River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life (Science Masters Series) | Richard Dawkins

River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life (Science Masters Series) | Richard Dawkins | Good Read

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River Out Of Eden:...

	River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life (Science Masters Series) Richard Dawkins Basic Books, 1996 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 65 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

How did the replication bomb we call ?life? begin and where in the world, or rather, in the universe, is it heading? Writing with characteristic wit and an ability to clarify complex phenomena (the New York Times described his style as ?the sort of science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius?), Richard Dawkins confronts this ancient mystery.

DNA just is and we dance to its Music

As mentioned in other reviews of Dawkins's books I enjoy his writing and his passion for explaining science to the general public in an understandable way. I have given this book 5 stars because of the way he explain his arguments... although I don't agree with them. Now for a reply which is divided into the following parts:

1. Good Explanation of Mitochondrial Eve
2. Evolution in small Gradations: No Evidence forthcoming
3. Darwin's Argument from Personal Incredulity
4. God's Utility Function and the problem of Ethics
5. Question for Darwinists/Atheists

1. Good Explanation of Mitochondrial Eve

River Out of Eden is an addition to his ever-growing collection of fine books. This talks about DNA and genetics. For someone who is not a scientist this is a good introduction into genetics. He also explains very well the concept of the Mitochondrial Eve and that she would have been an ancestor of humans in the female line (as opposed to a common ancestor). Dawkins also explains there are other ways of being descendents, and that the mitochondrial ancestry is just one of many. This should put to rest any attempts by Creationists (by this I mean those of the Christian Protestant ilk... see my review of Dawkins's book, `An Ancestors Tale - A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life'. I myself am a Theist of the Islamic ilk) to infer that Mitochondrial Eve is in fact the Eve of Adam.

2. Evolution in small Gradations: No Evidence forthcoming

The Chapter on, `Do Good by Stealth' is an attempt to answer a letter sent to Dawkins by a Theologian. He delves into evolution in small gradations and cites a couple of examples to explain his understanding:

a) The evolution of the bee dance:

Dawkins explains in detail about the dancing of bees based on Von Frisch's ideas and how they are related to the location of food. He says that the dancing we see today may be an end product of intermediary dances that evolved into what we see today. This may be true and it will be accepted by all (Creationists) that behaviour can evolve. But the citation of the possible evolution of the dance sequences is not evidence that intermediary species existed. We may also track the changing dance sequences/styles of human beings from 1700s to 2000 and notice changes in the way people danced. There may have been intermediary dance sequences that led to what we have today, alongside the evolution of music. Behavioural evolution of human dance sequences does not explain nor suggest that there were intermediate species between our supposed common ancestors and homo sapiens. I understand why Dawkins cites the bee dance, it is an easy way to explain evolution, but as I say we have to distinguish between behaviour and speciation.

b) Nilsson and Pelger Computer Simulation:

Dawkins cites the two scientists who ran computer programmes that simulated the evolution of the eye. I am always sceptical about citing computer simulations as a way of explaining evolution in small gradations (fast-forwarded through programming) directed by natural (in this case artificial) selection. As the reader will note that programmes, algorithms etc. do need to be programmed in order to generate `random' events. The scientists start from a single cell... which is a given. Dawkins rightly points out that the complicated mechanism of the single cell itself is out of the equation so this somewhat simplifies the evolutionary simulation. Dawkins also used a simulation which he explained in his book, `The Blind Watchmaker' called the `Biomorph' programme to look at the evolution of simulated fancy-shaped biomorphs. In both examples of computer simulations, there is a programmer to programme algorithms to generate evolution. This glaring drawback is either ignored or acknowledged (in the Blind Watchmaker) but just accepted as given.

3. Darwin's Argument from Personal Incredulity

Dawkins rightly criticises Creationists for their often emotional argument that because the universe is so complicated etc etc that there must be a creator. There is no argument but just emotional nonsense. That is why I agree with Dawkin's coinage of the term `Argument from Personal Incredulity'. However, Dawkins didn't see fit to criticise Darwin for the same argument of personal incredulity. In the beginning of Chapter 4, `God's Utility Function', he cites Darwin who said that he could not persuade himself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designed the Ichneumonidae to feed within the bodies of caterpillars'. Atheists also tend to use the Argument from Personal Incredulity, i.e. emotional arguments much like Darwin did. They would ask why disasters happen or children are abused... if God existed He wouldn't let this happen. Same argument but on the different side of the coin

4. God's Utility Function and the problem of Ethics:

In Chapter 4 entitled, `God's Utility Function', Dawkins talks about the utility function (or I prefer to use `purpose') of life. Put it simply of is the survival of DNA. My favourite quotation from Dawkins (out of all the books he has written) is the following one he mentioned at the end of this chapter as it explains Atheistic ethics in a nutshell:

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference...DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music".

