looking for good books

Sticking with popular books I have been impresssed with Carl Zimmer's Evolution and The Science of Discworld written by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen (the science by Steward and Cohen is interspersed with a Discworld story by Pratchett, so I suppose it might not work on all fundamentalists - some just think it's wrong to read books with "witches" or "wizards" as sympathetic characters !).The Science of Discworld II : The Globe deals more with humans but it is more about psychology then the physical evolution of humans It is still worth reading but it is perhaps on less certain ground and more dependant on the authors opinions.John L Casti's [b]Paradigms Lost[\b] and [b]Paradigms Regained[\b] might also be worth considering. They examine a number of scientific and philosophical issues, including abiogenesis, genetic determinism and human language capacity as well as extra-terrestrial life and AI. The second book is a companion which reexamines the issues in the light of more recent evidence.I would suggest starting with Zimmer, unless you feel that the approach taken by Casti or Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen is likely to be better received.For your own reading, Mayr's What Evolution Is is indeed good, but you might find Mark Ridley's Evolution easier going - both are itnended as undergraduate level texts.

On the positive side I found Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker very helpful in understanding evolution. Dawkins is probably more representative of mainstream evolutionary theory than Gould who had an unfortunate tendancy to overhype his own ideas, presenting them as more revolutionary than they really were.On the negative side we have Dawkins public persona - his strident atheism is only going to encourage creationists to ignore what he says, and maintain their mistaken belief that evolution is anti-God.
The spat between the Dawkins and Gould camps (which has reached a level which has marred some otherwise worthwhile books like Dennet's Darwin's Dangerous Idea) is also something of a problem. (It was less so when The Blind Watchmaker was written and the section on punctuated evolution is certainly worth reading).Creationists often take very poorly to criticisms of creationist claims and so I could not reccomend the rather strident Dawkins over other writers. Indeed I have seen a creationist have severe problems with the milder Historical Note in Steve Jones' Almost Like a Whale (aka Darwin's Ghost).If your friend is open to considering a more liberal Christian theology (and is not a rabid anti-Catholic) then Miller's Finding Darwin's God might be worth a look.Part of the final chapter is online at http://www.brown.edu/...gazine/00/11-99/features/darwin.html

Another online critique of Strobel is Richard Packham's here :
http://home.teleport.com/~packham/strobel.htmIt's short, but it does point out the basic flaws.Earl Doherty wrote a longer critique which is now a book. Excerpts are still available online at
http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/CTVExcerptsIntro.htmRichard Carrier has written on some of the points raised at infidels.org. (his writing are indexed at Page not found » Internet Infidels) His essays on Thallus and The Date of the Nativity in Luke are relevant - the alleged "micrographic letters" raised by McRay are discussed in the latter, and shown to be entirely imaginary. That point alone might be worth raising - if McRay accepts such a dubious claim his scholarship is called into serious question. As is Strobel's critical eye.