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|  | Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
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Rating:  199 reviews
Sales Rank: 589
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 480
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Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 6.7 x 1.8
ISBN: 1416594787
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8
EAN: 9781416594789
ASIN: 1416594787
Publication Date: September 22, 2009
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Showing reviews 26-30 of 199
 Dawkins does it again January 21, 2010
Jim M. Hartog (Whitby, Ontario, Canada)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Great book updating the classic evidences for evolution by natural selection. This book was written because Dawkins is fearful that the "Dark Ages" are trying to make a comeback under the guise of "Intelligent Design". If and when reason succumbs to faith, the world will be in trouble again, as it was when religion set the rules. Besides the updates, there is, of course, a significant amount of ID bashing. All the evolution by natural selection arguments are presented in a lucid, logical fashion using Darwin up to the latest findings from science. Unfortunately, reason is lost on the faithful because faith makes you blind to the truth. If you want to see, Dawkins can help you lose the shackles of faith.
Nature is utterly amazing January 17, 2010
Simon Laub (Aarhus, Denmark, Europe)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Many flowers guide bees in to land by little runways
markings, painted on the flower in ultraviolet pigments,
which the human eye can't see.
Why - Because for the flower, insect pollination
represents a huge advance in economy over the the wasteful
scattergun of wind pollination.
Insects on the other hand, by choosing the most
attractive flowers to visit, breed for floral beauty,
while the flowers breed the insects for pollination ability.
According to evolution, the wonderful spectacle
of the flowers and the bees came about as an evolutionary process.
Evolution is a falsifiable theory, and therefore
a scientific theory. Mammals haven't be around for all
the Earths history - so you wouldn't expect to find
mammal remains in old Earth layers like e.g. Devonian rock.
And indeed noone have. If someone were to find
a mammal in say Cambrian rocks, evolution would be
blown apart.
In the words of J.B.S. Haldane: "Fossil rabbits in the
Precambrian" is no good (for the theory of evolution).
Instead, the world is just stuffed with evidence for
evolution - and this book goes through a lot
of this evidence. And quite a treat it is.
Obviously, we can debate for ever what ''fact'' and
''evidence'' really means. In the book a ''fact'' is something
that really occurred, or is known to be true by observation
or authentic testimony.
Biologists, and Richard Dawkins in particular, seems
awful sure about what is fact and what is not.
Whereas physicists, through quantum physics and more,
live in a world where ''fact'' is a somewhat slippery concept.
Trained in mathematics myself - mathematicians tend to
believe in abstract beauty, which is ''fact'', whereas
the world around us is a fata morgana you can believe in or
not. Depending on the time of day.... or if you have some mathematics
at hand that can explain what you see.
My only grievance about this book (and
other books by Richard Dawkins), is his religious belief
in ''facts'' and his vendetta against people who doesn't
believe in the true ''facts''.
In the world of evolution, surely you should be able to believe
the Moon is a green cheese, if that helps you survive.
No reason to be so upset?
But with so much at stake, our entire existence actually,
passions run high.
Take eugenic breeding of humans. The book doesn't say
it is impossible (everyone agrees that it is immoral).
On the contrary - you could breed a race of superior body builders,
pearl fishers .... and much worse ... superior musicians,
poets and high IQ people.
If evolution say you could probably do that - would you then rather
believe something else? In Richard Dawkins words "upholding
the origin myth of a particular set of Bronze age desert tribesmen" ?
The secret of evolution is the mind numbing big numbers.
Take bacteria. The E.Coli is a common bacterium.
Very common. About a billion of them are in your large intestine
at this moment. Harmless or even beneficial - they are
a part of ''you''. How this weird ''you'' came about
is explained by evolution though the mind numbing eons of time.
What is a million years? In human terms it is app. 45.000
generations. Which takes us back to the days of the Homo Erectus ...
a time where we were not even Homo Sapiens...
Some 100.000 years ago a roving band of Homo Sapiens -
looking pretty much like us - left Africa and diversified
to all the races we see today.
The Turkana Boy of some 1.6 million years ago would
have been 1.8 meters tall and have a brain of about 900 cubic
centimetres (cc). Typical for Homo erectus. Larger than the earlier Homo
habilis (600 cc), which in turn is larger than the earlier
Lucy - Australopithecus (400 cc).
