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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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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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- Peann Luaidhe
- 21-12-23
Rambling
Goes into excruciating irrelevant detail to say nothing - what felt like an hours worth of listening describing the selection process of female peacocks and peacock tails - something that could have been summed up in two minutes. Whole book is this way.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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- Martin
- 14-01-20
Written for an earlier time
This book is dedicated to explaining why darwinism is the only game on town when it comes to evolution and explaining the origin of life.
The thing is, is that creationism and non-darwinism are now such fringe positions, that the arguments against them come across as tedious and dull. I had to force myself to finish listening, which is a very rare occurance for me. Find another book on evolutionary theory.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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- Dave
- 16-09-19
A bit tedious, but it's an academic book, so
OK, so it's an academic book, but it does go on trying to prove the point by disproving the other options.
Sensible enough, but it does repeat itself a bit.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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- Gregory Hall
- 19-06-19
Great content but won't achieve Richard's goal
I love his passion and ideas. If Richard wants to convince the general public of non- creationist ideas then he needs to change his language and complexity from academic to common English. The type of people who need convincing are generally not as educated as he is. I would suggest getting more palettable narrators as well so that people not of the upper class Oxford bubble can relate to. Then you've got traction!
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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- ASD
- 09-12-17
The book could be a lot shorter
RD spends too much time debuking the alternative approaches. The causal reader will not care about this and his thin skin. It distracts from the main focus of the book.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 22-06-21
disappointed
iv just started listening to this and very disappointed that Dawkins couldn't be bothered narrating it himself id get my money back if could
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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- Martin
- 06-07-19
Starts well, but descends into repetitive slog.
Reads more like a series of personal bugbears for the author. Each descends into a repetitive point scoring rant against alternative theories.
I don't doubt Dawkins' position is correct, however it would have been more interesting to hear more supporting evidence rather than continued mud slinging at 'those fools over there that believe that rubbish... grrr'
The first 4 hours is great though. I wish I'd have stopped there.
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