I suggest everyone interested in the origin of life and especially those who were born fundamentalist creationists, to read this book. I would like to quote a paragraph from the book:
“A physicist certainly doesn’t need Darwinism in order to do physics. He might think that biology is a trivial subject compared with physics. It would follow from this that, in his opinion, Darwinism is of trivial importance to science. But he could not sensibly conclude from this that it is therefore false!”
Understanding how Darwinian evolution works can change your attitude toward life and self, substantially. What we learned about Darwin at high school is inadequate. This book provides you with simplified biochemistry, biology, math, physics, and reasoning so that you can easily conceive why Darwinism is the most reasonable answer to world's complexity.
I would like to quote another part:
“In Darwin’s view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations. For what it is worth, it is also the whole point of this book. For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution. In the light of this, it is easy to see why Darwin constantly reiterated the gradualness of evolution.”
This way of thinking is not just confined to the past. Evolutionary-based science is taking over a lot of fields. The Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University is a leading one. You can find out more at: http://ped.fas.harvard.edu/

I am a great fan of Richard Dawkins but dear, oh dear, he does go on sometimes! The problem is not with what he has to say, but his belief that people can't understand something explained once. So you can have a simple concept explained every which way and you find yourself wanting to scream 'Get on with it!'. To find the same thing repeated again, and again, in separate parts of the book gets very tedious. (Not as tedious as the repetition in The God Delusion, but that was in a class of its own!) If he needs to refer back to a concept or explanation, he doesn't just refer back to it, he goes through the whole damn thing again!

I started to read the book when it was first published and never finished. I did this time, but know why I didn't the first. I got to around where I finished last time and found I was saying under my breath: 'Please, please, don't say again "At the risk of repeating myself..."; you are, and please, please stop. I'm a busy man.' Speed reading saved the day.

He is also a little careless in how he demolishes people who he thinks hold eroneous opinions; there were several non-sequiturs in his arguments, even though his conclusions were correct. It seems he gets a little wound-up and doesn't edit out his worst excesses at the proof reading stage!

The book is now very dated. It is past its sell-by date and it's worth putting your time into something else on the subject of Evolution; I can recommend the Selfish Gene; although published earlier than The Blind Watchmaker, it is still as relevant as when it was written.

Definitely a masterpiece!

این‌که هنوز توقیف نشده عجیبه.

To me this book provided the author a way to respond to what he most likely felt as an elegant and very moving argument against evolution by an 18th century theologian William Paley. That's how he derives the books title. But this book is not a tit for tat rebuttal to Paley's work. Instead the book is broken into chapters based on Dawkin's on reasoning behind why evolution is the best way to describe how we came to be here.

Unfortunately, Dawkin's has an edge. He has all the observation of the scientific community at his
disposal as well as the fruits science provides. Paley, or any honest believer in what is called creationism has one tome which is a collection of writings put together in the 11th century and based on 2000 year old writings of dubious consistency and application.

This book is a great read for anyone who wants to understand Evolution. For the most part ignorance, incredulity, and groupthink get in the way. So, put those aside and prepare to go hmmmm.

This book was excellent for showing what it's all about and putting what is known as evolution into perspective. I say 'known' because labels are just labels, and it's really the understanding of the phenomena observed that we try and get a grip on.

Neat stuff: there is no randomness. A human eye just didn't appear. It took probably a mutation, a single-step event and than a series of iterative events that develop into what we have today. All of this is done in the main event. The main event is whether the individual/species can thrive or not.
Life is a culling of branches - a lessening of diversity.

For the science and inspiration the book is good.
To use as a tool to argue with believers of "an entity created it" is impossible.
The logic is faulty since they believe something created it - then what created the something?

Anyways, feed your head.

