An international bestseller when originally published, this brand-new and completely revised edition updates the story of one of science's most vigorous arguments. Science has seen its fair share of punch-ups over the years, but one debate, in the field of biology, has become notorious for its intensity. Over the last twenty years, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould have engaged in a savage battle over evolution, which continues to rage even after Gould's death in 2002. Kim Sterelny moves beyond caricature to expose the real differences between the conceptions of evolution of these two leading scientists. He shows that the conflict extends beyond evolution to their very beliefs in science itself; and, in Gould?s case, to domains in which science plays no role at all.

Kim Sterenly is the author of several books, including "Sex and Death" (University of Chicago Press, 1999) and "Thought in a Hostile World" (Blackwell, 2003). He works in the philosophy departments at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and the Australian National University, Canberra.