The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
The Blind Watchmaker is the seminal text for understanding evolution today. In the eighteenth century, theologian William Paley developed a famous metaphor for creationism: that of the skilled watchmaker. In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins crafts an elegant riposte to show that the complex process of Darwinian natural selection is unconscious and automatic. If natural selection can be said to play the role of a watchmaker in nature, it is a blind one--working without foresight or purpose.
In an eloquent, uniquely persuasive account of the theory of natural selection, Dawkins illustrates how simple organisms slowly change over time to create a world of enormous complexity, diversity, and beauty.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Dawkins and his co-narrator. Lalla Ward do an great job in explaining various aspects of evolution
and various evolutionary theories. This is not light listening, Dawkins covers lots of ground. Some topics discussed include randomness, mutations and what is it, the evolutionary tree or cladistics, embryology, and survival of the fittest.
Interestingly Dawkins has an interesting take on cooperation and why cooperation is important for evolution.
Recommended if you have the time to spare to learn about evolution.
It took me a long time to get through this because of the subject matter and also the narration was fairly monotone. That is why I welcomed the female narrator. Gave me a break from listening to her husband.
P.S- need to cut down some of the parts, the core meaningful parts were pretty straightforward and in my opinion the circumlocution was pretty tiring.
soliloquizing- took me 14 days to read it
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.