Amazon.com
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.
Book Description
"The best general account of evolution I have read in recent years."—E. O. Wilson. With a new introduction.
Twenty years after its original publication, The Blind Watchmaker, framed with a new introduction by the author, is as prescient and timely a book 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 nonrandom process Darwin discovered—is the blind watchmaker in nature.
Customer Reviews:
Makes evolution understandable.......2007-10-02
It is some years since I read this excellent book on evolution. But I still remember it as the book that really laid out the nuts and bolts of the process and made it easy to understand at the "Ah now I see" level. I know of no better layman's guide to evolution.
"Passionate advocacy" and storytelling: 2 stars?.......2007-10-02
". . . there are wonderful stories to be told, and I love storytelling." Dawkins, tBW, chapter 2.
It must be admitted that Dawkins is an entertaining expositor, at least when he avoids repetition and a bad habit of prolonged hammering away at very simple concepts, often for pages on end, as if his assertions and arguments were more difficult to grasp than they actually are. In some instances he explains rather well, in comfortably pedestrian language, certain specific biological details, but when he tries to generalize and extend his views to larger scale philosophical perspectives, his assertions quickly disintegrate under critical scrutiny. All things considered, TBW isn't very impressive.
Dawkins states early on that he is writing from the perspective of a "passionate advocate" rather than that of a scientist proceeding along lines of argument that might be recognized as being scientific. He says that he does this because the reader can't grasp the science involved, therefore he is to invoke "wonderful stories." He frets that some will not believe him because they do not "want to believe." Dawkins wants to believe.
I find it curiously disingenuous, perhaps even insulting and intellectually evasive on Dawkins' part, that he suggests he must deal in metaphors and stories because his readers are too stupid (no, he doesn't use the word `stupid', but this is what he repeatedly describes) to understand his deep, scientific understanding of the Darwinian story. His lengthy insistence that evolution has hard-wired us to be unable to understand and appreciate echolocation in bats, is obviously wrong. In Dawkins' hands, this kind of suggestion is supposed to, in its own merit, buttress some of his arguments (see the following paragraph). A thinking person begs to differ. Many of the most brilliant and penetrating minds of modern theoretical science and mathematics, including Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, John von Neumann, and Kurt Gödel, among others, have found the Darwinian story to be non-compelling at best, and on some points glaringly wrong. Dawkins may want to dismiss them as `not wanting to believe' or as being somehow stupid, but . . .
Dawkins: "Our minds can't cope with [large numbers] . . . Our minds can't imagine a time span [greater or less than `routine' human experience]," because "it offends the economically minded human." Dawkins says "there was no need for our ancestors to cope with sizes and times outside the narrow range of everyday practicality, so our brains never evolved the capacity to imagine them." Dawkins loves this mythic defense and ducks behind it frequently, but it is a hapless argument. It is "a slander against humanity," as one philosopher of science has stated, and it is self evidently wrong. The human mind can certainly `imagine' larger numbers than we experience in "routine experience!" Consider for a mere moment the insights of a Gauss, Cantor, or Riemann; consider that even a modestly competent math student CAN not only imagine very large and very small numbers [including quantities of distance and time units], but CAN engage and manipulate these numbers accurately, often rather easily when abstracted with recognizable notations like exponents!
It is not a matter of this _kind_ of observation being inherently untrue; many physicists, including Paul Dirac, have spoken this way about quantum mechanics, for example. Indeed it is difficult to understand quantum mechanics because neither Bohr's complimentarity principle nor Heisenberg's uncertainty principle have any obvious analogs within normal human experience, let alone the way in which these two surprising qualities are entangled. But this observation is fundamentally different than Dawkins' argument that humans cannot understand imaging with non-visible frequencies or what to make of big numbers! Anyone curious person who has ever considered a sonogram or x-ray image, or seen a movie featuring submariners watching sonar screens, grasps non-visual spectrum images, and any modestly competent high school student well understands what large numbers are!
Dawkins' sluggardly argument "whistles past the graveyard" that is home to a real problem for the great Darwinian thesis: why should our abilities to examine non-commutative algebras or higher dimensional topologies or even advanced number theory [or any of the more esoteric fields of mathematics] exist at all in a Darwinian world? Certainly not for any of the rationales that Dawkins appeals to. They provide no survival or reproductive advantage within evolutionary `routine experience,' or in any other sense whatsoever. They avail "the selfish gene" nothing. They exist as a non-Darwinian/ anti-Dawkins reality.
