The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins (EPUB)

Description

Acclaimed as the most influential work on evolution written in the last hundred years, The Blind Watchmaker offers an inspiring and accessible introduction to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. A brilliant and controversial book which 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?

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐With a topic like evolution / intelligent design, you are bound to get some blind 5 star reviews from people who believe the general idea of evolution without really understanding it, and some blind 1-2 star reviews from people who do not actually WANT to understand it but to find ways to discredit it. Ignore both kinds of review. There’s another group of reviewers who might give a lower rating on the premise that the work is not empirical enough or rigorous enough; those people have misunderstood the purpose of this book.WHAT TO EXPECTThe context and tone of this book are conversational in nature, even if the core ideas are derived from an array of scientific inquiry over the last 150 years. Imagine the author sitting in a coffee shop with you during a bad rain storm (so you’ve got time), hoping to explain why the main tenets of evolution are important and worth understanding, and why many of the opposing theories are lesser theories from a scientific standpoint, and you will understand the purpose of this book.It’s not hard to see why this work is has been deemed a “classic”. Dawkins weaves an interesting and detailed account of the basic principles underlying evolution, including dispelling common misunderstandings like the idea that natural selection is a random process (i.e. conflating genetic mutation — random — with natural selection in favor of specific kinds of mutations — not random). No degrees in molecular biology, genetics, or zoology are required to understand the basic principles described in the book, though you may find that afterward you have a desire to find and order books about these topics (I did). There are also some laugh out-loud passages which I did not expect. While he does at various points veer off-course and ramble a bit (who doesn’t), the old saw about babies and bathwater clearly applies (and not much bathwater at that).In short if the average reader approaches with an open mind, you cannot help but end up with a better understanding of evolution than when you started, regardless of whether or not you personally find every argument made compelling (you’re not a bad person if you don’t, nor virtuous if you do). We need to learn to debate these things without the toxicity applied.PERSONAL TAKEAWAYSWhile most of the key mechanisms of evolution are known and their effects observable with modern technology (e.g. reading and comparing the genome of two suspected but not obviously related species) and/or through our robust understanding of molecular biology, there are parts of the theory that remain unproven. More specifically, formal proofs of concept of the origins of the first self-replicating cells. This is not unexpected given the time scales involved and the very incomplete fossil record that we have (unfortunately many kinds of things that we would need to study fossils OF, don’t actually fossilize when they die). This is also where the typical “God of the Gaps” arguments made by many intelligent design (or ID) supporters originate. Which for many of them amounts to “you can’t show me definitive proof today of how certain kinds of cells came into being 4 billion years ago, ergo this entire theory is flawed / false.” Which is, on its face, absurd.If I believe at all in the value of scientific inquiry and thinking, then I must admit that two things are true:1) there is by now a literal mountain of empirical evidence — in several related scientific fields, ranging from physics to physiology — that points directly to the cellular machinery of what we call “evolution” at work, over very long time scales, in every kind of living thing. To deny the validity of the core parts of evolution, is about as foolish as an educated person choosing to believe that an entire political party is filled with devil-worshipping baby-eaters, despite there being no wide-scale reports of satanic altars and missing babies that we know of;2) In a wide array of scientific fields, we have scenarios where some parts of a theory are definitively known and proven and others not yet proven (i.e. proven in the same way science has proven than atoms can be split and tornadoes are formed when certain kinds of frontal boundaries collide with one another under specific conditions), and evolution is one of these fields. Admitting that something is unknown is NOT tantamount to admitting it is invalid! : ) There remain problems unsolved / proofs unmade; that is OK. It means we have work to do.Imagine this conversation between two people (two scientists if you like, no need to make it a scientist and a minister, for example):”You say we can see from countless optical telescope (and other) observations and crunching of data according to the laws of physics that have been proven valid many thousands of times over, that there is evidence of an unseen type of mass in the universe, that effects everything from the appearance of distant objects in optical telescopes (gravitational lensing) to how galaxies interact, but because you can’t show me a visible proof this source of mass exists, I must conclude your entire interconnected theory of solar systems and galaxies and galaxy clusters, and how they interact, is false.” Absurd right? That’s what many (not all) ID proponents do with evolution (the lack of visible evidence in our example is the analog to the lack of a proven, molecular definition of the first self-replicating cell and its surrounding conditions).And that leads me to the last point, which is over the last 20 years or so, molecular biologists, molecular engineers, and evolutionary biologists have been generating ever-more-compelling test results in controlled lab conditions, of self-contained, self-replicating cells arising from nothing but simple organic compounds, elemental catalysts, and different forms of energy. They’re not there yet, but one by one the technical hurdles are falling; the cells we’re capable of generating today are much more robust than when we started 20 years ago. It would be great, therefore, to see Dawkins or perhaps his favored understudy, either re-write portions of this book to include these developments (a lot has happened n biology and genetics since the 90s, including things like systems theory), or write a new book with the same general scope and audience.

