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

Authors:

Richard Dawkins (author) and Magali Nougarede (covers)

Language:

English

Original language:

English

Publisher:

W. W. Norton

Categories:

Biology and science

Publication year:

2006

Original publication year:

1986

ISBN:

978-0-14-102616-9

Review:

The Blind Watchmaker demolishes the argument from design, which was first advanced by the theologian William Paley. In short, it goes like this: If you're walking somewhere and you find a rock, you don't require an explanation for why it's there. But if you find a watch, you'll assume that the watch had a maker. Organisms are complex things, like a watch, so they, too, should require a maker (evolution is the blind watchmaker that the title alludes to). The book introduces biomorphs, creatures in a computer program that can evolve a multitude of shapes based on nine different "genes" (variables) which control how the form grows. Even with only nine genes, the number of forms that can be generated is huge, and the reader is invited to imagine walking through the (nine-dimensional!) space of possible shapes.

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[Back (5.02 MB)] [Spine (794.39 KB)] [Front (5.06 MB)]

Table of Contents:

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• Introduction to the 2006 edition
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Explaining the very improbable
• Chapter 2 Good design
• Chapter 3 Accumulating small change
• Chapter 4 Making tracks through animal space
• Chapter 5 The power and the archives
• Chapter 6 Origins and miracles
• Chapter 7 Constructive evolution
• Chapter 8 Explosions and spirals
• Chapter 9 Puncturing punctuationism
• Chapter 10 The one true tree of life
• Chapter 11 Doomed rivals
• Bibliography
• Appendix (1991): Computer programs and 'The Evolution of Evolvability'
• Index

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