The Blind Watchmaker[Cover image may differ]

This book is about evolution: it is described as a very large amount of steps of very small improvements. Richard goes into great detail to help us understand how it works. I enjoyed reading it as it takes theory a step further and I regret having not read this book years earlier. Richard follows logic if we accept A then it means the following. He also explores the opposite if A isn't true. He (and Darwin) logically rejects evolution as having anything to do with divine intervention because if that is needed to explain any steps in evolution it means the theory is false. He makes the reader understand that this process is so complex and played at multiple levels - from genes and cells, to species to planetary conditions - and over a time scale that the human mind cannot comprehend. It may seem magical or divine but it really isn't. When reading the chapters about this I had to think about a conversation at the start of Deep Space Nine about time: "What comes before now is not different than what is now or what is to come. It is one's existence". If we were to meet such a being we would not understand this with our human mind. For a human a decade is quite long, on geological time scale 60,000 years is an instant. We look at the animals and plants today and we should realize they are all the outcome of a billion years long evolutionary process. The fossil record is extremely limited, so we miss many steps and sometimes we aren't even looking in the right area. In Dawkins' view life does not have a meaning - 42 might be the right answer after all. It's interesting as recently I learned about another theory that looked at life as a way to recirculate nutrition - each animal and plant is part of a system. Dawkins would reject that and the system is there because of life. He spent the last chapter debunking 'alternative theories'. In a way it's quite academic but it does show clearly where Richard stands. Unfortunately he does not know how life started and he postulates some theories that sound the same as how we explain the universe using terms like dark energy and dark matter - it could be true but for now it's not more than an educated guess. I understand that this is still one of the large mysteries of life. As the book was written a few decades ago, some of the examples that Richard uses sounds dated - it does not take anything away from his message, but I can see my daughter for example not being able to understand what he means with a laser disc or a DC-8. If you are religious and have an open mind I would recommend reading it - Dawkins is not against religion in a way that he condemns religious people, it's more that it is not the right explanation for how life is today. There is no Watchmaker at work.

You can sum up the idea at the heart of this book in one sentence: that all life on Earth arose because molecules developed a way of self- replicating, and that life evolved into more sophisticated forms because these replications were subject to random variation and natural selection. This giant and powerful theory is explained in detail from a number of different angles - mostly attempts to quash rival theories. For the better part, the book is great but I did find some chapters a little tedious. For instance, I now understand that 'taxonomy' is an incredibly important part of the theory but the chapter dedicated to it didn't, for me, lend any weight to the overall argument. However, there are some brilliant chapters too. The description of how bats 'see' the world using only sound ('echo-location') is fascinating - it underlines the idea that our use of light waves ('vision') is just one of a number of alternative sensory methods that have evolved on Earth. I also liked the parallel Prof. Dawkins draws between DNA and information technology (even going as far as suggesting that since DNA is just a way of passing on information, once machines find a way of self-replicating, computers might out-evolve it). Also fascinating is the discussion of 'positive' and 'negative' feedback loops. Previously, I only understood these in engineering terms. Understanding how they apply to any system (including evolution) is an immensely powerful idea. There is one idea that this book planted in my mind that is highly depressing. If Darwin was right (and it seems very likely), does it not mean that life as we know it is utterly bereft of meaning? Obviously, we are not here by accident (natural selection is not an accidental process) but, however wonderful and awe-inspiring the idea of evolution is, it essentially means we are here - in this form - because of the random variations of molecular chains. It's not a great feeling. NOTE TO COMPUTER GAMES PROGRAMMERS: Read chapter 3. There could be a positively useful job for you out there!

Well, first and foremost, excellent product phenomenal delivery time. Well pleased. My eyes are failing me now, but thankfully my cognition is well intact, so Audio CD's are becoming the norm for me. I will quote you exactly the best definition I have found on this book. "Despite the theory's age, the Blind Watchmaker is as prescient and timely as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the eighteenth-century theologian, William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments, but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte. Natural selection: the unconscious, automatic, blind, yet essentially non-random process Darwin discovered - has no purpose in mind. If it can be said to play the role of a watchmaker in nature, tin is a BLIND WATCHMAKER". I am left 'speechless' to add anything to that with one exception. Both Richard Dawkins and his wife Lala Ward narrate this unabridged Audio CD with stupendous oratory passion, that you even feel more of the 'genius' that is Dawkins and Darwin being reveal in it's wonderful logic to you. Wonderful stuff. Highly highly recommended to either the less able to read, or if your eyes work fine, then buy the book (or the CD-to me it's a winner!) and be 'gobsmacked' at the natural intelligence of the author to lay down such a wonderful and beautifully constructed argument for what is really just 'common-sense'! R.

Arguably Dawkins best book, 'The Blind Watchmaker' is exactly what the doctor ordered for the American religious fundamentalist epidemic that has plagued its society with dogmatically closed-minded, kindergarten-level refutations of evolution for too long. Unfortunately, this book is needed as much as ever over 30 years after it was written, and the reason for that has been shown to me over and over again in my personal life: the people who need most to understand the content of this book never read more than a few pages before giving up. That said, the well-articulated and technical descriptions are well worth the investment of concentration that the book asks of you.

Muhteşem bir baskı kalitesi. Elime bir günde geldi.

Comprei pra dar de presente ao meu marido. Ele gostou muito, já estava interessado nesse livro a um bom tempo.

Extremely interesting.

Brilliant ideas, put in a very digestible piece.