«اسقف ما به سراغ چشم انسان میرود و با بیانی که‌گویا انتظار دارد پاسخی برای آن یافت نشود میپرسد:«چگونه چنین عضو پیچیده ای میتواند تکامل یابد ؟ » این کار استدلال نیست بلکه اثبات ناباوری خود است.دو مبنا برای این ناباوری وجود دارد اول اینکه ما درک خوبی از آن گستره وسیع زمانی که برای تغییرات تکاملی نیاز است نداریم و بیشتر انان که در پذیرش انتخاب طبیعی تردید دارند میپذیرند که انتخاب طبیعی میتواند دلیل تغییرات جزیی مانند تیرگی رنگ که در انواع حشره بید بعد از انقلاب صنعتی باشد. دوم خلط مبحث موضوع آشنای انتخاب طبیعی با تصادفی بودن! چرا که جهش اتفاقی است و انتخاب طبیعی درست خلاف جهت اتفاقی بودن است...»
اما درباره کتاب : کتاب شامل استدلالهای در تایید نظریه انتخاب طبیعی داروین و رد نظریات مخالف آن است . اما راستش برای منی که این نظریه رو مسلم میدونستم و در محیط اطرافمم با مخالفینش برخوردی نداشتم جذابیتی نداشت .احساس میکردم پرگویی میکنه و حرفهاش خیلی جاها تکرار میشه اما قطعا برای علاقه مندان به این موضوع کتاب خوبی خواهد بود
پینوشت: فهمیدم اگه با موضوع کتابی موافقم و سوالی ندارم صرفا چون معروف شده دیگه اونو نخونم

"من می‌توانم جهانی را تصور کنم که در آن در یک همایش، موجوداتی تحصیل کرده و دانشمند ولی خفاش مانند و کاملا نابینا از موجودات زنده‌ای به نام انسان صحبت می‌کنند. می‌گویند انسان‌ها می‌توانند از امواجی که به تازگی کشف شده و قابل شنیدن نیست و نور نامیده می‌شود برای مکان‌یابی استفاده کنند. این اشعه هنوز جزء اسرار نظامی است و در یافتن مسیر کاربرد دارد. این آدم‌ها تقریبا چیزی نمی‌شنوند. البته گاهی می‌شنوند و حتی گاهی صدای غرغر مانندی هم تولید می‌کنند. که از آن فقط برای کار پیش پا افتاده‌ای مانند ارتباط با یکدیگر استفاده می‌کنند ولی نمی‌توانند از صدایشان برای یافتن جای چیزها، حتی چیزهای خیلی بزرگ استفاده کنند. در عوض عضو بسیار تخصصی شده‌ای به نام چشم دارند که با آن از اشعه‌ی نور استفاده می‌کنند. خورشید منبع نور است، و آدم‌ها وسیله‌ای دارند به نام عدسی که به نظر می‌رسد شکل آن با محاسبات دقیق ریاضی ساخته شده چون بسیار ماهرانه اشعه‌های نور را خم می‌کند به طوری که تصویری یک به یک و دقیق از آن چه در جهان خارج است در روی یک سطح سلولی به نام شبکیه ایجاد می‌کند. سلول‌های این شبکیه به صورت عجیبی نورها را قابل شنیدن می‌کنند و آن را به مغز می‌فرستند. ریاضیدانان ما ثابت کرده‌اند که بر اساس اصول نظری با انجام محاسبات بسیار پیچیده، می توان با استفاده از این اشعه‌های نور در جهان پیرامون با امنیت این طرف و آن طرف رفت. درست به همان صورت که ما به طور عادی با مافوق صوت می‌رویم. شاید در بعضی موارد بهتر هم باشد. ولی آیا فکرش را می‌کردید که این آدم ناقابل بتواند از پس چنین محاسباتی برآید؟"

Analyzes all the various flavors of Darwinist evolution and some competing theories
Richard Dawkins is a very lucid and intelligent proponent of evolutionary theory and biology when he isn't getting into vitriolic debates with Creationists, which is an exercise in futility for both sides I'd say. I admire him for trying, but frankly trying to use logic and scientific reasoning with people who think the world is 6,000 years old, was created by an all-powerful being who somehow still tolerates Donald Trump's existence, explain the fossil record and dinosaurs as just tests of faith, and really think the universe is centered around planet Earth is truly a tase of time.

So it's good to listen to a book that focuses on evolution, but as this book explores some of the subtle variants of evolutionary theory, like gradualists vs punctuationalists, dismantles Lamarkism and Lysenko, it feels a bit turgid at times, and I thought his much later book The Greatest Show on Earth was more interesting and focused on explaining what non-random natural selection means rather than debunking some other "weak" theories.

Another good Dawkins book. This is one of his older ones, but very interesting to see where technology was coming into his ideas. Worth a read if you enjoy his writing.

