In his earlier work, like The Selfish Gene or The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins revealed both the variety and underlying unity of life on earth. In this book he urges us to put aside superstitions, including creationism and other pseudo-sciences, and wake up to a universe far more wondrous than those in any myths. The `Mount Improbable' in the title stands for the combination of perfection and improbability that is epitomized in the seemingly `designed brilliance' of all living things. They could not, contends Dawkins, have come into existence by chance: rather it is DNA, on its own unending pilgrimage through geological time, which has been responsible.
In 1995 Richard Dawkins became the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is the bestselling author of THE SELFISH GENE, THE BLIND WATCHMAKER (Penguin, 1988) and UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW (Penguin, 1998).