The Blind Watchmaker

Author: Richard Dawkins
By Penguin
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Product Description
Offers an accessible introduction to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. This book demonstrates that evolution by natural selection - the unconscious, automatic, blind, yet essentially non-random process discovered by Darwin - is the only answer to the biggest question of all: why do we exist?

Amazon.co.uk 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:

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.

Customer Reviews

Explaining the very improbable: biological complexity, 2010-04-25
'The Blind Watchmaker' is Dawkins at his very best. His mammoth intellect, his literary talent, and his ability to teach all rolled into one!

In this book, Dawkins describes how natural selection explains the evolution of complexity (the eye and echo-location are favourite examples). His major points include the non-random nature of selection, that adaptive change is gradual (cumulative selection), and that the illusion of design is nothing more than the result of natural selection.

Many of Dawkins chapters are very entertaining.
'Good Design' describes how bats use ultrasound to navigate the world in a truly remarkable way
'Making Tracks Through Animal Space' provides an excellent way of thinking about life and 'all possible organisms'
The real stand-out chapter for me is 'Explosions and Spirals', which focuses on sexual selection. Without using an mathematics, Dawkins masterly conveys some very complicated evolutionary theory. A great, and enlightening piece of writing.

The only part of the book I felt was misplaced was 'The One True Tree of Life' chapter. It just didn't seem to fit the rest of the book, and I'm not really sure what it added. It presented lots of different points of views on a topic (taxonomy) that Dawkins himself didn't seem too passionate about. I never fully understood why that chapter was there.

Having said that, overall the book is brilliant. Perhaps not as revolutionary as The Selfish Gene, but probably more enlightening for the layperson. I cannot recommend this work highly enough.

Interesting and informative, 2010-04-01
I was pretty familiar with the theory of evolution before I read this, but it taught me a lot and answered many of my questions about natural selection. Dawkins writes fluently and held my attention throughout. I could have done without the little computer-generated bugs and I skipped a couple of paragraphs for that reason, but overall I was pretty enthralled. Lots of lightbulb moments!

A good account of the problem of how complexity arises in nature, 2010-06-29
In Dawkins's third book, we get an account of how the theory of natural selection explains complexity, such as the how eyes and other organs have evolved. The title of the book comes from Paley, whose writings in the early 19th century dealt with the same problem, although Paley wrote that it was God who designed living organisms. Dawkins rightly acknowledges Paley, in that the latter dealt with the problem of complexity, unlike Hume who ignored it. Of course Dawkins doesn't share Paley's ideas, but, the problem of complex life does need an explanation.

The Blind Watchmaker naturally follows the Selfish Gene (establishing the gene as the basic unit of selection) and the Extended Phenotype (more of the former and a discussion of how genes can act at a "distance"). The first part of the book discusses some rather quaint software developed by Dawkins that models evolution in terms of applying "mutations" progressively to very basic starting shapes. We get a discussion of stepwise versus cumulative mutation. This is important as many opponents of evolutionary theory attack it on the grounds of extreme improbability, as necessitated by a stepwise process. Rather, evolution is cumulative. An eye that allows the differentiation of basic shapes in better than no eye at all; cumulative evolution could result in an eye as good as a Hawk's, for example.

Information storage and transfer is discussed, i.e. how DNA is copied, replicated and read. There is an interesting discussion of the possible origins of life. In particular, Cairns-Smith's theory of how inorganic clays may have acted as some sort of catalyst or adjuvant perhaps for the first replicating molecules, which, according to current thinking may perhaps be RNA-like molecules. Dawkins rightly warns us that it would be in fact be somewhat worrying to if it was easy to "create life" in a test-tube so to speak, as it should be an extremely improbable event!

There is an interesting analogy made to natural and sexual selection and negative / positive feedback mechanisms which I found fascinating. However, we are given a warning of the dangers of relying too much on analogy. A warning that can be applied to other branches of study too.

As you might expect, the wrting is engaging and passionate. This book is a must for anyone interested in the study of evolution.

Muddled thinking, 2010-03-28
Dawkins begins chapter 2 thus: `Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress with the illusion of design and planning. The purpose of this book is to resolve this paradox to the satisfaction of the reader.' At the core of his argument is `cumulative change.' In his view, `every organ or apparatus that we actually see' (the ear and the eye in particular are mentioned) is the result of `tiny changes cumulated over many steps.' The paradox Dawkins identifies is not in nature but in his own thinking. Is not natural selection the process whereby organisms adapt to their environment for `survival and reproduction.' (Dawkins' words quoted, ch.4) Surely eyes have developed for the purpose seeing and ears in order to hear, and thus to better adapt. Darwin himself wrote, `I sometimes speak of natural selection as an intelligent power....I have, also, often personified the word Nature.' (The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. 1875. p. 7) Dawkins has a muddled viewpoint.

An outstanding account of what makes us *how* we are, 2010-03-14
The Blind Watchmaker is a classic. Written in 1986, the book is essentially a response to the creationist argument that the complexity in nature couldn't possibly have come about without an intelligent designer. If you recently read 'The Greatest Show on Earth' and want to follow it up with another of the author's books on evolution, I strongly recommend this one as it represents Dawkins at his very best - intelligible, illuminating and engaging; a masterpiece of a book that lays bare the subtleties and elegance of evolution by natural selection.

To his one-star creationist critics here on Amazon - or at least those who bothered to read the book - it must feel quite devastating. Dawkins takes their most oft-heard contentions ("evolution is just a theory... what use if half a wing/lung... what about the eye....") and exhaustively dismantles each one - not with blind dogmatic claims, but with solid evidence and carefully-reasoned argument. So we find him devoting the best part of a chapter to the matter of the eye, first demonstrating how easy it would be over almost unimaginable time for a tiny series of gradual changes to lead to such an organ, and secondly, citing numerous examples of species living today that rely on more primitive ('intermediate') light-sensitive devices.

Particular highlights include an insight into the sonar recognition system of bats, and a thoroughly fascinating chapter on the plausibility of life arising spontaneously on earth (a discussion aided by an especially enjoyable tangent on why a marble statue suddenly waving at us would be improbable but not scientifically impossible). Towards the end, he shifts his focus to rival theories like Lamarckism and debunks the surprisingly common misconception that beneficial characteristics acquired during your lifetime (big muscles, wisdom, etc) can somehow be passed on to your offspring.

Dawkins' arguments may sometimes be lengthy and require several deviations, but the bottom line is that they are arguments that can be followed and evaluated by anyone - or at least anyone with an open mind and a jot of intelligence. This book is no exception, indeed it represents popular science at its very best. If you need further convincing, then let me finally add that The Blind Watchmaker was the book selected by the late Douglas Adams as 'The Book That Changed Me'. Douglas described reading it as "like throwing open the doors and windows in a dark and stuffy room." Clearly there are still far too many people living in dark stuffy rooms, and we can only hope that The Blind Watchmaker continues to play a part in remedying that.

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The Blind Watchmaker