Dawkins says that "5 per cent of an eye" would probably provide "5 per cent vision." Skepticism seems reasonable here, except perhaps for those who "want to believe." He presents many such dubious assertions, like: "living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way around" (ultimately--in DNA--teleology and `purpose' are alive and well!) and, "DNA molecules themselves, as physical entities, are like dewdrops" (true in a very limited and caricatured sense perhaps, but grossly misleading, to put it mildly). Presumably Dawkins would deflect criticism of some such colorful assertions by claiming them mere metaphors. Okay, but what then are the actual `truths' he is trying to demonstrate? Can they be stated precisely or directly and seem less cartoonish? Or are his readers merely too stupid for the `scientific' explanations that he is protecting them from? (With apologies to Dawkins' fans who might consider the last question a cheap shot [I do not].)
There are so many aspects of Dawkins' book that beg critical analysis, that, in the desire to keep this review short, I will have to simply point some of them out briefly before moving forward: (1.) His programmed stick figure "bio-morphs" obviously have been brought into `existence' by design, in an intelligently designed `world,' and for a specific purpose, how does this support his "without purpose" and "without design" doctrine? (2.) His `typing monkeys,' borrowed from one of his heroes, TH Huxley, is hopelessly burdened with design, purpose and intelligent contrivance--who builds the typewriters, who made the language and symbols thereof that the builder of the typewriters clearly needed as a starting point, who makes the paper (cuts and mills the trees, etc), who keeps those 99.999. . . percent of monkeys that would simply smash the typewriters away from them and keeps that rare typing monkey on task?--again, how could any of this support his "without purpose" and "without design" doctrine? He eventually (chapt 6) admits that it does not. (3.) His computer program designed to derive a sentence from Hamlet, if given the necessary letters to work with, and if specifically designed to achieve a specific result, will do so--well folks, are you beginning to see a pattern here? Design is supposed to equal no design! Dawkins' core thesis in TBW, as presented in the book's subtitle, "the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design," fails utterly in all of his memorable and now famous arguments, no matter what points concerning natural selection one may believe he has made cleanly.
"It could happen:" Dawkins' most fundamental and foundational arguments and speculations are also his most flawed, and are appropriately employed in the center of the book, chapter six, "Origins and miracles." Here Dawkins quickly demands that an extra-cosmic designer (God) must be an "organized complexity" that evolves naturally within an infinite regress of causes. This is certainly a convenient construction, as it makes "god" quite expendable by definition, but the definition is poor quality straw. The god whose fire he steals is not the "simple unity" or the "first cause of causes" that one finds in either Abrahamic or neo-Platonic theology. His wrong argument simply defeats a wrong god. He next sketches a somewhat accurate picture of the profound difficulties of `abiogenesis'/ `autogenesis'/ `spontaneous generation' of life theories. He says that to effectively put these problems aside, we only need to imagine that these difficulties were somehow overcome--"it must have happened." The "pathway" model he chooses to champion as being plausible is due to Graham Cairns-Smith, and goes something very like this:
Carbon macromolecules, proteins and nucleic acids, necessary to all carbon-based life, that is all life that we know of, are so complex that it is hopelessly difficult to imagine them arising spontaneously in any non-living substratum. That Stanley Miller and others have synthesized amino acids is of no real help here, the gap between mere amino acids and the highly complex carbon macromolecules is too great. So let's imagine something simpler, that silicon-base lattices are "life-like" in that they are "organized" and rudimentarily "complex." Now imagine that non-directed geological and meteorological forces in some sense "select" certain silicon dust crystals such that they accumulate and form larger "organizations." Now imagine that these silicon "organizations" become something that might be described as "RNA-like" mud. Now imagine that actual RNA begins to "take over" the "RNA-like" mud. Carbon macromolecules somehow have arisen and now somehow replace silicon structures. Viola! "Life-like" "organizations" of "RNA-like" mud are now organizations of RNA and RNA organizations eventually become DNA organizations and "life-like" organizations become life. Inorganic structures somehow `commute' to carbon molecules. Mineral (silicon being the best candidate) crystal `genes' commute to carbon-based genes, RNA "takes over" "RNA-like", DNA eventually takes over. I suppose this is plausible for a `true believer' for whom the proper kind of `imagination' is sufficient, but it's not plausible in any scientific sense. The entire heart of the original problem remains intact. Where did the carbon macromolecules come from? How did RNA "appear"?
