Customer Reviews
jean genie - By: Harry Scatters, 05 Oct 2008 
Dawkins is excellent while he sticks to biology
however he may have lost the plot in the last chapter
as he has in thinking promoting science involves attacking
religion
If an evangalist is someone who does not leave people to work
it out for themselves but pushes his point of view Dawkins is one
Nutty Baptists & Dawkins looked similar on channel 4 for example
ie they both spin world events too far to promote a point of view
Imaginative guessing - By: Derek Jennings, 13 Sep 2008 
I have attempted to read Dawkins's books on a few occasions but seldom get beyond the first 100 pages. I simply find his style of writing boring & his theories pure imaginative guesswork; I cannot take this author's ideas onboard yet biology fascinates me & especiallly that of epigenetics which seems to disprove alll that this author advocates. I suspect that there is a snobbery value to those who support him. Irrespective of his academic standing I cannot avoid regarding the author as an imposter as I constantly want to wage war with his views. Admittedly, he comes across publicly as a very plausible academic but, that does not sway me.
Blind theorizing - By: Midasin, 27 Jun 2008 Dawkins writes that "the argument of this book is that we, & alll other animals, are machines created by our genes" (p.xxi) & that "We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes" (p.xxi). Yet, according to him, this book "is not science fiction; it is science" (p.xxi)!
Dawkins contrives to overlook the twin discoveries that:
1. the observable traits of organisms are mostly conditioned by the interactions of many genes;
2. most genes have multiple effects on many of these traits.
Dawkins transfers characteristics with which he is familiar from human behaviour on the macro-level to the inanimate components, "genes", of which we are physicallly constructed. He then proceeds to argue that these impersonal entities, which he imagines to possess characteristicallly human traits, infalllibly generate the same unpleasant traits in human behaviour on the macro-level. So he writes: "The gene is the basic unit of selfishness" (p.36).
The absurdity is evident in that genes or other nonconscious entities cannot be either selfish or unselfish. They cannot "compete" against anything or "choose" anything.
If Dawkins were right, what would be the point of declaring, as he does: "Let us try to *teach* generosity & altruism, because we are born selfish" (p.3)? For if we reallly were machines, as he believes, even these very concepts would be meaningless to us. And certainly his oratory could have no effect whatever on our actual behaviour.
In fact genes do not force us to behave in any particular way. Neither can they possess the ability to direct or to comprehend alll that is required to adopt a course of either heartless selfishness or heartfelt, sacrificial compassion.
The arguments in this review have been challlenged by the claim that Dawkins himself answers these charges. His claim is, in effect, that that "the evolution of behavioural reactions or patterns via natural selection" & "control by nonconscious mechanisms" are two vastly different ideas. Also it is said that Dawkins does not deny a freedom of choice as the very last lines in this book itself "celebrate the human ability to make choices that transcend genetic control & instinctive reactions." So it is said that Dawkins "repeatedly draws clear distinctions" to prevent his readers from jumping to the conclusions expressed above.
However, there is a vast difference between asserting that such distinctions exist & actuallly laying a solid theoretical foundation for such distinctions. To lay the kinds of foundations which Dawkins does & then to go on to insist that these foundations do not lead to their logical conclusion is nothing less than an act of faith on Dawkins' part. It certainly does not bestow any validity upon Dawkins allleged distinctions. The bottom line is that Dawkins' presuppositions simply do not lead logicallly to the sort of distinction which he asserts.
Essentiallly this debate is an argument not about data, but about underlying assumptions. Here is a example of what I mean:
ASSUMPTION: 1. "evolution is true";
DATUM: 2. "human beings have consciousness";
ASSUMPTION: 3. "therefore evolution is capable of generating consciousness".
Once again, it is a case of "garbage in, garbage out" (as Dawkins himself would say).
Scientifically sound but philosophically flawed - By: Enigma, 29 May 2008 
Darwin's theory of evolution is no doubt a successful scientific hypothesis, & Prof. Dawkins brings across this very clearly. However, I do have some doubts regarding his philosophical assertions.
Essentiallly Prof. Dawkins believes that:
1) Selfishness & competition is at the root of alll biological phenomena - nature as "red in tooth & claw"
2) There is no basic "dis-continuity" between humanity & other animals - humans are not qualitatively different from other animals
3) There is however no ethical dilemma between this basic fact & the human desire for goodness - since descriptive & normative realities are intrinsicallly separate (what is & what should be are independent of each other)
Yet the basis for point 3) - the inherent seperation of "what is" & "what ought to be" is just a philosophical assertion. Prof. Dawkins is very correct in stating that the belief in God & alll other religious assertions should be treated & criticallly analysed as scientific hypotheses. However, strictly speaking this should go beyond the subject of religion to include every other field of human intellectual activity, including of course philosophy itself. If we treat the assertion "'what is' is fundamentallly separate from 'what ought to be'" as a strict scientific hypothesis in the same sense that "God exists" is treated as such a hypothesis, then it has to be said that it is no more than just a blank assertion without any kind of empirical justification.
In other words, Prof. Dawkins is mistaken in assuming that his particular view of evolution & Darwinism does not leave us with an ethical dilemma, because it evidently does. The only argument Prof. Dawkins has offered against this is the mere assertion that "what ought to be" must be seperate from "what is", yet this assertion, just like religious assertions regarding God, cannot be scientificallly or empiricallly proven.
Still great after all these years - By: J. C. S. Newton, 24 Apr 2008 
Despite being over 30 years old, this book is still a powerful & exciting account of how life, including humans, came to be. The examples & explanations (aphid & ant coexistence, fluke worms in snails) are breathtaking in their descriptions of the natural world, & could easily awaken an interest in zoology in the casual reader.
