The MAGIC of REALITY

One morning The Compost found itself with an hour to kill in a book shop, and stumbled upon Richard Dawkins' fascinating new offering, aimed at children. The Magic of Reality answers questions - many familiar to this writer's ears - often posed by those children with a curiosity aimed towards the search for first principles. The one that caught my eye was one I am posed at least weekly, and obviously address with a distinct lack of success each time: "Who was the first person?"

In a word: wow! Here the reader is led through the logic that there really was no first person, but that humans morphed into being from their ancestors.

This (no doubt provocative) concept is presented in a very thought-provoking way: you are asked to imagine a huge stack of photos, with yourself at the top, and your parent below, and that parent's parent below that, and so on. By revealing each photograph we meet our ancestors going ever backwards in time, and we eventually see them becoming less human but very much given the full accord of being our (how-ever-many-greats) grandparent.

Ultimately, and enticingly, we are introduced to our 185-million-greats-grandparent, this fellow. Finally, we are invited at the end to rejoice at the delightful notion that all living things are our cousins, and worthy of our respect.

Watch MR DAWKINS DISCUSSING THIS NEW WORK on YOUTUBE







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