The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

by Richard Dawkins

Overview

Richard Dawkins’s classic remains the definitive argument for our modern understanding of evolution.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393351491
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/28/2015
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	103,506
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Understanding of Science at Oxford University, and is the author of The Selfish Gene, Climbing Mount Improbable, and many other books.

What People are Saying About This

John Maynard Smith

Dawkins has done more than anyone else now writing to make evolutionary biology comprehensible and acceptable to a general audience.

Editorial Reviews

"Dawkins has done more than anyone else now writing to make evolutionary biology comprehensible and acceptable to a general audience."

John Maynard Smith

"A model of how to explain complicated ideas without dumbing them down or boring one’s readers."

The Guardian - Steven Pinker

"One of the best science books—one of the best any books—I have ever read."

Los Angeles Times - Lee Dembart

Oxford zoologist Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype trumpets his thesis in his subtitlealmost guarantee enough that his book will stir controversy. Simply put, he has responded head-on to the argument-by-design most notably made by the 18th century theologian William Paley that the universe, like a watch in its complexity, needed, in effect, a watchmaker to design it. Hewing to Darwin's fundamental (his opponents might say fundamentalist) message, Dawkins sums up: ``The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the evolution of organized complexity.'' Avoiding an arrogant tone despite his up-front convictions, he takes pains to explain carefully, from various sides, why even such esteemed scientists as Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, with their ``punctuated equilibrium'' thesis, are actually gradualists like Darwin himself in their evolutionary views. Dawkins is difficult reading as he describes his computer models of evolutionary possibilities. But, as he draws on his zoological background, emphasizing recent genetic techniques, he can be as engrossing as he is cogent and convincing. His concept of ``taming chance'' by breaking down the ``very improbable into less improbable small components'' is daring neo-Darwinism. Line drawings. (November 24)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene ( LJ 12/1/76), persuasively argues the case for Darwinian evolution. He criticizes the prominent punctuationist school, and takes issue with the views of creationists and others who believe that life arose by design of a deity. Using the evolution of various animals as examples and drawing parallels from improvements in modern technology, Dawkins demonstrates the logic of the selection process and of an incremental evolution whose end products are the highly complex, functional organisms we know today. This provocative work is likely to generate further controversy in the scientific community. Recommended for informed laypersons, undergraduates, and scholars. Joseph Hannibal, Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Library Journal

Reprint of the 1987 original with a new introduction & preface. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"As readable and vigorous a defense of Darwinism as has been published since 1859."

The Economist

First published in 1986, Dawkins’s explanation of the evolutionary process continues to be timely and revelatory. The evolutionary biologist takes the arguments and examples most often cited to support intelligent design and shows how each may be explained by blind evolution. He’s an excellent writer and an excellent rhetorician, joined in this reading by Lalla Ward. The two go back and forth with the progression of ideas and the point-counterpoint of Dawkins’s arguments. This dual reading is an interesting model for a scientific text. It helps to clarify and emphasize points, an effect undercut only by the distinct British enunciation of both narrators. On the whole, though, this is a commendable production, and an excellent primer on how evolution works. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2012 - AudioFile