Dawkins defense of this problem is interestingly empty and invokes "a marble statue of the Virgin Mary suddenly" waving its hand at us. Here it is: "In the case of the marble statue, molecules in solid marble are continuously jostling against one another in random directions. The jostlings of the different molecules cancel one another out, so the whole hand of the statue stays still. But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules just happened to move in the same direction at the same moment, the hand would move. If they then all reversed direction at the same moment the hand would move back. In this way it is possible for a marble statue to wave at us. It could happen. The odds against such a coincidence are unimaginably great but they are not incalculably great. A physicist colleague has kindly calculated them for me. The number is so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts! It is theoretically possible for a cow to jump over the moon with something like the same improbability. The conclusion to this part of the argument is that we can calculate our way into regions of miraculous improbability far greater than we can imagine as plausible."
All that is left to Dawkins is to again regale our inability to imagine numbers "so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts!" It's the final sum of his argument--we don't have good enough imaginations! It is interesting that Dawkins doesn't recognize that this same specie of argument can more easily be employed to defend belief in a First Cause of causes (here Dawkins seems to have a contentedly parochial imagination). And of course, neither a cow jumping over the moon nor a marble statue waving at us either establishes or quantifies the plausibility of life spontaneously arising from non-life.
Although his deepest philosophical assertions fail grandly, although he is repetitive and wordy, and although he is given to belittling his readers' intelligence even while trying to educate and entertain them, the book has its moments; Dawkins certainly doesn't get EVERYTHING wrong, he IS at times entertaining, and this book isn't as bad as The Selfish Gene.
Please Read (Especially if You're Religious)!.......2007-09-29
I have a degree in English and American Literature and my minor was in History. In other words, I'm not great at science or math. But I've always been interested in some aspects of science and biology and evolution happen to be subjects I like. I'm not a complete moron when it comes to scientific subjects but I'm sure any 8th grade science geek could probably run rings around me.
Consequently, this book by Richard Dawkins is made for me. The way I understood it it was written with a general reader in mind. The book is well written and plausibly argued. And as long as you pay attention and follow the logic of the author's arguments it's not that hard to follow.
The basic premise of the book is to show how life could appear in the universe without a creator or any pre-conceived notion of design (the whole "Intelligent Design" argument now being debated across the U.S.). Dawkins obviously loves Darwin and bases his argument on cumulative evolution over billions of years (the age of the Earth [and please shut-up you stupid creationists trying to argue that the Earth is only 6,000 years old!]). Dawkins patiently explains how such a slow and random process like natural selection could evolve our life-forms over vast amounts of time. Like I said, I'm no great scientist, but the argument makes perfect sense and I still fail to see why anyone tries to argue otherwise (except, of course, for religious reasons, but those are very silly reasons).
Overall, this is a good way to try to understand evolution in more depth than the few words hopefully given to you in high school and college. There are a few parts which I found to be boring (like the taxonomy debates and different schools of thought in taxonomy) but I think this book is an important read--especially now that religious nuts are trying to dumb people down.
468 pages of evasive reasoning.......2007-09-15
Dawkins' thesis in this book is to prove that the universe is a non-sentient thing which merely exists. There is no God who creates. What order there is (e.g. life) has been produced by mutation and cumulative selection (i.e. evolution).
But one could ask, who designed evolution? How did the universe come to be? Dawkins' sidesteps these questions for 468 pages (in my edition of the book).
As an engineer, I find his whole approach disturbing because he asks us to have faith in evolution rather than in God. I write this because evolution seems to be an untestable theory. If I propose to do an experiment to evolve bacteria into human beings a Darwinist will tell me that it is impossible to do because the time required would be much, much longer than that of a single human lifespan. And Dawkins seems to be saying that even if one could do that, the result would not be a human being but maybe something resembling a human being. What is there left to do but have faith in the priests of evolution? It's not as though I can test their theory. Given this, Dawkins' obvious contempt for those who believe in God is hard to take.