⭐Great read. Despite what the title and some negative reviews may lead you to believe, this book is not so much anti-creationist as pro-Darwinist. Using rigorous logic and arguments rooted in biology, probability theory and information theory, Dawkins proves that Darwinism is still the most plausible and consistent theory explaining the emergence and development of life on Earth. Even though a big part of the book is dedicated to debunking creationist arguments, it also includes the critique of competing scientific theories (for example those that do not consider natural selection to be the primary driving force behind evolution).

⭐as usual, great shipping etc., the book is very preachy and has a desperate edge to it, as if the author is shouting that all must have unshaken faith in all these happy accidents that allowed life despite galactic odds

⭐I thoroughly enjoyed Richard Dawkins’ book, The Blind Watchmaker. I read this right after reading Dawkins’ earlier creation, the Selfish Gene. This book is brilliantly written and most importantly it conveys subtle and profound scientific ideas in easy and enjoyable language.Some of the key concepts that Dawkins puts forward (which I was impressed with) include arguments for non blended, “particulate” inheritance and how this relates to sex. Also, he describes how one sees in sexual selection an unusual positive feedback, leading to such things as apparently inefficient long tails, and this is contrasted with the usual negative feedback that one tends to see in nature. The positive feedback loop results from the linkage between preference genes and the trait genes themselves.There was a very nice discussion of genes and the environment and how the environment of genes includes other genes both within an individual and in other organisms, and this, in turn, leads to complex types of cooperation, arms races and the famous red queen effect. Finally, I liked the discussion of sensory systems such as vision and bat echolocation and how we can learn from these areas where nature has adapted to such a great degree and how we can see that in this process using less refined systems sometimes is evolutionarily advantageous.Overall I found this a thoroughly enjoyable read and I would highly recommend it to anybody else. It is a great classic.

⭐Dawkins is a pre-eminent authority on biology and evolution. His case is made perfectly.

⭐The book is a good read about the process of evolution and the science of genetics. My discussion group, Science and Spirituality, read the book and discussed it over several months. You have to like science and be interested. It is not an easy read.

⭐Finally an explanation of evolution I can understand.

⭐The item was advertised as brand new, and for the price I paid, I expected it to arrive in that condition. Instead, I received a book with strong creases on both covers and on the first and last pages, a stain on the back of the front cover, and yellow vertical lines on many pages.I strongly feel that the condition of the received item does not justify the price I paid. I bought many books from Amazon over the last few months, and this time I’m quite disappointed.

⭐This is the third of Dawkins’ books that I have read and it is arguably more accessible than the other two (The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype) which were much more concerned with the mechanics of evolution and the biological theories underpinning them. The Blind Watchmaker has a more philosophical tone, although biological examples are used extensively to illustrate the author’s points.This book is an extended explanation of why the appearance of design in the animal world is an illusion and how organised complexity can emerge from a sequence of cumulative, small changes via natural selection. Of course, most rational folk accept that evolution is as proven as a theory ever gets but it is a fascinating subject and one well worth knowing more about, even if only to counter the feeble attempts of the non-rational to contradict it.Dawkins has an engaging, affable tone in the book, yet is easy to understand. The section on the development of echo-location in bats is one of the books high points, as is the discussion on why the African widow bird has a seemingly impractically long tail . The Blind Watchmaker is not without its faults, however. An entire chapter devoted to taxonomy seemed to have no relevance to the main narrative and I skim-read the chapter on a computer simulation of biomorphs as it was heavily repetitive and felt a bit tenuous as a model for evolution.There are some surprising (to me) insights here. I had no idea that so little of the genetic information in our cells was actually used – apparently only about 1%. I did not know that the tripling in the size of the human brain was one of the fastest known evolutionary changes, taking a paltry three million years. Dawkins also skewers some common myths about evolution, pointing out, for example, that the entire theory of evolution would collapse in an instant, were a 500 million year-old fossilised mammalian skull to be discovered, refuting the creationist canard that evolution is an ‘unfalsifiable’ tautology.Overall, this is an entertaining and informative read.

