From the author of "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" has been acclaimed as the most influential work on evolution in the last hundred years. In 1802 the Rev. William Paleys argued in "Natural Theology" that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms ...
From the author of "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" has been acclaimed as the most influential work on evolution in the last hundred years. In 1802 the Rev. William Paleys argued in "Natural Theology" that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Richard Dawkins, and in this brilliant and controversial book, the acclaimed evolutionary biologist sets out to demonstrate that the theory of evolution by natural selection - the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially non-random process discovered by Charles Darwin - is the only answer to the biggest question of all: why do we exist? 'I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence'. To Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker" is nature itself, gradually forming order from the very building-blocks of life: DNA. "This might just be the most important evolution book since Darwin". (John Gribbin). "Richard Dawkins has updated evolution ...his subject is nothing less than the meaning of life". ("The Times"). "Enchantingly witty and persusive ...pleasurably intelligible to the scientifically illiterate". ("Observer"). Richard Dawkins is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature, and Vice President of the British Humanist Association. He was first catapulted to fame with The Selfish Gene, which he followed with a string of bestselling books: "The Extended Phenotype", "The Blind Watchmaker", "River Out of Eden", "Unweaving the Rainbow", and an impassioned defence of atheism, "The God Delusion".
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It is not an easy read, but it isn't an easy subject. Well sequenced and I really enjoyed how he addressed topics that confuse most people. He met the challenge of proponents that the earth and all that is on it was created with the swish of God's magic wand. I felt like I had just attended a class of Evolution 101 and was glad I ran across a mention of this well-written book.
Dec 11, 2008
Evolution Vs creationism?
Dawkins has done a very thoughtful examination and justification of the concept of evolution, and since he has a more than adequate scientific expertise to detail the science behind his arguments, it would impossible to read the book and disagree with the concept. I'd hardly call it easy reading, but it's more than worth the time and effort to finish it! If anyone read and understood the book and still "believed" in creationism, it would prove brainwashing really works better than education and logic.
Publishers Weekly, 1986-10-24 Oxford zoologist Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype trumpets his thesis in his subtitlealmost guarantee enough that his book will stir controversy. Simply put, he has responded head-on to the argument-by-design most notably made by the 18th century theologian William Paley that the universe, like a watch in its complexity, needed, in effect, a watchmaker to design it. Hewing to Darwin's fundamental (his opponents might say fundamentalist) message, Dawkins sums up: ``The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the evolution of organized complexity.'' Avoiding an arrogant tone despite his up-front convictions, he takes pains to explain carefully, from various sides, why even such esteemed scientists as Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, with their ``punctuated equilibrium'' thesis, are actually gradualists like Darwin himself in their evolutionary views. Dawkins is difficult reading as he describes his computer models of evolutionary possibilities. But, as he draws on his zoological background, emphasizing recent genetic techniques, he can be as engrossing as he is cogent and convincing. His concept of ``taming chance'' by breaking down the ``very improbable into less improbable small components'' is daring neo-Darwinism. Line drawings. (November 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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