Great book with a great title. Richard Dawkings is an absolute master in using controversy and philosophical disputes to smuggle fundamental knowledge about evolutionary biology that could otherwise be seen as intimidating or just plain boring by a layman. Just look at some of teh chapters titles: "Explaining the very improbable", "Origins and miracles", "Explosions and spirals", "The one true tree of life", "Doomed rivals". As a minimum, you must concede this guy is a master communicator. How could you not be interested in finding out what this chapters are about...
Anyhow, all the chapters in this book are about giving you a detailed, understandable account of how evolution and natural selection works, and clearing out any doubts you might have conceived or received by others.
It's masterfully written, fascinating and engaging. What surprises me is why all the "religious" fuss abut this book is about. This is not a book defending atheism, or a book trying to demostrate the non existence of God. No real scientist, atheist or not, would ever dream to do such a thing. This is just about explaining reality through rational thinking, something that any sane person should approve of. Even deeply religious people should not be afraid of this book, or of Darvin's theory. What repulsive kind of a plastic God would be the one that literally makes a man out of clay and pops it on earth just like a kid pushes a barbie doll in her little fake house. Or jumping from biology to astronomy what kind of claustrophobic world would have given to us if the enciant view of the universe was a little ball with the "spheres" rotating around it.
I find that those views are the really offensive towards God, so if you believe in God you should be so much more relieved and happy as nature reveals some of her complexities and her beauty, instead of forcing the limited and obtuse human view to God.
Besides, there are far more serious arguments that question the plausibility of God than natural selection and who the first men were..
for example all the sorrow and pain that come to us men from time to time because of wars, accidents, natural disasters..And even if most of these plagues can be traced back more or less directly to men themselves.. how about children born with deformities or terrible illnesses that doom them to death or to a crippled life. Those are way more troubling mysteries to a believer than natural selection theory...Then why Darwin's theory is so adversed by some exponent fo the various churches? Well my idea is that it is one of the few fundamental scientific theories that is at the same time so illuminating and so simple that everyone can appreciate it an fully understand it.And for this reason it leaves you hungry for more truth and more reasoning and promotes love and passion for scientific inquiry and reasoning.. And those who detain the power never like the idea of having to give and account of that power to intelligent, rational, inquisitive minds.
So in the end, in a sense, especially if there actually is a God, you better read this book and use it to enrich your culture and open your mind. If you are an atheist, you will love life better, if you believe in God you will appreciate his ways even more.
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Popular Highlights in this book
Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view.Highlighted by 231 Kindle readers- The answer we have arrived at is that complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone.Highlighted by 211 Kindle readers
- Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution. In real life, the criterion for selection is always short-term, either simple survival or, more generally, reproductive success.Highlighted by 200 Kindle readers
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Inadequate for a ‘New’ condition item
The item was advertised as brand new, and for the price I paid, I expected it to arrive in that condition. Instead, I received a book with strong creases on both covers and on the first and last pages, a stain on the back of the front cover, and yellow vertical lines on many pages. I strongly feel that the condition of the received item does not justify the price I paid. I bought many books from Amazon over the last few months, and this time I’m quite disappointed.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Jamus CarsonReviewed in Canada on May 26, 2017
A must-read for scientists, religious zealots, and everyone in between.
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