Great explanation of evolution.......2007-09-13
This book is an excellent explanation of evolution. It's a little on the dry side, and people who already know quite a bit about evolution will find it slow in the beginning. It picks up, though. Dawkins starts off with simple concepts and gradually builds into the more complex understandings of evolution. He explains everything very clearly, using analogies to help visualize some of the more difficult concepts. This book does a great job of clearing up a lot of the misunderstandings of what evolution is really about and putting a beautiful concept in science into terms any lay person can understand. Dawkins makes evolution impossible to dispute once you have read his book. I think most people who try to argue with evolution could only possibly be doing so because they do not fully understand it.
Book Description
If you found a watch, as William Paley asked nearly two centuries ago, would you think that it came into existence by chance or that there was a watchmaker? Likewise, Neil Broom asks, was the universe created by the blind forces of physics and chemistry, or is there evidence in nature of a designing mind?While prominent scientists in recent years have suggested that the watchmaker is indeed blind, Broom, a biomechanics scientist, sees much more than their naturalistic blinders allow them to perceive. His book How Blind Is the Watchmaker? boldly challenges the scientific establishment's commitment to what he labels as "the flimsily crafted but persuasively packaged myth of scientific materialism."Broom reveals how naturalistic science is guilty of attempting to reduce all explanations to the molecular level, even when higher nonmaterial levels of explanation are clearly required to describe the behavior of many systems. Likewise he shows why there is little chance that science can define life in a way that seamlessly connects it to the inanimate world. Broom also uncovers the rarely discussed or acknowledged assumptions that raise serious questions about the limits of a purely naturalistic approach to the problem of life's genesis. In a clear and readable style, he considers the recent research about the origin of life and the function of RNA, DNA and proteins. Further, he exposes how scientists often attribute "personal" characteristics to inanimate molecules. And he shows why postulating billions of years for various natural processes does not adequately explain inadequacies in evolutionary scenarios.This thought-provoking book (a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the volume originally published by Ashgate) points beyond the poverty of many scientific pronouncements and builds a robust case for viewing the true splendor of our living world.
Customer Reviews:
Very Sad.... :o(.......2004-05-24
This book's arguments are completely dishonest and misleading. Dembski is playing up to the ignorant gullibility of creationists. He bases his writing on a complete lack of understanding of the theory of evolution that is horribly tainted by blatantly unjustifiable faith in mythical creation. Evolution is upheld by EVIDENCE, which is something creationism does not have. As with ALL scientific theories there can be disagreements and discussion and changes as evidence, technology and science themselves evolve. Even if some grand discovery somehow proved evolution to be incorrect it does not mean that creationism would become true by default.
Creationism is not based on any kind of science. It is the distortion of truth to make it fit within the bounds of biblical myth. Life does not evolve with a goal in mind as Demski would have us believe. There is no end product or a aim toward perfection. Evolution does not even guarantee that a later form will be "better" than a previous form. It makes changes for the current environment. Environments like everything in the universe changes, evolves. Even christianity and its views of god, jesus, right and wrong evolve. Why do you suggest that is? Does god change his mind? That would be ridiculous. It is more probable that a god like the one described in the bible with such enormous contradictions does not exist.
It is very unfortunate that christians who claim to uphold the truth are so willing to ignore facts and fabricate their own form of "science" in order to propogate lies. The bible is NOT a science book. It is not even a history book. It is a book of myths. Man made fairy tales. The supporters of creationism wish to return us to the Dark Ages where all facts are derived from the bible and all who disagree are tortured and burned to death by the church. It is very sad that more christians do not see that they are decieved, partly by themselves for allowing it but more by christian leaders. Christian leaders generate fear by suggesting that doubt in the bible translates into a fatal lack of faith that will be paid for by being sent to hell for eternity by their everloving creator. So much for unconditional love.
I didn't read the book yet.......2003-09-05
To Fairfax.
1. I doubt you read the book.
2. Instead of fundamentally denying all merit why not provide simple examples that refute the claims, so idiots like me can understand why evolution seems to be so adept at selecting and expanding on "good" mutations, while intuitively we would expect to see mostly "bad" mutations.
Working in the computer world, which I would guess is far different from the natural world, the Dembski arguments about information theory and information improvement vs. atrophy make sense. Show me mathmatically why he is wrong or at least point me in the direction.
I love your argument about "It's all baseless. If you don't believe us just ask us." Never was such a circular argument so useless. By the same reasoning Hitler was not a threat to world peace in 1939 because you could have asked a majority of people, especially in the US and they would have told you not to confront him.
