   The Best Seats in the House  Robert L. Dorit  THE GREATEST
SHOW ON EARTH: The Evidence for Evolution. Richard Dawkins. x +
470 pp. Free Press, 2009. $30.  We scientists are, by nature, an
optimistic lot. Our profession demands optimism: We investigate
complex phenomena, armed with little more than the scientific
method—and with the conviction that reason, logic, empiricism
and sweat will eventually prevail. And yet our optimism is not
always rewarded. For here we are, 150 years after the
publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, still
trying to convey the not-so-new-information that evolution is
the force that shapes the living world.
2010-07BREVDoritFA.jpgClick to Enlarge ImageThis past year has
seen the publication of several excellent books for a general
audience, some of them prompted by the celebrations surrounding
Darwin’s 200th birthday. Richard Dawkins, who has already done
much to make evolution accessible to the interested public, has
contributed The Greatest Show on Earth, a boo