The Blind Watchmaker

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The Blind Watchmaker
By Richard Dawkins

Has anyone here read it? If so what did you think of it?

I don't remember if I read all of it, but I like Dawkins and have read much of his work.

I tried to read one of Dawkins' books once and found his writing style to be grating. I agree with the guy 100% in principle but he doesn't strike me as a pleasant person.

Yea I agree that he did come off as an unpleasant person but yes his principles are solid as can be. I read only a selection of the blind watchmaker that appeared in a book of philosophy I have for a class and I thought it was great, some other people in the class didn't get him at all and that surprised me. But I was wondering if it would be worth buying the entire book(or another of his books) or if it would just be him covering the same points over and over the entire time?

Being a biology major I love discussing the theory of evolution with people and I could argue down most arguments people made against it but some I couldn't and Paley's argument was one of them. I knew Paley's argument was wrong, but I couldn't explain why, well now after reading this I can. I thought it was brilliant how he made the distinction between single step and cumulative step processes and illustrated the point with the "Methinks it is like a weasel" concept. Thought it was very interesting how long a single step process would take (longer than the universe has been in existence) and comparatively how short a cumulative step process would take given the same situation. This is one of the things people tend to confuse about the theory of evolution, they see it as a single step process not a cumulative one and in seeing it that way are forced to reject it based on the astronomically low odds of it happening...

One of the questions I asked in class and didn't get a response she just said "that would be an excellent response to Dawkins", theres no answer in saying that! My question was: in order for a cumulative step process(natural selection) to start occurring, wouldn't there have had to have been a single step process that happened in cause it? Namely DNA forming in it's most primitive form and it beginning to divide. There is no cumulative step process that was governing DNA's construction, no sieve filtering out the bad and keeping the good parts of it. So at one point there had to have been some sort of extremely unlikely event that occurred:a single step process that created something, right? I'm not arguing the existence of God or anything like that I'm just wondering if biology has a rational answer to this, I haven't come across it, but that being said I haven't looked very hard:P and I am a very inexperienced biologist. Any insight would be appreciated.

I thought it very interesting and made sense; but I found myself thinking that the more he argued against a designer the more it seemed like he was undercutting himself. It seems like you could take some of his arguments and equally use them to make a case for intelligent design. Is it all just random or is there really some unseen hand behind it?

Using human-made, human-designed computer programs to argue against a designer I think defeats the purpose. Because you can skew the program anyway you want, you wrote it, it's yours. That is not random design by chance. That is intelligent design. You cannot write a program and then use it to argue against intelligent design. So is there a divine computer program out there producing apparently random results?

On the other hand, the absence of the designer creates problems for the proponents of intelligent design. If there is a designer, then where is he/she/it? Why hasn't it made its presence known in an unambiguous way? Instead, what we have are countless contradictory "revelations"--exactly the situation one would expect if the universe arose by chance and randomness! Has anyone else noticed that when people talk about "God", whether they are believers or atheists, they all, every one of them, including myself at this very moment, refer to this being in the third person. And why would you talk about someone in the third person? When they are not there!

Which is why I am an agnostic. I do not believe the evidence conclusive in either direction, but it seems more likely that there is no designer, or if there was one, there is not now.

i love his writing and eloquent expression of complex topics....

but he has a terrible personality and attitude.

I find his personality perfectly fine. He is brutal and unapologetic in his criticism of religion and flawless in his logic. Fundamentally, he reveals faith as a very dangerous vice and not the basis for any sort of truth.

-Frank

I find his personality perfectly fine. He is brutal and unapologetic in his criticism of religion and flawless in his logic. Fundamentally, he reveals faith as a very dangerous vice and not the basis for any sort of truth.

-Frank

Hey, Lalla Ward is his wife, and after being married to Tom Baker while Baker was ornery, Richard Dawkins must seem pedestrian, by comparison. Dawkins probably doesn't suffer fools gladly, but he could still have a friendship with a rival he didn't agree with intellectually, like Stephen Jay Gould.

You couldn't in the sense that it would be socially acceptable. Being outspoken will always cost you that way, but in regards to religion it will cost you dearly. Christians in America will spread rumors about you and make it difficult, if not impossible, to find employment, or least they will in the Bible Belt where I reside and am trying to get the heck out of. Muslims in the Middle East will kill you or call for all Muslims everywhere to do so and if you think I'm stereotyping you might want to ask Salmon Rushdie or, more recently, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who maintains 24 hour tight top notch security and probably will have to for the rest of her life, all on private donations by the way.

-Frank

Well, I've not read the book itself, but I've listened to or read dozens of interviews where Dawkins explains the core ideas of it, so I feel I can comment on them, especially now that I've disclosed not having read it.

I have read The God Delusion, however, where Dawkins is at his most brutal when criticizing religion, so I feel I can comment on whether it would be okay in society to do that.

-Frank