I may buy the book just on your non-recommendation.
A sad day.......2003-08-04
I feel sad for those people who actually think this book contains factual information. Behe and Dempski, both ID advocates were thoroughly trounced years ago.
If anyone is thinking about reading this book-please don't, you'll only be wasting your time and money on pseudoscientific garbage. I mean, you wouldn't read a book about a flat earth-would you?
If you doubt this post, do yourself a favor and see how many scientifically peer-reviewed journals there are out there that endorse Intelligent Design.
You'll realize there aren't any and you'll have to come to one of two conclusions:
A. That's because ID is firmly in the realm of pseudoscience and belongs there with it's cohorts (Holocaust denial, geocentricism, aliens abducting people, fairies, etc).
B. There's a massive, impossible, conspiracy out there to supress these journals.
If you subscribe to option B., you'll probably also think that mankind never visited the moon, that JFK was killed by sasquatch, and God knows what else.
The quality of the arguments is not consistent.......2002-04-21
"How Blind is the Watchmaker?" is an attempt to show the intricate complexity of design in nature, and expose the weaknesses of the naturalistic Neo-Darwinian paradigm. Unfortunately, the arguments vary in their consistency and ability to convince. I agree with the editorial review that the strongest portion of the book is in the sections overviewing the investigation of the origin of life, and that in other places Broom is prone to caricature the beliefs of Darwinists. There is a lot of interesting information presented in the book, and Broom does a good job of explaining the complexity of life, however, his arguments tend to have some holes in them. I did expect more of a response to Richard Dawkin's book "The Blind Watchmaker," but he did do a good, brief job of deconstructing several of Dawkin's analogies and simulations of evolution. There are better reads available on the same topics of intelligent design and evolution, that are better thought-out and more convincing. To name a few: "Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil," "Wedge of Truth," and for a rigorous analysis of origins of life research, "The Mystery of Life's Origin." If you do decide to read "How Blind is the Watchmaker?", you can glean some good information, while stepping around the weaker argumentation.
Proper Perspective.......2002-04-04
The Australian professor, previously unknown to me, has presented what appealed to me as a fresh perspective on the Watchmaker. It is the author's hope to attract readers to another pathway than "the arid desert of naturalism." The book challenged my own thinking.
Customer Reviews:
Antiproof.......2006-05-06
By the principles Dawkins describes, there was little point in him writing the program atall. By their application it is probable, naysay, definate that at some point in the future, on a computer somewhere, the program will write itself. The key flaw being that although that COULD be construed as supporting evidence; someone somewhere made the computer.
3 stars for effort... o_O and because i have to give a rating
Another small piece in the jigsaw.......2001-04-19
This program succeeds in it's aim - to demonstrate that randomly occurring mutations in generations of breeding organisms can, in a sequence of small steps represented by artificially selecting from a range of descendants, eventually result in significant "designoid" transformations. Unfortunately, because of the element of "artificial" selection, it will certainly be taken out of context by creationists by claiming that this is the current state of evolutionary theory, whereas if fact it provides only one limited view of half the theory! The theory also requires that the randomly occuring mutations be selected strictly on the basis of breeding success, which is about as far as you can get from random!
Unfortunately I think that Richard Dawkins has shot himself in the foot by choosing to issue something that only demonstrates the (relatively insignificant) random element of evolution, not the more important "selection by fitness". Get ready for a torrent of desparate creationists jumping on this opportunity to mis-represent the facts and convert the never ending supply of gullibles to their superstition.
Another small piece in the jigsaw.......2001-04-19
This program succeeds in it's aim - to demonstrate that randomly occurring mutations in generations of breeding organisms can, in a sequence of small steps represented by artificially selecting from a range of descendants, eventually result in significant "designoid" transformations. Unfortunately, because of the element of "artificial" selection, it will certainly be taken out of context by creationists by claiming that this is the current state of evolutionary theory, whereas if fact it provides only one limited view of half the theory! The theory also requires that the randomly occuring mutations be selected strictly on the basis of breeding success, which is about as far as you can get from random!
Unfortunately I think that Richard Dawkins has shot himself in the foot by choosing to issue something that only demonstrates the (relatively insignificant) random element of evolution, not the more important "selection by fitness". Get ready for a torrent of desparate creationists jumping on this opportunity to mis-represent the facts and convert the never ending supply of gullibles to their superstition.
