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The Blind Watchmaker
- Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
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The Blind Watchmaker
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Editor reviews
Richard Dawkins and his wife, actor Lalla Ward, give a highly entertaining read of Dawkins's 1986 critique of creationism, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. The audiobook follows an updated edition of the book from 2006 and provides intricate explanations, by way of witty examples, of why random, infinitesimal gene changes over millions of years have produced us and the world we live in. Dawkins's writing contains a self-deprecating, dry sense of humor that comes to life as he reads his best-selling book. Alternating voices between Dawkins and Lalla Ward provides nice listening contrast while also setting apart examples, clarifications, and segments of greater detail. Dawkins and his wife live in a world that is perhaps more scientific on a daily basis than ours so the book takes great care to vary the delivery of information for greater emphasis and easy understanding.
Dawkins's goal in The Blind Watchmaker is to "remove by explaining" any doubt that anything but scientific fact is behind the origin of the universe. Just because something — like human beings or the universe — is complex does not mean that it cannot be explained. Dawkins works hard to help listeners understand the smaller-than-microscopic changes that evolved through staggering amounts of time, changes humans have a hard time intuitively comprehending. To paraphrase the author, do not draw conclusions from your own inability to understand something. The truth of Darwinism comes in its acceptance of physics, probability, and the unending march of time. Dawkins helps listeners out by using examples that are easier to grasp: for example, the evolution from wolves to domesticated dogs. Or how echo location in bats clearly shows the evolution of a trait necessary for survival of a species.
The Blind Watchmaker, read by the author and by Lalla Ward, is an example of an audiobook best listened to while not driving or operating anything requiring devoted attention. Dawkins calls upon us to think about complex concepts that are not necessarily part of daily life. Led by the author, The Blind Watchmkaer is a lively, humorous explanation of the seemingly mystical yet ultimately understandable maze of evolution that is our world. Along the way it is nice to know that a scientist such as Dawkins can, like us, forget to save information on his computer. Re-creation of his data simply leads to another example of probability and complexity that makes, as Dawkins reiterates, the circumstances of any of us being here surprisingly unique, but scientifically not unusual. —Carole Chouinard
Summary
The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-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.
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What listeners say about The Blind Watchmaker
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 28-12-21
The Blind Watchmaker
Brilliant! Long since have I supported the idea of darwinian evolution by natural selection but this book shows the processes involved. This helps the listener to understand the complexity, the unconscious environmental editing forced on organisms leading to survival of the most adaptive and extinction for the rest. More than this it shows how the interaction of life with the environment over a geological time span and how the smallest of changes can favour (or disadvantage) an organism leading to the evolution of species both by survival and disappearance . The tree of life cascades down the generations losing all those who are least adaptive, those unable to change and those just plane unlucky. The upshot of this dynamic process leads to the realisation that not only is evolution and natural selection a correct reading of the history of life but the only one that’s self consistent and can explain it’s complexity. Thanks to Richard Dawkins we have a factual and impartial frame of reference to understand life so important if we are to make informed decisions going forward.
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- Scott
- 14-05-22
loved it
woukd have preferred Richard recorded the entire book. The change of narrator distracted me. She's great too but the mix doesn't work. loved the book!!
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- stuart
- 18-04-19
Another great example of humourous and educational
Yet another perfect example of Richard Dawkins and lalla Ward providing their perfect blend of intellectualism and comedy. It's an outstanding insight into the argument for selectionist reasoning, and a precisely constructed, and seemingly unbiased take down of those schools of thought that mean to stand as counters to Darwinism. I constantly found myself flittering between states of wonder, running thought experiments as I followed the concepts of biomorph lands and blueprints versus recipe's, and states of pure laughter as I drew the same conclusions of comical incredulity on the part of those claiming to have debunked the theory.
I'm no genetic science student, nor am I an evolutionary scientist, or even in the sciences as a career full stop, I'm a mere mortal just looking to expand my knowledge as much as one can in a single lifetime, and to that end I'm thoroughly elated to have chosen this author.
If by any small chance you are reading these reviews Mr Dawkins, yet I shall assume probably not, I would very much like to thank you for the enlightenment, and I shall hastily be on to your next one.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Charlie J.
- 24-06-17
The blind watchmaker
A very well written book, somewhat overly technical but a great overview of evolution! Bravo!
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2 people found this helpful
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- wamjam
- 23-01-19
Richard Dawkins - amazing as usual
In some of Dawkins books it seems as though he spends too much time attempting to convince the reader that 1 - evolution occurs, and 2 - religion or belief in a deity hold no logical ground. I love nature, natural selection and the finer points of evolution. I am also wholeheartedly just a normal person who doesn't choose to think there some deity. I think most people choosing to read Dawkins are the same. We come for the beautiful writing about natural history, smarts and intellect of the author and, mostly, to learn about evolution. I do understand why he does it, but i cant help but feel like its a waste of time when he writes to convince me of what I already know. So the God Delusion is the worst. I had to stop reading it. River out of Eden was the best. One of my all time favourite books. Just way too short. Watchmaker is brilliant. Well worth the listen / read. Get your fix of evolutionary science and amazing examples of symbiosis, mimicry and other quirks of natural selection. I just wish there was an abridged version for normal people. Drop all the attempts to convince us that evolution makes sense and creationism is a joke and the book would be 3/4 the length, and just pure gritty evolution.
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- Danny Antivalidis
- 17-01-24
this is over my head.
Hard for me to follow. I found myself tuning out. having that said I might give it another go.
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- Mr. W. H. Scott
- 20-02-24
Beautifully elucidated
The use of probability strongly illustrates the case for evolution. Some important theories are clearly articulated in a way that will help generate understanding for non scientists.
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- Rainer
- 24-07-15
Slow start (if you listened to the selfish gene)
I got this audio book after having listened to Dawkins' Selfish Gene. Admittedly I like the way him and Ward read his books, however in the beginning I thought that many of his arguments were already made in the Selfish Gene and only some more examples or different explanations are given. I kept listening though and after a while it started exceeding the spectrum of the Selfish Gene and became very interesting again. I guess that the early repetition of many of the Selfish Gene's arguments are necessary to make this a self-contained book, given that the aim of this book overlaps with the aim of the Selfish Gene.
Much like the Selfish Gene, the Blind Watchmaker is very elaborate in the argumentation and gives many examples and explanations. Dawkins and Ward do a fantastic job at making this a very enjoyable 16 (or so) hours. The book is very comprehensible and all concepts that are not completely intuitive are very well explained.
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10 people found this helpful
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- D.
- 23-02-16
The near master
Only Darwin himself beats Dawkins.
Dose go deep into evolution more so then any other.
Did take a while to finish.
And as always, Dawkins and wife are Crystal clear
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- George
- 25-04-18
Excellent as Always!
Any additional comments?
Every book by Dawkins is always an excellent read. Listening to him narrate his own work is even better. He is an excellent speaker and a great scientist.
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