The Blind Watchmaker
While I had heard of Richard Dawkins's “The Blind Watchmaker” before I saw the list, I did not give it much thought. After reading the book descriptions on Amazon.com, I eventually gave Dawkins's little masterpiece a gander. Right there, in plain sight for all to see was a quote from the book that didn't simply punch me in the face, it did a 16 hit combo that sent me diving through the piece of cardboard the superintendent refers to as a “wall”, crashing into my neighbor's truck:
I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence.
After recovering from the stunning blow, and upon seeing such inspiring rants as “Every page rings of truth”, I just HAD to read it.
Did the book live up to its expectations? The answer is a complex one. From the point of view of explaining Evolution to the common layman, it did an excellent job. Unfortunately, as I was soon to discover, the book really didn't contain as much evolution information as one would expect. In fact, the book contained: 60% Dawkins gawking at the amazing complexity of life (and never ceasing to bore the reader with bad analogies and useless information, although to his credit, he does state that it is the aim of the book to convey the “miracle” of the complexity of life ), 30% explanations of evolution, 10% bad British humor (half of it religious, although not really in bad taste, certainly not something from the “in your face atheist” that Amazon described). I am nowhere near an expert biologist, so for the most part, I have no choice but to trust Dawkins. However, his lack of critical thinking (and knowledge) in other areas (like philosophy and astronomy, for starters) make me at least marginally suspicious of whatever points he did drive home. But enough ranting on the overall impression I got from the book, as I shall now go into specifics.
It is only natural that I should start with what is supposedly Mr. Dawkins's main point of the book: the Theory of Evolution. In this particular regard, I have no complaint. Many people misunderstand what “random” is in terms of evolution, and even fewer understand that chance is not what the theory relies on. Fortunately, Dawkins did not rely on awful analogies to make these particular points, thus making the book worthwhile for those who are unfamiliar with the basics (or think they are but really aren't). He reminds readers that evolution has had an extremely long amount of time:
I agree that this is a small change, no match for the evolution of the eye, or of echolocation. But equally, the moths only took a hundred years to make their change. One hundred years may seem like a long time to us, because it is longer than our lifetime. But to a geologist it is about a thousand times shorter than he can ordinarily measure.
He further drives home the point of what is and is not random regarding evolution:
There are two things wrong with the argument put by Raven. First, there is the familiar, and I have to say rather irritating, confusion of natural selection with 'randomness'. Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random.
He then goes on to clearly explain the nature of mutations and their “randomness”:
There is randomness and randomness, and many people confuse the meaning of the word. There are, in truth, many respects in which mutation is not random. All I would insist on is that these respects do NOT include anything equivalent to anticipation of what would make life better for the animal.
There are more examples I could illustrate of how Dawkins portrays the theory of evolution quite clearly, but these will suffice for now. Sadly, Dawkins' book, while appearing to be talking about evolution, is more about his views regarding nature and our existence as a whole. As he himself stated in his Preface:
If anyone doesn't agree that this amount of complex design cries out for an explanation, I give up. No, on second thoughts I don't give up, because one of my aims in the book is to convey something of the sheer wonder of biological complexity to those whose eyes have not been opened to it. But having built up the mystery, my other main aim is to remove it again by explaining the solution.
To this he has held true. After pages of painful explanations (most people find them fascinating, but there is only so much echolocation ranting I can stand), he finally gets to the point of how it somehow relates to Evolution. But this isn't the main problem with the book. The problem is twofold.
First, his explanation of origins (no, he doesn't dodge it like most evolutionists do, although I wish he did, as it is quite likely to make ignorant readers and skeptics of evolution to forget his good points and focus on the fact that the origins theory he tries to promote is awful) is unsatisfactory. He tries to explain a theory about self replicating clay(and although it makes sense, there is a flaw with connecting it to how life began). Unfortunately, his replicants really have no way of creating RNA.
Cairns-Smith discusses, in more detail than I can accommodate her, early use that his clay-crystal replicators might have had for proteins, sugars and, most important of all, nucleic acids like RNA. He suggests that RNA was first used for purely structural purposes, as oil drillers use tannins or we use soap and detergents. RNA-like molecules, because of their negatively charged backbones, would tend to coat the outsides of the clay particles… For our purposes what matters is that RNA, or something like it, was around for a long time before it became self-replicating.
