Climbing Mount Improbable [Paperback]

He begins this collection of essays with a new label: the "designoid". Designoids are those elements in life that seem designed; beyond the caprice of the apparent random natural forces. Dawkins quickly points out that evolution is not "random" nor are any of the complex aspects of living things the result of a designer. Dawkins uses the title of this review, attributed to Henry Bennet-Clark, as the basis for the rest of the book. Natural selection can, and does, explain it all.

Using the theme of climbing a mountain, Dawkins shows the true path to the peak is by means of gentle slopes, not attempting a great leap. Too many people accept the steep precipice of divine origins as the explanation of complex phenomena in life. Dawkins explains how gradual steps are required for life to manifest spider webs, wings, and the Christian obstructionist's favourite, the eye. Each of these wonders is examined critically with the best scientific logic, explaining its development with clarity and wit. He frequently reminds us that such complex organs as the elephant's trunk have progressed through numerous stages, each of which was successful within its own environment. As environments changed, the trunk responded with new adaptations. Modern animals, such as the tapir, elephant shrew, proboscis monkey or seals, all exhibit nasal trunks that likely represent the stages the elephant's ancestors passed through to produce today's

Computer models have become a favourite analytical tool for tracking likely paths in evolution. Dawkins has written his own and applauds others' successful efforts. The computer has the capacity to accelerate the likely steps life has taken in producing designoids. He's careful to warn us that mathematical models don't duplicate life's processes, but simply provide situations that could have happened under certain conditions. Even with that caution in mind, his relation of the study of possible evolutionary paths of the eye is one of the most captivating accounts in biology. It's not even his own work. Two Swedish researchers programmed the most pessimistic conditions for the evolution of a workable eye and deduced it would take less than half a million years.

The essay "A Garden Enclosed" might have brought a tear to the eye of E.O. Wilson, biology's greatest exponent of biodiversity. Dawkins takes us through the life cycles of the figs and their wasp pollinators. The beauty of this essay is almost staggering both in his superb presentation and in the implications it raises. Wasps inhabit the interior of figs, drawing on them for nourishment and residence, but pollinating them with almost human dedication. Dawkins' description of the complex interaction between plant and insect raises again the issue of how little we know about life's interactions. And how much we're intruding on them in our ignorance.

Dawkins has never hidden his advocacy role in describing how evolution works and how poorly our culture understands what's going on around us. More than simply anticipating obstructionists such as Michael Behe in Darwin's Black Box, Dawkins aims his criticism at all who adhere to the Judeo-Christian assertion that humanity has some divine mandate to exercise "dominion over the earth". Clearly, that belief will be the undoing of the species and perhaps life itself if it isn't shed and a better understanding of the interaction of life attained. The best place to start attaining that understanding starts with this book. Buy it, loan it, give it to those who need to learn what life's all about - our children.

All around the world, millions of people, extending to every individual field of science, agree on certain things. Gravity, for instance. They agree on particular things in spite of having otherwise vastly opposing backgrounds and ideologies.

Why would they agree on these things? Because of decades -- centuries, sometimes, as I've mentioned -- of experiments that prove theories. Dawkins always supports his facts with a reference to research, and he always explains these things clearly and without in-crowd scientific jargon or intimidating convolutedness.

Religion subsists in spite of having none of these qualities -- no proven theories, nothing really to test, no universality, no consistency, no basis in reality or physics. Dawkins is the one to read if your natural sense of wonder would REALLY like to be fulfilled.

All one needs to do to "check the facts" about religion is to wonder about the ulterior motives behind its inception -- and read about its history. Its terrible history of tortured "heretics," burnt witches, resisted discoveries about the Earth being round and other things taken for granted nowadays, and other resistance to reason and discovery in place of anti-intellectual dogma.

So why would this happen? Because the men who presented themselves as the only "channels to the Creator who will send you to Heaven or Hell" -- imagine the power over people, their money and their minds that this gives you! -- were very smart. There's always a scare tactic (Hell/Armageddon/etc.) and a reward tactic (Heaven/Paradise/etc.) attached. These are the two things necessary to get people to keep showing up, giving their money to the church, keeping the church tax-free, etc.

Dawkins explains all of this briefly, and offers, for the bulk of his wonderful books, an alternative to superstition and fear. An alternative with decades of fossil study (the record is very close to complete, contrary to popular myth), radiometric measuring, genetic study, cellular study and a great many other fields of science that all point, conclusively, time and time again without fail, to natural selection and evolution. These two things are explained in detail, and it gives the reader a fantastic sensation to realize what, exactly, has been going on on this little planet throughout geological history.

Only science delivers. Pray for your ailing child and she will be dead soon. Take her to a doctor, however, and she'll be okay. This is one of many reasons why Dawkins champions science, reason and rationality above comfy pots of gold in the sky and nightmares of Hell that give children nightmares and, later in life, hang-ups and neuroses.

It's interesting how people who oppose science (what a thing to oppose -- testable knowledge!) always turn to science when it's convenient. Even to the point of taking medicine, driving to work, turning on lights and using computers to write Amazon reviews.

Remember those decades of experiments and results that Dawkins draws on? If any of them were false in the slightest, they'd be condemned in public by all scientists around the world, for scientists LOVE to blow the whistle on each other -- science thrives on challenging custom and long-held beliefs in the interest of seeking out the real truth. Religion thrives on the exact opposite -- "mysteries" are to be held in awe and not solved. Hmmm.

The meaning of "faith" is: "Believing in something in spite of all the contrary evidence that it isn't true." In this sense, the more strange and unprovable the stuff that someone believes, the stronger his "faith" is said to be. How did we get so backwards? More people should read Dawkins' wonderful books. They'll clear up a LOT of things for them, and resolve many questions.