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SCIENCE TODAY:Richard Dawkins’s new book brings him back to familiar territory, tackling theories of creation head-on, but it is also an accessible, colourful and beautifully detailed look at many scientific wonders, writes SHANE HEGARTY

RICHARD Dawkins is a little distracted. He’s been delayed by an earlier appointment, is a little tight for time and his new computer is bursting into song unexpectedly. But in his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, he is not distracted at all. In fact, he is very focused on two things in particular: laying out the evidence for evolution; and laying into the creationists who prefer the idea that the Earth is 10,000 years old and all life was placed in it simultaneously.