This quotation provides a huge problem when dealing with ethics. If there is no right nor wrong, no justice and injustice, then by logical extension there is no such thing as a crime only survival of the fittest. Let's take rape. I hope all readers will agree that rape is a crime and is wrong and laws are there to deter men from raping women, and if they do there is a punishment. Using the Atheistic/Dawkins analogy, the act of rape would be the preservation of DNA. It would be a male instinct to procreate and transfer his DNA so that new DNA could be generated regardless of whether the woman wants it or not. Would Atheists accept this type of universe? No they would not and let's be fair to Dawkins, he did deal with the problem of ethics elsewhere. In one of Dawkins's other books (cannot recall which one) he did criticise a scientist (again I have forgotten whom) for suggesting that rape was a survival instinct. Dawkins rightly stated that this should not be accepted. Elsewhere Dawkins said that there are consequences of evolution but we as a species have crossed a threshold where we can revolt against evolution (I am paraphrasing). But this begs the question, if the utility of life is preservation and propagation of DNA, then why revolt against a system which will do exactly that? Why have laws against rape, which is a preservation and replication system for DNA? If there is no right no wrong, no good, no evil then Atheists and Darwinists should not criticise rape. If they do, and rightly they do, then there has to be a problem with the concept of the utility of life being DNA preservation alone... hence a problem with the theory of evolution and natural selection in the absence of a Creator.

Note: I am not using the ethics argument to prove the existence of a Creator. Creationists may do that but my reasoning behind bringing ethics (and the example of rape) is to show the fallacy of the concept of the purpose of life being DNA preservation alone, a universe where there is no evil no consequences. It's something for Atheists and Darwinists to think about.

5. Question for Darwinists/Atheists

This is a general question and not related to this book alone. The idea of evolution is that species would mutate in order to survive changing conditions. Let's assume that bacteria is the first entity on Earth that evolved from single cells after chemical interactions etc. Now the reason for bacteria to mutate into something better (`better' is a relative term but we can use it for this argument where `better' means better survival) is for survival of DNA. A series of mutations and natural selection would make subsequent descendents and species better equipped to survive. Give the Earth billions of years time and what started with bacteria ends up with a multitude of species we see today which have evolved through small steps over geological time. Let's assume that Homo Sapiens, a part of the African Ape species, is uppermost of the evolutionary ladder. In other words, it has reached a survival capability better than when its ancestor started as a bacteria...otherwise there is no point in evolution. With me so far? If we and the rest of the African Ape species are best equipped to survive brought about by millions of years of evolution (mutations and natural selection), why is it that the most populous entities today are bacteria? They seem to have survived without any need to mutate and evolve into complicated descendents. If bacteria are the most populous entities, then why is evolution regarded as a sequence of better mutations (guided by natural selection) that leads to better survivability that has led to species such as Homo Sapiens?

(Ex-Parliamentary Candidate, Conservative Party)
London
UK

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Good Read

I enjoyed the writing style and flow of this book. It was a nice read.

Regarding Science-Ejected Vitalism:

Vitalism is a hugely science-ejected concept, though many CAM or 'natural health' cabals claim that vitalism survives scientific scrutiny.

A few favorite quotes from this book:

"after Watson and Crick, we know that genes themselves [...] are long strings of pure digital information [...] the genetic code [...is] a quaternary code, with four symbols [...] the machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like [...] this digital revolution at the very core of life has dealt the final, killing blow to vitalism -- the belief that living material is deeply distinct from nonliving material [p.017...] there is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, pullulating, protoplasmic [p.018], mystic jelly. Life is just bytes and bytes of digital information [p.019]."

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River Going Nowhere

"River Out of Eden is a meandering tale of the evolutionary route, from the single cell to civilization and culture, with a few stop-offs for those who didn't make it. The science is Dawkins at his best, but salted with his unproven hypothesis that human beings are merely refined animals: a conclusion that is not his own, but that of his mentor and teacher Niko Tinbergen. It is an hypothesis he grabs from thin air all through the book, without a scintilla of evidence---except his own unreasoned atheism.

In his delight in this moving stream of life, he has wandered into Anthropology, and, as he does in his "Unweaving the Rainbow", he applies his findings in animal biology to human beings, presuming that human beings follow all the laws and patterns of animal behavior. A mistake in logic that he apparently missed.

He subtitles his book, "A Darwinian View of Life", and insofar as it reflects Darwin, there is good science, as only Richard Dawkins can do it. But when he strays into the domain of Anthropology, he is reflecting only Richard Dawkins view of human life, which Darwin hesitatingly considered and it scared the daylights out of him. Richard Dawkins is an amateur Anthropologist and Logician, and seems never to have heard of the distinction between Genus and Specific Differentia. Human beings do have animal properties, but they have something that makes them radically different from animals: the ability to think, to reason.

Richard Dawkins looks upon human reason as the result of biological evolution and here he leaves his own specialty, of which he is the supreme master, and enters the domain of logic and philosophy. This is not science, it is pure speculation, like identifying human love with animal instincts, or a Beethoven Symphony with the song of the lark or the cackle of a crow. Human reason looks not just to knowledge and the play of the senses, but to meaning. For Richard Dawkins, because of his unreasoned atheistic bias, has openly and publicaly declared that human life has no meaning.

"River Out of Eden" is a prose poem of excepional beauty, tracing the stream of life from the most primitive organisms to the human body, a masterpiece of biological evolution. But his atheism dogs him every step of the way, and his cynicism clings to him like a burial shroud. He is stuck in the mud of his unproved speculation on the human condition. A great book for those who are not taken in by his unproved hypothesis.

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