Krishna
We have reviewed some books of Dawkins earlier. For two examples, please see The God Delusion and Unweaving the Rainow.
He explains why he chose the title. This is a rebuttal to the old philosopher xxx who argued for creationism and for a creator. (This was before Darwin so there was no alternate theory like the theory of evolution). His argument ran like this ‘If you found a stone on the street and wondered how it came to be there, you can say that it has always been there. That would be appropriate. However, if you found a functioning watch on the street, the same answer does not work. Given the precision and complexity of the device, you know that it had to have a creator’. He uses this argument to persuade that complex life forms, like the watch, are precision engineered and therefore had to have a creator.
Richard Dawkins calls the evolutionary process ‘the watchmaker’ but it is in essence a blind watchmaker! No plan, no aim, no goal but the ‘survival of the fittest’ is the mechanism where the failures are weeded out and the successes flourish – from an evolutionary perspective.
He then goes deep into the echolocation evolution in bats – explaining in detail the parallels with the radar detection, automobile speed radar similarities and goes as far as describing the doppler effect in great detail. If you already have a background on these, this section may feel repetitive, tutorial and in essence, annoying.
The point is well made, that bats ‘see’ through echolocation as humans ‘see’ through their eyes. Ultimately the bat brain is as comfortable as the model of the world revealed by sound as we are about the model of our world revealed through light.
He then goes through a tedious description of a simple game he wrote to mimic evolution and how surprisingly it revealed interesting patterns in just thirty generations through the power of incremental cumulative deviations.
Unlike many of his other works, the argument about evolution of complex features – mainly as a rebuttal to the popular creationist argument – is done to death, first with wings, then with eyes, and yet again with ears. Yes, the argument is valid every time but it is like reading three different versions of the same book simultaneously.
By this time, you wonder if all his points regarding the Blind Watchmaker has been made and you will simply plough through the already plowed ground for the rest of the book.
But much of the fun that comes from reading almost any of Richard Dawkins books comes from the various examples he gives from the natural world and here too, there is aplenty. He talks about the evolution of electricity – electric eels and electric rays with strong currents enough to stun prey but also the ‘electric fish’ with a weak electric current that helps them navigate murky waters and used in a similar fashion to the echo location of bats. He talks about how fish that are bottom feeders have developed a flatter body and in one extreme case, has learnt to lie on one side and the eyes of that fish – of course over generations – have moved to one side of the head (away from the bottom!).
He also talks about the penalty both weak and strong electric fishes pay in navigation (they need a rigid body and so impacts their speed).
He talks about cicadas that are responsible for ‘locust invasion’ as they are incorrectly called and how they have precisely evolved 13 and 18 year cycles within each of the species!
Coevolution is another interesting feature he discusses in this book. How dominant animals, after the dinosaurs, evolved from mammals and how herbivores (prey) and carnivores developed much identically on different continents very similarly to occupy similar ecological niches.
More fun facts – horses in Africa became zebras; desert horses became donkeys; since herbivores’ only defense from predators is (normally) running, they have long spindly legs and nails evolved into hooves to assist; in cattles two nails grew, becoming cloven hooves. For horses it is just the middle toe nail that grew into a single hoof.
In South America, Leviathans evolved. They look just like rhinos but are not at all related to them genetically; litopterns evolved which looked just like horses and even fooled experts but again, they proved unrelated. He also talks about anteaters which evolved differently in different continents. Though they are called ‘anteaters’ they also eat termites, which are not related to ants at all but to cockroaches. The South American anteaters are related closer to sloth and armadillos than to anteaters of the other continents. Some anteaters lay eggs; some are marsupials with a pouch. Great trivia information, just like in all his books.
Ants and termites, though unrelated, have evolved independently similar habits – a queen, workers and soldiers. Also the habit (in some types) of ‘farming’ fungus to eat them.
There are other repetitions for those who are already familiar with the process of evolution and cumulative incremental change (though maybe not by that specific name). The place where the book becomes interesting again is when he discusses the origin of life – how the whole incremental process and elimination of the weakest – got going in the first place.
He talks of the evolutionary process not being smooth but stable, accompanied by sudden bursts of change based on the pressures faced by each species (prey, predator, environment and others)
After a lot of tedious explanations of simple things (was Richard Dawkins always like this? Did I start noticing only now?) he goes on to tell some interesting facts. One is about the alternate theories to Darwinism. He discusses each theory and explains why they do not hold water against Darwin’s theory of evolution or even explain all the facts we see in the world today. One is called Lamarkism; which holds that parts that are exercised grow (like muscles) – that is how giraffe, for example, got its long neck. They also claim that these acquired traits (eg bulging muscles, or long necks) are passed on to the next generation.
All in all, a lot of deep – dare I say boring? – details for the arguments being made. A good book to read if you are starting out with Dawkins but The Selfish Gene or The Ancestor’s Tale may be a better starting point for this author.
5/10
== Krishna