Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker"

Recently I read The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins and did a book report on it for AP Biology.  I will include an excerpt from my report for summary and importance of the novel below.  I wanted to share my thoughts on the book at a more personal level, however. 

I discussed in my final paragraph that the book is likely to produce no small amount of anxiety in the extremely religious.  This is not due simply to the way that Dawkins presents the subject matter; it has to do with the subject matter itself.  Many claim that the theory of evolution is not necessarily an adversary of religion, and that both can be incorporated into one's worldview, but I don't think I agree with this.  The implications of the theory are fundamentally incompatible with all but the most deistic ideologies.  Any notion of an active, personally attentive god simply doesn't make sense in light of the theory.  I don't see this a problem for me, but it is an enormous problem when its effects in this country are considered.  More than 40% of the American population refuses to acknowledge evolution as the Biological fact that it is.  The establishment of evolution as a theory that can be accepted in addition to religious ideology may lower the number of people who don't accept it, but I don't feel that it is accurate to say this.  Scientific inquiry is inherently prohibited by nearly every major religion; what place is there, then, for evolution?

Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker is a piece of persuasive non-fiction written to explain “why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design.”  Throughout the book, Dawkins’ explores the specific mechanisms of evolution by natural selection and argues for the theory’s ability to explain the complexity of life on Earth. 

            The book begins with a clarification of exactly what is meant by the word ‘complex’ and elaborates on why a grand scientific theory is necessary to describe life as we know it.  The following section highlights specifically how extremely well-designed animals appear in many respects, but warns that although animals appear to be intentionally designed, their complexity can be explained by small, cumulative changes.  Chapters three and four are devoted to illustrating how these cumulative changes arise theoretically and in practice, respectively.  Before further examining these changes, Dawkins emphasizes how and why the genotype, rather than the phenotype, drives evolutionary change.  Chapter six accounts for evolution’s intrinsic inability to explain the origins of life, but utilizes evolutionary principles to postulate how life might have begun.  This chapter also analyses how much luck is allowed to be assumed in the origins of life.  Constructive evolution is then addressed, both in evolutionary ‘arms-races’ and in positively-reinforcing sexual selection.  The penultimate chapters explain the differences between gradual and punctuated evolutionary change and the difficulties in objectively classifying animals.  The final chapter debunked various alternative explanations for the complexity of life including the argument of guided evolution by a creator.  The book presents the theory of evolution logically; it thoroughly addresses how evolution is able to generate complex organisms and why it is the only process capable of doing so.

            The Blind Watchmaker provides an excellent analysis of evolutionary theory and presents the theory as it is; a widely accepted fact of science.  The book does not ignore the implications that this raises for religious ideology, as many individuals – especially in America – disregard evolution.  It goes out of its way to elucidate why the theory is so widely supported and why it doesn’t require any guiding.  In fact, the book reveals evolution to be completely unguided, working with no goal in mind.  Ultimately, The Blind Watchmaker’s focus on evolution will impact only some religious individuals, but its focus on evidentiary proof and reason will expand public understanding of science immensely.