The human story, from 3 million years ago to recent times,
is a tale of increasing brain size.
But according to evolution, there is no overall
plan of development, no blueprint, no architects plan.
All is achived by local rules implemented by cells.
Cells interacting with other cells on a local basis.
Inside cells, local rules apply to molecules, proteins,
interacting with other molecules.
The nervous system wires itself up, not
by following an overall blueprint - but by each neurons
axon seeking out end organs with which they have a chemical affinity.
Local units following local rules. Cells
that bristle with ''labels'' that enable them
to find their ''partners'' (Sperry).
The genes that survive are those that are good at building bodies.
Sexual selection, social environments, ecology and what have
you,determines what is good and what is not so good.
Lemurs live in Madagascar. Nowhere else. The story is
not that when Noahs Ark landed at Araret mountain in Turkey -
the lemurs all decided to walk down to Madagascar
(swimming the last stretch to the island).
No, it is of course a long story of small changes according
to evolutionary rules from some predecessor animal.
The evolution of the human skull is series of changes
in the rates of growth of some parts relative to other parts,
controlled by genes in the developing embryo (D'Arcy Thompsons
transformations).
Not necessarily leading to the best design - just ''good enough''.
Take the eye. Apparently designed by a complete idiot.
Where the photocells point in the wrong direction,
making it necessary for the wires that carry their data
to pass through the retina and back into the brain.
Leaving a hole - the blind spot - which takes a lot
of ''photo shop'' brain software to get rid of again.
No designer would plan a design like this. Only history
and evolution could end up here.
And so it is with all what we see. If forests were designed -
they could be much smaller. I.e. a forest ''of friendship'' could
agree to be only 10 feet tall. Much more efficient than the uncontrolled
(not designed) competition for sunlight that makes forests trees a 100 feet
tall.
Again - evolution.
The greatest show on Earth.
-Simon
Nature Neither Kind nor Unkind? January 17, 2010
Kenneth L. Carson
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I don't think I could add anything to what has already been said in favor of this excellent book. In my view Dawkins is a genius and an incredibly honest and courageous individual. I have found something however, and it's the only thing I've ever found , that I would take issue with Dr. Dawkins about. In the chapter Dawkins titled "Arms Races and "Evolutionary Theodicy"" he writes that in a previous book he said Nature is neither kind nor unkind. Peptides called endorphins secreted by the brain have a pain-relieving effect very similar to morphine. I recall years ago reading about a U.S. Marine who in storming a faraway beachead in WW11 incurred a massive and fatal wound. There was even a painting of this Marine depicting him literally covered with blood from head to toe. Fellow marines attending him recalled that he seemed to feel no pain at all, but rather was simply embarrassed that he could not continue the fight! Likewise a brother of mine suffered a massive and fatal injury in an automoble accident many years ago and witnesses said he had a broad and peaceful smile on his face when they finally freed his body from the wreakage of his car. It's hard to see how great pain and suffering could cause someone to assume such a blissful and smiling countenance at the moment of death.
With regard to fear I think many animals (and humans too) simply don't have the time to experience much fear when death is imminent. They only have time to react in ways that will hopefully spare them the fatal blow, just as we react instinctively when we see a snake or just something that looks like a snake. Years ago while riding a motorcycle on a heavily traveled two-lane highway I suddenly found myself in a head-on collision course with a car traveling at high speed. I had to either get off the road very quickly or collide head-on with this car and face almost certain death as I was traveling at a high speed as well. Amazingly I felt no fear! I instinctively got off the road onto the shoulder as fast as my reactions allowed me. I didn't have time to be afraid. I had time only to react.
Likewise I think it's safe to assume that a Thompson's gazelle, for instance, when faced with a lion chasing it at breakneck speed, has little time to be very afraid. It has time only to react by hopefully running faster than the lion, or at least faster than a fellow gazelle who is also running for its life. And if caught endorphins would surely lesson much of its suffering.
There is certainly fear and suffering in the natural world as natural selection selects but not nearly so much I think as Dr. Dawkins would have us believe.
