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The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.82
EAN: 9780393315707
ISBN: 0393315703
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: September 19, 1996
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editorial Review:
Richard Dawkins is not a shy man. Edward Larson's research shows that most scientists today are not formally religious, but Dawkins is an in-your-face atheist in the witty British style:
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.
The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued 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 Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the blind watchmaker."
Dawkins is a hard-core scientist: he doesn't just tell you what is so, he shows you how to find out for yourself. For this book, he wrote Biomorph, one of the first artificial life programs. You can check Dawkins's results on your own Mac or PC.
"The best general account of evolution I have read in recent years."—E. O. Wilson. With a new introduction.Twenty years after its original publication, The Blind Watchmaker, framed with a new introduction by the author, is as prescient and timely a book 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 nonrandom process Darwin discovered—is the blind watchmaker in nature.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Good Introduction To and Defense of Evolution
This book is another fine effort by Richard Dawkins to explain how the complexity of life can be explained by evolution including natural selection. He uses his usual detailed, but laymen type of explanation to explore how various attributes of animals (and man) have come about.
The books closing chapters deal with some of the other theories that exist to try to explain the diversity of life. He does not take a highbrow approach. He explains the core beliefs and concepts of the theories ... Read More
Rating:  - The Argument For Design
It is not a stretch of the imagination to claim that scientific evidence
supports the idea of a design in Nature. The real argument is not over
the presence of design but over the source of the design. Is it the random, ignorant, process of mutation and natural selection esposed by
Dawkin`s or the work of an Intelligent Designer.After a full assessment
of Dawkin`s book, I opt for the latter.I find it remarkable how often
the creativity we find in nature is so similar ... Read More
Rating: - Even IF blind
.....A watchmaker is still a watchmaker, and is presumably still making a watch that works. But whenever we don't understand something in our world, we say that there is no God. We profess to be intelligent beings but we think we know all there is to know, particularly as it concerns God. Sorry, folks, we don't know everything. And when we don't, just say so, don't say there is no God when you really do not know one way or the other. Every time we wonder "why", we say oh God would not do it that way. We ... Read More
Rating: - Essence of the scientific method
When I tell friends and family that I am reading (and enjoying) books on natural selection and Darwin I often get challenged that 'God' explains the major gaps in the theories proposed. What I appreciate about this book is that it does not stop with that answer and strives to hypothesize and explain the origin of life and the complexity that has manifested itself in the nature around us. It challenges the reader to understand organic and inorganic chemistry and the fundamental properties of materials ... Read More
Rating: - Dawkins vs. "Peter", "Paul", "Luke", and "John"
Read the bible (written by anonymous 8th century people called Peter, Paul, Luke, John, and others), and then read The Blind Watchmaker (or any book by Richard Dawkins). One is absurd and the other is perfect sense.
I'd love to see a college professor in the US offer a course that required the reading of these two books only. Perhaps it would raise the American standards for Science (we're embarrassingly low in comparison to the other Industrialized Nations because we simply defend one book ... Read More
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