I came late to this seminal work, published 1986; a somewhat turbulent and formative period in my life. Wishing I’d read it at the time is pointless but nevertheless the case.
It requires a special type of academic brilliance, combined with a good deal of experience, to tackle a subject as complex and fundamental as the problem of complex design in living things.
We humans are intensely complex machines, composed of trillions of extremely tiny chemical factories, and the question how we came to be is essential to our understanding of who we are. That we cannot possibly be the result of any form of instant creation is self-evident to all with only a basic apprehension of physics and chemistry. The odds against such an event occurring are in the realms of the utterly improbable, resulting in a ‘one in x’ chance in which ‘x’ is represented by a number exceeding the total of all atoms in the known universe by several factors. Those who claim a ‘creator’ fail to grasp the simple fact that the odds against such a being or power are even greater than those against ‘creation’.
What Dawkins does in this book is to set out the reasons why Darwin’s theory of evolution is the only logical and viable explanation for our existence, and that of the millions of other organisms known to exist. He does this in a patient manner, often with humorous asides, giving credible examples and debunking the false claims of all who deny the reality of evolution.
I’m unable to summarise the book adequately in the few paragraphs any review can justify. All I can do is encourage those who’ve not yet read it to do so, with an open mind. It answers many questions and provides all the evidence any thinking person could need to accept that Darwin was, and is, right in his brilliantly insightful explanation for the origin of species.
Those who continue, for whatever reason, to espouse the falsehoods of creationism will find the book difficult, but its arguments beyond question. And whose who not only allow but actively promote the clear lies and myths of creationism to be taught as fact to children should read the book, understand its truth, and accept that such promotion does those children a serious disservice. I hope that all who act as responsible guardians of children, in whatever role, will agree that teaching them myth and legend as if these were truth is an unforgiveable act that condemns such pupils to lives led in ignorance. It is folly of the highest order.

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, Richard Dawkins

The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «ساعتساز نابینا»؛ «ساعتساز کور»؛ نویسنده: ریچارد داوکینز؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز نخست ماه دسامبر سال2014میلادی

عنوان: ساعتساز نابینا؛ نویسنده: ریچارد داوکینز؛ مترجم: محمود بهزاد؛ شهلا باقری؛ تهران، مازیار، سال1388؛ در383ص؛ چاپ دوم سال1389؛ شابک9789645676757؛ موضوع تکامل - انتخاب طبیعی - زیست شناسی از نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده ی20م

عنوان: ساعتساز کور؛ نویسنده: ریچارد داوکینز؛ مترجم: ایرج والی پور؛ تهران، ایرج والی پور، سال1390؛ در394ص؛ شابک9789640476932؛

فصل اول: توضیح بسیار نامحتمل ها
فصل دوم: طرح خوب
فصل سوم: انباشته شدن تغییر کوچک
فصل چهارم: ردیابی فواصل حیوانی
فصل پنجم: قدرت و سوابق
فصل ششم: منشاها و معجزه ها
فصل هفتم: تکامل سازنده
فصل هشتم: انفجارها و مارپیچ ها
فصل نهم: نگاهی دیگر به نقطه باوری
فصل دهم: یگانه درخت واقعی حیات
فصل یازدهم: رقیبان محکوم

عنوان کتاب به شکلی متاثر از تشبیهی است که: کشیش سده ی هجدهم میلادی «ویلیام پالی»، به کار برده اند؛ تشبیه «پالی» چنین بوده: (حتی اگر شما ندانید که ساعت چه چیزی هست، طراحی چرخ دنده‌ ها، و فنرها، و طرز چینش آنها، در کنار همدیگر، برای یک مقصود خاص، شما را وامی‌دارد که نتیجه بگیرید که این ساعت باید سازنده‌ ای داشته باشد، کسی که آنرا به منظوری خاص طراحی کرده‌ است؛ سازنده‌ ای که از ساز و کار آن آگاه‌ است، و کاربردی برای این طراحی داشته‌ است؛ اگر این نتیجه‌ گیری در مورد یک ساعت ساده درست باشد، پس آیا کاملاً درست نیست که در مورد چشم، گوش، کلیه، مفصل آرنج، و مغز هم گفته شود، که طراحِ هوشمند و هدفمندی دارند؟ این ساختارهای زیبا، پیچیده، ظریف، و آشکارا طراحی‌شده به مقصود خاص هم باید طراحی، ساعت‌سازی، داشته باشند - که همانا خداست)؛ پایان نقل از کشیش ویلیام پالی

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 02/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 05/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Hated this book. Not because it was too difficult or boring, but because I hated what he had to say. He's extremely atheist, and he goes about trying to create a proof that God doesn't exist, which in itself is extremely unscientific, because without hard evidence to the contrary, it's impossible. As a deeply spiritual person, and one with a scientific mind, I found this to be a soul-sucking lightless book.