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edriessen's review against another edition
4.0
Thanks to this book I got a better understanding of Darwin’s theory of evolution and what makes it such a sensible theory. If you are interested in it, read this book.
ekarpinski's review against another edition
4.0
Dawkins is good, but this book belongs to the culture war of the early 2000's and earlier, when creationism and intelligent design were seen as major intellectual threats, and various details about the theory of evolution weren't widely known.
lucindashirreffs's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Preaching to the choir I dare say
trippalli's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Excellent philosophy of science book primarily biology.
bentrevett's review against another edition
4.0
this evolution thing sounded pretty cool. might catch on soon.
needagoodbook's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent and engaging start. For some reason it became a bit harder to get through in the second half. Overall though, it's a fantastic explanation of evolution and how it's the only possible answer for how we got here.
rodhilton's review against another edition
4.0
Only Richard Dawkins could take Paley's Watchmaker argument against evolution and devote an entire book to dismantling it in a way that's such a complete joy to read.
To be fair, the book includes quite a bit more. A good deal of it is devoted to explaining the process of natural selection - those who already understand the Darwinian view of the complexity of life won't find any shocking revelations here, but Dawkins has a great ability to make even information that the reader already knows fascinating to read. His joy and passion for the subject oozes from the pages, making the book a very enjoyable read.
The basic idea of the book is to take a number of misunderstandings about evolution, and explain how they misunderstand Darwinism. I say misunderstandings, and not arguments, because Dawkins has devoted many other books to argumentation, and this book isn't really one of them. Here, he takes a number of common misconceptions and corrects them, nothing more.
I particularly enjoyed how thorough this is - an entire chapter is devoted to analyzing non-creationist alternatives to natural selection, such as Lamarckian evolution, and dismantling those as well. No stone was left unturned: if it's been said by a misinformed anti-evolutionist, Dawkins takes great care to address it in a tone specifically tailored to the misinformed.
Though it occasionally wandered into "too much detail" territory, The Blind Watchmaker is, all in all, an excellent book that I'd recommend to any Dawkins fan.
To be fair, the book includes quite a bit more. A good deal of it is devoted to explaining the process of natural selection - those who already understand the Darwinian view of the complexity of life won't find any shocking revelations here, but Dawkins has a great ability to make even information that the reader already knows fascinating to read. His joy and passion for the subject oozes from the pages, making the book a very enjoyable read.
The basic idea of the book is to take a number of misunderstandings about evolution, and explain how they misunderstand Darwinism. I say misunderstandings, and not arguments, because Dawkins has devoted many other books to argumentation, and this book isn't really one of them. Here, he takes a number of common misconceptions and corrects them, nothing more.
I particularly enjoyed how thorough this is - an entire chapter is devoted to analyzing non-creationist alternatives to natural selection, such as Lamarckian evolution, and dismantling those as well. No stone was left unturned: if it's been said by a misinformed anti-evolutionist, Dawkins takes great care to address it in a tone specifically tailored to the misinformed.
Though it occasionally wandered into "too much detail" territory, The Blind Watchmaker is, all in all, an excellent book that I'd recommend to any Dawkins fan.
srutiramesh's review against another edition
4.0
A well-written, fairly unbiased book presenting the idea of evolution to the common man. A must read for all.