Does Dawkins expect the reader to take his word that “something like RNA was around for a long time”? Perhaps Smith knows, but I think that Dawkins would have made his point much stronger if he would have given a more thorough explanation of how he has been given this information. However, since outside the purpose of explaining HOW evolution occurs, the entire book seems to be begging the question of whether evolution actually occurred (“We know that man has to have evolved from an ancestor of ape, because evolution is the only scientific theory that explains our existence through natural causes. Science only recognizes natural causes for our existence, evolution must be true” although this is not a direct quote, it is basically what he is getting at), but I shall get into that later. For now, he attacks what he thinks is the only opposition to abiogenesis, “creationism”. Ignoring the fact that Dawkins just split the entire planet's population into two camps (bible thumping rednecks and enlightened freethinkers such as himself), Dawkins appears incompetent in the realm of astronomy and physics(although not in his line of work, even somebody who has taken a High School science course should be aware of this). As he states:
To explain the origins of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origins of the Designer. You have to say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow yourself this kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say 'DNA was always there', or 'Life was always there', and be done with it.
Gaps in his logic are obvious. For starters, comparing DNA with God is ridiculous, simply because their origins wouldn't even be in the same universe (assuming the latter has origins to begin with). We KNOW life does have a beginning, thanks to the Big Bang theory (I noticed that Dawkins has a couple of Asimov books in his bibliography, so one would think that he would be familiar with the basics of astronomy), unless Dawkins is suggesting the big bang created some sort of alien life. Thus, it is perfectly legit to say God does not have a beginning, but require that one find the origins of DNA. It isn't “lazy thinking” as he put it, it's common sense. Dawkins seems to think that everything must have a cause. While I do not believe something can come out of nothing, I do believe that it makes sense that something has always existed, be it God, a multiverse, a pink unicorn, a multiverse producing a pink unicorn in one of its many universes, a multiverse evolving into God, etc. The point remains that if this is the kind of logic Dawkins brings to the table, it is little wonder creationism still has a voice.
A second problem I had with the book is Dawkins himself. While certainly fitting the image of the “charming Brit”, he also fits the image of the stereotypical angry atheist (liberal, takes shots at the Bible once in a while holding everything except himself to a double standard) and contradictions are easy to find. In the future, he would be wise to keep his bias out of his books, as I believe it severely weakens his other arguments. For example, he notes, while discussing taxonomy:
[while discussing the zoo owners' right to put down chimps] Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees in this way is seldom spelled out, and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote (most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can cause more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! I have heard decent, liberal scientists, who had no intention of actually cutting up live chimpanzees, nevertheless passionately defending their right to do so if they choose, without interference from the law.
Apparently, Mr. Dawkins is dissatisfied with the treatment of some animals, and proposes RACISM (of the Christian right nevertheless, as denoted by both his comment and his shock at discovering that liberal doctors support killing monkeys) as the cause. One needs only to start making connections and move back the evolution ladder, then ask Dawkins where to stop considering it racism? Should we even stop at all? If there should be no difference between a chimp and a human, does that mean all animals deserve the same rights? Does Dawkins propose that we make the entire population vegetarian? Stop moving because we might kill bacteria? Such arguments by outrage only serve to alienate some of his readers (and I'm not thinking just Christians, but also pro life atheists and pro animal rights conservatives). He complains about racism towards monkeys as he neatly arranges everybody into social structures where he lets the stereotypes fly. As I run out of space, I would like to point out one last gross contradiction in his thinking:
All[talking about alternatives to Evolution] give some superficial appearance of being alternatives to Darwinism, whose merits might be tested by an appeal to evidence.
[talking about evolution] Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available.
Double standard? I certainly think so. This certainly makes the need for the question: “Why should we trust Dawkins if his faith in evolution is blind?” If no amount of evidence to the contrary would convince him his theory is wrong, how do we know he isn't simply lying to us? How do we know that the Blind Watchman isn't Dawkins himself, crafting away at his theory, ignoring all evidence? While “The Blind Watchmaker” certainly does a great job at explaining how evolution works, it falls short as gaping maws in his logic are exposed, and his insistence to show us his views may also alienate many readers, making them throw the book away and not give it a second thought.
