Secular Pinoy

I don't think Dennett's book is a good idea for the evolution newbie, or for intermediates who do not read philosophical books on evolution. And even advanced readers should be wary, as H. Allen Orr has shown in his review of DDI.

Valentine Pontifex

Indeed his book is one of the worst choices for trying to convince someone that evolution happens. If I was unaware of the evidence of evolution and was given that book I would gotten the false impression that the evidence for evolution is diddly squat.

People really should be directed to works that deal more with actual evidences of evolution rather than philosophical works.

Of the more philosophical works, I would recommend The Blind Watchmaker which is far more readable. Though that recomendations is more aimed at 1) those who accept evolution but not the ideas of modern evolutionary biology and 2) those who want a better understanding of how natural selection is supposed to work. I would not start a creationist with Dawkins either.

Roller

Certainly a great book! But it may be just a bit too much for a starter. Tim Berra's "Evolution and the Myth of Creationism", at least to my opinion, is fairly simple and gives a great introduction to evolution. Furthermore, it is a quick read being only 150 pages.

Zephyrus

Heheh. My AP Bio teacher last year made us (attempt) to read Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. He had us spend thirty dollars of our own money on it because he thought it would teach us evolution. I'm talking about a class of which half had never taken a high school biology class, not even knowing what natural selection is. We were supposed to read all of it (along with the daily curricular reading in our actual textbook) in a single semester at that, and we had interpretive quizzes after about every 30 pages... all in all, the class got maybe 300 pages into it.

Vorkosigan

Bowler, Peter. Evolution: The History of an Idea. An excellent, accessible and readable work.

Vorkosigan