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The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
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Average Rating:  out of 343 Reviews
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Price: $15.95
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Sale: $9.46
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Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780393315707
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: Richard Dawkins
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Publisher: W. W. Norton
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Dewey Decimal Number: 576.82
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Publication Date: 1996-09-19
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Reading Level: 400
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Description: 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.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: A good introduction |
Date: 2008-11-19 |
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Details: This is a very good introduction to the concepts of evolution for someone who is new to the subject. |
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Review Summary: A good Dawkins primer |
Date: 2008-11-12 |
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Details: This is a truly wonderful place to start for anyone interested in Dawkins' series of forays into being human. Dense, but with some jargon and some lovely prose, it will educate even the most seasoned biology student. |
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Review Summary: Why Does Blind Produce Design? |
Date: 2008-10-13 |
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Details: The whole thesis of "The Blind Watchmaker" is that there is no design in nature.
Yet we see design everywhere: Is it merely an illusion?
The human body is an amazingly designed machine;
The biosphere of the earth is amazingly designed for human and animal life;
If natural selection is blind and random (and I concede that it is)how and why does it result in astonishingly designed organisms and environments?
I claim that Richard Dawkins has overlooked Factor X which fashions design from random selection or does he deny what his very eyes reveal?
His empirical data is persuasive in identifying Natural Selection as the mechanism behind the variety and complexity of living things, but how can
he deny that the result is not only design but rational order and purpose?
I claim that with all of his powers of observation, his instruments of investigation and his gift of deduction he has overlooked the factor, power or mechanism which brings order out of randomness and purpose out of blind change. I call it Factor X and claim it is to biology what Einstein's Relativity is to Physics.
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Review Summary: Excellent book |
Date: 2008-09-11 |
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Details: Dawkins says evolution consists of two things: variation and selection. Variation (in the form of mutation) is indeed the result of random chance. Selection, however, is not at all random, and (when acting on variations) eventually results in the things we recognize as "life".
Most people are unaware that science is now starting to focus in earnest on prebiotic evolution, or what Dawkins has called "universal evolution". Just this week the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published an article on this.
Dawkins does an excellent job of describing the difference between biotic evolution and prebiotic evolution (biotic evolution replicates; prebiotic "evolution" is more like a sieve that "sorts" things and passes no or little information forward. Prebiotic evolution explains stellar evolution and the transformation of our solar system from a cloud of gas and dust to the clockwork-like machinery we see in the night sky. I found this book to be quite readable and engaging.
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Review Summary: The Blind Watchmaker |
Date: 2008-08-02 |
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Details: Not an easy book to read, but well worth the effort. Understanding the evidence and arguments for evolution requires effort and thought, whereas believing in invisible and untestable gods is easy, which is why most people choose the latter. Dawkins explains clearly why evolution is the best, indeed the only rational explanation for life as it exists on Earth (other than the FSM, of course. Arrrr!) |
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