Despite the theory's age, The Blind Watchmaker is as prescient and
timely as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the eighteenth-century
theologian, William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too
complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so
too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be
purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged
the creationist arguments, but only Richard Dawkins could have written
this elegant riposte. Natural selection: the unconscious, automatic,
blind, yet essentially nonrandom process Darwin discovered--has no
purpose in mind. If it can be said to play the role of a watchmaker in
nature, it is the blind watchmaker. "Dawkins has done more than anyone
else now writing to make evolutionary biology comprehensible and
acceptable to a general audience." --John Maynard Smith"As readable and
vigorous a defense of Darwinism as has been published since 1859."
--The Economist