Fascinating read! The title says it best. January 16, 2010
got2ske
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is (surprisingly/embarrassingly) the first Dawkins book I have read, and I was very impressed, both with content as well as the author's broad knowledge and skill as a writer. Dawkins does a wonderful job of presenting the current body of evolutionary knowledge, showing that it truly is, "The greatest show on earth, the only game in town." If every member of society understood the concepts in this book, our world would be a very different place, indeed. One, I would argue, much more rational and peaceful. Thanks, Prof. Dawkins, for devoting so much of your life to what I view as the most important cause in society today.
 The Good Professor Back In His Element January 12, 2010
M. Richardson (TN)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
After setting off a firecracker in every church in the West with his wildly controversial "The God Delusion" (a veritable industry of Christian books seems to have popped up in the last few years consisting solely of angry Christians denouncing Richard Dawkins and his book, and sometimes, in much less detail, other "New Atheist" writers), the good professor is returning once more (perhaps for the last time? I certainly hope not, but it seems likely) to the subject which he has built his fame and authorial career on: the theory of evolution. His previous evolution-centric writings have always (naturally) presumed the truth of evolution, and so focus on different aspects of it. This is no fault on his part. Teaching evolutionary biology is something that should ideally be accomplished in the K-12 classroom. Alas, science education is being assaulted non-stop lately by an international coalition of extremist Christians and Muslims who have made it their goal to systematically destroy the teaching of evolutionary biology by spreading misinformation and funding domestic propaganda vehicles. Perhaps due to the recent proliferation of Intelligent Design and Islamic creationism in Europe and the United States wrought by this, Dawkins has written a book on the evidence for evolution.
Or has he?
Certainly there is evidence here, but the title led me to believe this would be a rigorous and systematic presentation of the evidence for evolution. This is not what this book is. It is, rather, a chatty introduction to evolution. Specific examples are fairly scant, and instead of referencing technical articles, as one would expect from a former professor. he quotes more informal sources, many from the internet. If you're getting this because you're expecting a formal presentation of the evidence for evolution, I would give this a pass (while I have yet to read it, I hear Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True" is excellent in this regard). If you want a relatively non-technical introduction to evolution, however, or if you just enjoy the good professor's style and find that he is always compelling, then I whole-heartedly recommend this book.
Do not read this expecting another "The God Delusion." While he does take a fair number of shots at creationists in this (or "history deniers," as he calls them, alluding to the ridiculous anti-semitic tendency to deny the Holocaust in the face of all contrary evidence and common-sense), this book is about evolution, not atheism. As he says in the book, he has already worn that T-shirt.
The beginning of the book is a 'softening-up' program, designed to lead the reader from the obvious (artificial selection) to the less obvious (natural selection). Dawkins explains how we know the age of the Earth. And then he gets into the meat of the book.
I think this will suffice as a brief overview of the book's content:
Only a Theory? - Evolution is just a theory in the same way the theory of heliocentrism is just a theory. Scientific theories are not mere conjectures.
Dogs, Cows, and Cabbages - Covers domestication and artificial selection by human breeders
The Primrose Path of Macroevolution - Artificial selection occurs in nature, too
Silence and Slow Time - The age of the Earth and how we know it
Before Our Very Eyes - Observable evolution of microbes
Missing Link, What Do You Mean Missing? - The fossil record and what it tells us
Missing Persons, Missing No Longer - Fossils relating to human evolution
You Did It Yourself in Nine Months - Bottom-up assembly in the womb
The Ark of the Continents - Continental drift and the geographical dispersion of different species
The Tree of Cousinship - The tree of life
History Written All Over Us - Clues to our evolutionary history in our bodies
Arms Races and Evolutionary Theodicy - Competition and the role of suffering in nature
There is Grandeur In This View of Life - In-depth examination of final paragraph of Darwin's On the Origin of Species and how it describes the natural world as a way to wrap up the book.
There is an appendix as well, which contains some frightening statistics about the spread of creationism throughout the world.
None of this is going to convince creationists, of course, and some people who have an adequate understanding of modern evolutionary biology will be bored by this rather simplistic overview, but this is perfect for the intelligent layman who doesn't really understand the science behind evolution and for the Dawkins fan who just appreciates getting another chance to read his clear and lucid prose.
EDIT: added 02/14/10 - I neglected to mention the BEAUTIFUL full-color photographs in this book. But they deserve mention. They're sublime.
Showing reviews 26-30 of 199
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