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. Already an international bestseller, this completely revised edition updates the story of science's most bitter argument.

Over the last twenty years, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould and their supporters have been 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.

Expanded and updated to consider Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, and Dawkins' most recent books.