Dr A writes:
First of all, there are lots of popular books about particle physics.
I did consider looking up the Amazon lists but decided that life was, indeed, too short.
But without the creationists nonsense, a book on evolution would sell to people with a general interest in natural science only and it would be as popular as any other interesting area of science like, say, astronomy. The added 'controversy' of religion, simply adds a massive new market for the books - as Dawkins, Jones, Dennet et al have found.
The creationist reaction against evolution has fuelled a very visible resurgent debate that simply would never have happened if evolution had been accepted as a scientific fact like any other.
In the States of course, it literally IS about books - creationists want their science books to be different from the mad, atheistic 'evolutionists' - and everyone else's too. If they didn't, the world would hardly give them a glance and evolution wouldn't be anything special inside or outside the science class.
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android