Creation and Modeling.......2001-02-20
For the skeptics of the Biomorph experiments:
When you try to model a system, you always have to intervene to define the parameters of the model! With nature, the parameters are defined by the physical world (melting point of water etc...) In a computer model, these parameters have to somehow be defined by human intervention. This is the "creation" that is taking place and it doesn't detract from the validity of the rest of the experiment. (Of course the rest of the experiment MAY be flawed, but then this would be a different issue.)
Tainted experiment.......2000-11-06
Many are familiar with Richard Dawkins and his famous "Biomorphs". These are computer generated creatures that supposedly are the result of the natural process of evolution as simulated by Dawkins. Type into your search engine his name and the word biomorph for more information on his research. The point of the research of course was to prove that God does not exist. This is somewhat of a life quest for him. He has even been nicknamed by some, "the evangelical atheist". In light of the results of his erroneous conclusions I must publish this article.
Here is a quote from Richard Dawkins as he viewed his computer screen as the program was running:
"Nothing in my biologist's intuition, nothing in my 20 years experience of programming computers, and nothing in my wildest dreams, prepared me for what actually emerged on the screen. I can't remember exactly when in the sequence it first began to dawn on me that an evolved resemblance to something like an insect was possible. With a wild surmise, I began to breed generation after generation, from whichever child looked most like an insect. My incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance. . . Admittedly they have eight legs like a spider, instead of six like an insect, but even so! I still cannot conceal from you my feeling of exhultation as I first watched these exquisite creatures emerging before my eyes."
Dawkins made the same error that has become quite common in the field of evolution and abiogenesis (the supposed natural beginning of life) and it is perfectly understandable. The error in this instance is seen in the phrase, "I began to breed...". Where is that "I" in real life? It cannot logically be assumed to be nature itself in view of Dawkins' personal intervention into the experiment. Also I might add here that it does not matter at what point he intervened. The point is that HE intervened. Intelligent life intervened and tainted his experiment that set out to prove that intelligent input is unnecessary in a natural process that concludes with life. Now, regardless of anything else we must all admit here that in this experiment intelligent life intervened. Agreed? Anyone who cannot see this does not need to go on until he does. I am talking about the above experiment and nothing else. Did intelligent life intervene? Yes___ No___
So then it was Dawkins himself who decided which creature or beginning life form was to receive the mutation. Where is this intelligent input in real life?
Furthermore how did Dawkins know which was the better choice as he selected from some images and chose to reject others? (e.g. whichever child looked most like an insect ) Did he know what he was looking for? (I am not suggesting dishonesty here). Where is this knowing in real life? Who or what knows what is in the future in the natural world? Dawkins knew what was best and tainted the experiment with that knowledge which is unknown in the natural world. According to the theory, creatures adapt to the present environment, they have no knowledge of the future. Dawkins does have knowledge of the future because he already sees the product of evolution. Remember we are reconstructing the past not the future. Did Dawkins have knowledge of the future before he intervened? Yes, of course he did, just as we have knowledge of the future of our children after they are grown and we look back in time as Dawkins did. "Hindsight is 20-20". So the question is where is this foreknowledge in the real world?
Dawkins directed this experiment from beginning to end. Where is this overall direction in the real world?
Maybe Richard Dawkins would be better nicknamed a Creation Advocate.
Average customer rating:
- A useful (16-year-old!) analogy for selection
- Dawkins rich of mental image
- Unfair exploitation of nerds
- the origin of idiots
- Blind Faith
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Blind Watchmaker 1.2: An Evolution Simulation/Mac Version
Richard Dawkins
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Customer Reviews:
A useful (16-year-old!) analogy for selection.......2006-07-24
It astounds me how often Dawkins' detractors display a fundamental misunderstanding of his ideas. Dawkins never claimed at any point in "The Blind Watchmaker" that his software program of the same name constituted a perfect model of natural selection. It is a model of artifical selection, such as that which produced all the different modern varieties of dogs, and as such it demonstrates how selection acting on variation introduced by mutation can lead to increasing complexity and diversity. This it does admirably, even if there is nothing obviously "biological" about the biomorphs themselves. Dawkins can be forgiven his pride in his creation, I think.
