OK, he 's not Hannah Montana, but evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins ' visit to the UW-Madison campus this week blew off the charts for a Distinguished Lecture series event.

All 1,300 free tickets to Dawkins ' Tuesday night speech on "The God Delusion " at the Union Theater were snapped up long before the event. You could see Dawkins ' fans begging for tickets on Craigslist, right between someone selling floor seats to see The Boss at the Bradley Center and someone wanting to buy Big Ten tourney tickets.

All this for an Oxford University professor whose previous titles included "The Extended Phenotype " and "The Selfish Gene "?

Sean Carroll, a UW-Madison geneticist who introduced Dawkins, said the response comes from two groups of students: biology majors, who have all likely read Dawkins ' books on evolutionary biology, and new fans who are cheering his hard line against the belief in God, "saying things that had not been said. "

Carroll is a bit of a rock star himself in the world of biology; he 's working on a two-hour "NOVA " special on Charles Darwin to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Darwin 's birth and the 150th anniversary of "The Origin of Species. " He was part of a discussion Tuesday afternoon between Dawkins and undergraduates who live in the Chadbourne Residential College.

"They were interested in The God Delusion, ' " Carroll said. "I think because it is a topic that has never before been presented to them as fair game for debate. "

Pratha Muthiah, a freshman engineering major, said she first saw Dawkins on "The Colbert Report, " where he debated the existence of God with comedian Stephen Colbert, who is either a Catholic or at least plays one on television.

She and her friends were intrigued, and went out to get Dawkins ' books. She said some of her fundamentalist Christian friends got tickets to Tuesday 's speech because "they want to hear what he has to say. "

They heard Dawkins quoting atheist slogans such as "blasphemy is a victimless crime " and saw him showing slides that labeled God as "an imaginary friend. "

In an interview before the talk, Dawkins said his six-campus tour has drawn "extremely enthusiastic audiences " and no protesters, despite the kind of anti-religion taunting that would result in a fatwa on his head in some places.

"It looks to me that people who go to lectures want to hear someone they agree with, " he said. "I 'm preaching to the choir, but I 'm encouraged by the size of the choir. "

Tuesday night 's choir gave Dawkins a standing ovation.

Contact Susan Lampert Smith at ssmith@madison.com or 608-252-6121.