⭐This book is about evolution: it is described as a very large amount of steps of very small improvements. Richard goes into great detail to help us understand how it works. I enjoyed reading it as it takes theory a step further and I regret having not read this book years earlier. Richard follows logic if we accept A then it means the following. He also explores the opposite if A isn’t true. He (and Darwin) logically rejects evolution as having anything to do with divine intervention because if that is needed to explain any steps in evolution it means the theory is false.He makes the reader understand that this process is so complex and played at multiple levels – from genes and cells, to species to planetary conditions – and over a time scale that the human mind cannot comprehend. It may seem magical or divine but it really isn’t. When reading the chapters about this I had to think about a conversation at the start of Deep Space Nine about time: “What comes before now is not different than what is now or what is to come. It is one’s existence”. If we were to meet such a being we would not understand this with our human mind. For a human a decade is quite long, on geological time scale 60,000 years is an instant. We look at the animals and plants today and we should realize they are all the outcome of a billion years long evolutionary process.The fossil record is extremely limited, so we miss many steps and sometimes we aren’t even looking in the right area. In Dawkins’ view life does not have a meaning – 42 might be the right answer after all. It’s interesting as recently I learned about another theory that looked at life as a way to recirculate nutrition – each animal and plant is part of a system. Dawkins would reject that and the system is there because of life. He spent the last chapter debunking ‘alternative theories’. In a way it’s quite academic but it does show clearly where Richard stands.Unfortunately he does not know how life started and he postulates some theories that sound the same as how we explain the universe using terms like dark energy and dark matter – it could be true but for now it’s not more than an educated guess. I understand that this is still one of the large mysteries of life. As the book was written a few decades ago, some of the examples that Richard uses sounds dated – it does not take anything away from his message, but I can see my daughter for example not being able to understand what he means with a laser disc or a DC-8. If you are religious and have an open mind I would recommend reading it – Dawkins is not against religion in a way that he condemns religious people, it’s more that it is not the right explanation for how life is today. There is no Watchmaker at work.

⭐The book is a disappointment. The words on the cover ‘this might just be the most important evolution book since Darwin’ had led me to believe that it would provide some explanation as to how natural selection transformed living things from single cell blob to complex living entities and what, or who was behind its design, but it did not. I must admit that I didn’t make it to the end of the book as my patience was overstretched by the seemingly pointless meanderings that were getting nowhere. I gave up with it.

⭐Well, first and foremost, excellent product phenomenal delivery time. Well pleased. My eyes are failing me now, but thankfully my cognition is well intact, so Audio CD’s are becoming the norm for me. I will quote you exactly the best definition I have found on this book. “Despite the theory’s age, the Blind Watchmaker is as prescient and timely 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 non-random process Darwin discovered – has no purpose in mind. If it can be said to play the role of a watchmaker in nature, tin is a BLIND WATCHMAKER”. I am left ‘speechless’ to add anything to that with one exception. Both Richard Dawkins and his wife Lala Ward narrate this unabridged Audio CD with stupendous oratory passion, that you even feel more of the ‘genius’ that is Dawkins and Darwin being reveal in it’s wonderful logic to you. Wonderful stuff. Highly highly recommended to either the less able to read, or if your eyes work fine, then buy the book (or the CD-to me it’s a winner!) and be ‘gobsmacked’ at the natural intelligence of the author to lay down such a wonderful and beautifully constructed argument for what is really just ‘common-sense’! R.

⭐In “The Blind Watchmaker”, Richard Dawkins writes, “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 us with the illusion of design and planning. The purpose of this book is to resolve this paradox to the satisfaction of the reader” (pg. 29). He works to allay any misconceptions about evolutionary theory, writing, “Evolutionary change in a species largely consists of changes in how many copies there are of each of the various possible contents at each addressed DNA location, as the generations pass… what matters in evolution is changes in frequency of alternative possible contents at each address in populations” (pg. 169). He draws extensively upon computer simulations to help put scientific concepts that take billions of years or occur on the molecular level into terms the reader may understand. Further, he demonstrates his mastery of molecular genetics in explaining the way genes shape evolutionary paths. Through these explanations, Dawkins demonstrates how life and our place in the living world can be explained through science without resort to superstition and how, through an understanding of that science, we can better appreciate the variations of life. “The Blind Watchmaker” should be read as a companion to the first edition of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” as it fills in the details that Darwin did not know but that would have served as further proof of his discovery. This 30th Anniversary Edition features a unique biomorph (see Chapter 3 for more details).

Keywords

Free Download The Blind Watchmaker in EPUB format
The Blind Watchmaker EPUB Free Download
Download The Blind Watchmaker 2013 EPUB Free
The Blind Watchmaker 2013 EPUB Free Download
Download The Blind Watchmaker EPUB
Free Download Ebook The Blind Watchmaker