A reviewer accused Dawkins of "never getting past" the arisal of a complete functional cell from nothing (the reviewer's words.) In fact Dawkins never made such a claim. Dawkins holds that life as we know it would have had to arise from a single self-replicating molecule, whose arisal is perhaps not overwhelmingly likely, but much more so than a complete cell.
The more I read into it, the more I believe that Darwinism is the only theory capable of explaining the complexity and diversity of life. I found the neo-Darwinian synthesis seductively easy to understand, staggeringly effective at explaining the way things are, and most of all, beautiful. My thanks to Dawkins for introducing me to it, if more through his books than through this software.
Dawkins rich of mental image.......2001-10-12
I actually read this book 5 years ago. It's a book full of imagination! Of the numerous scientific books I have ever read, this is the one that I will never forget. It evoked a series of mental images in my mind. Compare with many biology book burdened with citations and experimental data, this tiny book frequently provides fresh insights by using thought experiment in biological reasoning. I am looking forward to reading it again, with new surprse and definetely, enjoyment.
Unfair exploitation of nerds.......2001-06-24
I can just see hundreds of nerds transfixed behind their computerscreen googling over the one thing coming from another thing. All you need is a piece of paper and a pencil, and you can do the same thing. Dawkins does not use the computer well, neither does he explain his use well. A small change in a program, can give dramatic differences, a large change can give insignificant differences. There is no rule of small steppiness involved here, much as Dawkins likes to twist the regular meaning of words to have it be so. Also Dawkins has failed to simulate intelligence in the program. Much as Darwinists like to deny intelligent design, simulated intelligence is actually required for any lifelike computerprogram. That means a sophisticated use of the computer's randomizer function. In the computerenvironment only the randomizer has the power of decision. The rest of it works in a preordained fashion so to speak, one would get the same results over and over, if not using the randomizer function. Alternatively a sophisticated use of the computerclock would also work, if the clock strikes irregularly. Dawkins has cheated, because he has introduced symetry in the program. All the forms would look awful without symetry, all the forms just reflect the lifelike nature of symetry. If you buy this, you would support turning science into a commercial enterprise, and deny peer-review.
the origin of idiots.......2000-04-28
...Dawkins never claims his "biomorphs" to bebiological, their sole purpose is to show how small changes over aperiod of time can make huge changes in the end product; no more, noless. He turns trees (yes, just the shapes) into grasshoppers, and dragon flies, and satelites (yes, satelites, which are never claimed to be biological). His "quasi-biological forms" (see the forms?) do an excellent job of making his point, and you shall never convince this 'skeptic' otherwise.
Blind Faith.......2000-01-04
Perhaps this quote from Richard Milton will suffice to demonstrate the blind faith espoused in this book:
"Dawkins not only calls his computer drawings 'biomorphs', he gives some of them the names of living creatures. He also refers to them as 'quasi-biological' forms and in a moment of excitement calls them 'exquisite creatures'. He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real world of living animals and insects.
"Why is this an example of pseudoscience?
"In reality, the biomorphs do not correspond in any way at all with living things, except in the purely trivial way that Dawkins sees some resemblance in their shapes. The only thing about the 'biomorphs' that is biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. ...
"The program he wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world. Indeed, if he set out to create an experiment that simulates evolution, he has only succeeded in making one that simulates special creation, with himself in the omnipotent role.
"His program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selection in which he controls the rate of occurrence of mutations. Despite Dawkins's own imaginative interpretations, and even with the deck stacked in his favour, his biomorphs show no real novelty arising -- no cases of bears turning into whales.
"Most important of all, it is Dawkins, not blind fate, who chooses which are the lucky individuals to receive the next mutation and of course he chooses the most promising ones ('I began to breed ... from whichever child looked most like an insect.') That is why they have ended up looking like recognizable images from his memory. If his mutations really occurred randomly, as in the real world, Dawkins would still be sitting in front of his screen watching a small dot and waiting for it do something."
Does a Sighted Watchmaker exist? The difference with me is: I really don't care one way or another. But it happens that the evidence supports his existence.
The problem with Dawkinism, of course, is described by Behe: we humans tend to think that the contents of "black boxes" are simple: imagining that a system as complex as the first living cell could arise complete, by accident, for example. Dawkinists dare not go any further, as it would imperil their beliefs. But I don't have as much faith.
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The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins
Manufacturer: Longman Scientific & Technical
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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