremental improvements in the "design". Organisms with badly "designed" eyes have developed, via non-random selection, a high level of brain capacity which enables a complex image processing to compensate for the blind spots in their vision. Thus such "design" artifacts are the history of evolution written all over us.

Richard Dawkins: 'Strident? Do they mean me?'

I found another article that might be useful for this article. If anyone potentially uses something out of it, ref it. Here is the link: [1].Calaka (talk) 13:20, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Question regarding the rebuttal book

I was wondering why a book I can’t find a review for anywhere but the users on amazon is mentioned in the last section of the critical reception page? I don’t have a problem with it being mentioned since it is related to the article, but the second half regarding how well it was received I don’t understand (especially since the users I have read regard it as full of holes and straw man arguments). Aside from the fact that the author is a chemist and not a biologist, all the, “rave reviews” are only posted on the website advertising the book. Do movie articles that have a 0% on rotten tomatoes/metacritic still have the positive reviews offered by some no-name publication in middle America that are only shown in advertisements for the terrible movie in question? AND are they included into wiki articles not it’s own?--207.14.29.3 (talk) 16:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

As a holding operation I have tagged the comment "many favourable reviews" with a {{cn}} request. There is one verbatim quote in support, but this too is unreferenced; verbatim quotes must be cited, so another {{cn}} tag added here as well.--Old Moonraker (talk) 17:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how a book by someone with no qualifications in evolution or biology could be considered to "counter the contents of Dawkins' book, chapter by chapter". The guy believes biology is not a science, and that evolutions is a religion (on book website). The book has no reviews, other than by amazon users (9 out of only 16 are negative). I don't think this book should be cited as a criticism of Dawkin's book on Wikipedia. ROK (talk) 17:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Dawkins' or Dawkins's

See also: Singular nouns ending with an "s" or "z" sound

This is too finely balanced for me to want to jump in and change it, but as an editor has been bold enough to do so, the justification: "Dawkins's" seems to be correct. Citing Pam Peters in The Cambridge Guide to English Usage page 43: "Apostrophes with personal names ending in -s… consistency is achieved by doing away with special cases, and treating names ending in -s to the full apostrophe -s, just like any other noun". Any help?--Old Moonraker (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

We have have a special case because it is awkward to pronounce a second s. Hence it is easier to say Dawkins' book than Dawkinses book. Are you advocating using Dawkins's but not sounding the second s? That would be madness. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 05:30, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

If you read aloud:

Dawkins' book

then it sounds to the ear like:

Dawkin's book

which could give the impression that the author's name is "Dawkin" rather than "Dawkins"; this ambiguity results from your rule's elimination of information.

Also, the plural of Dawkins is Dawkinses:

• I went to a book reading by the Dawkinses.
• I definitely bought the Dawkinses' book. Mfwitten (talk) 14:19, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

The WP:MoS under posessives deals with this and the third approach where a noun ending in s with a z sound shouldn't have the 's. My own preference is that no nouns ending in s should have an 's at least in written form, although may be pronounced with the second s, but certainly not when it is a z sound. Supt. of Printing (talk) 06:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

(1) No I'm not advocating madness: "awkward to pronunce" isn't a good reason for ignoring the correct form in written English. Nonetheless, "Dawkins's" sounds perfectly natural to many speakers, perhaps because, for example, the universal and widely used phrase for the embrace of consumerism in the 1960's was "keeping up with the Joneses" (I know, it's a plural).

(2) Thanks to the contributor offering "my own preference", but my original suggestion offered a reliable source, always preferred here on Wikipedia.

I need to acknowledge, again, that Peters, whom I quoted, is equivocal when considering the topic as a whole: "finely balanced", in fact.--Old Moonraker (talk) 08:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Languages such as the English language are the product of memetic emergence. You say "awkward to pronounce" is not a good reason to ignore a rule, however meme selection will favour such variations in the language that align with the preferences of the meme propagator. SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 09:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

As Old Moonraker, I am not sure that I can afford to wait to see if this newly propagated meme will ever take up its place as a grammatical rule! --Old Moonraker (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I understand it, the older one gets the less one remembers worries about such things :-) SkyMachine ⁽⁺⁺⁾ 23:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)