The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design | Richard Dawkins | An explanation of why evolution makes sense.

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The Blind Watchmak...

	The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design Richard Dawkins W. W. Norton, 1996 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 341 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Classic Explanation of Evolution

Back in the 18th or 19th Century, a man named William Paley came up with a very clever argument to prove the existance of god: Say you find a watch lying on the beach. Just by looking at the watch, you "know" it was made for a purpose. Such an odd collection of materials did not assemble itself. It is not an accident, and it must have been designed by someone specially for the purpose of telling time. Where there is a watch, there must be an intelligent watch maker. Well, human beings are much better designed than watches, so we too must have been created by an intelligent designer. That designer is god.

That's a brilliant argument, and it sure would have convinced me. Dawkins takes that argument, and smashes it to pieces. (He does not insult Paley, of course. Neither did Einstien insult Newton).

Dawkins explains how an object (or plant or animal) can be "designed" by the simple process of natural selection, without anyone to do the selecting. All it takes is replication (sexual reproduction) and limited resources. The laws of physics do the rest. The species that are most successful at surviving tend to survive -- it sounds so simple when you think of it that way. So, each generation has more of the successful models and less of the unsuccessful ones.

Once in a while random copying errors occur. Most of these make the plant or animal less successful, and those genes are not passed on. Once in a while, however, the error leads to a better design, and the new gene wins out. Over long, long periods of time, very efficient and very complicated designs can and will show up, even though they have not been designed by anyone. Just as the Grand Canyon was created by a long slow process, so were we.

If you want to understand evolution, this is the place to start (Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and many others will pick up from there). If you believe in intelligent design, and want to keep believing, do NOT read this book.

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An explanation of why evolution makes sense.

Dawkins has a way of explaining things that makes sense to the rest of us. The book is close to twenty years old now, but is still an excellent introduction to the subject of evolution. Dawkins takes on the creationists' arguments one by one and destroys them all, but he is also interesting, not merely pedantic. For those who have heard all the noise and can't make sense of the arguments and counter-arguments, this book will help make it clear.

I had to put in my 2 cents...er...5 stars

I just had to add to the reviews of this book. How arrogent that in this unimaginably huge universe filled with billions of stars and countless billions of planets, the whole thing is only filled with one intelligent life form--us. And on top of it all, the whole thing was created by a "God" that looked like---us (at least if you are a tall white man with long hair and a beard...Asian, Hispanic, Black, etc. sorry you are out of luck).

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Excellent Introduction to How Evolution Works

'its just a theory' -- blah blah. Yea. Well, read this, reflect on it--THEN let us discuss it. Amazingly, most creationists have never really read up on evolution to discover how the mechanics of it really work. As Richard Dawkins shows us, it isn't just "random chance".

If you fear this book, get it and read it anyway so you at least know what you are railing against.

Can't put it down

This is a fantastic read. Not as dry or complex as the Selfish Gene, this book reads far easier, it is just as interesting however. Richard Dawkins is a genius at distilling and story-telling science fact. This book has "laugh out loud" as well as "gaping jaw" moments.

I started reading "The God Delusion" but received this book as a Christmas present and haven't been able to put it down since. It is much less "preachy" than T.G.D. but I will go back to that book when I've completed this - if only to brush up on facts to defend myself from Bible bashers.

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