When reading this book you should hold on to that first impression you get from the title, that this book is spuriously hateful. The book makes the most sense reading it that way.

In the opening Dawkins writes that if "superior" beings from outerspace come to visit earth they will first ask wether we know evolution or not, to "assess the level of our civilization". That is, in Dawkins egomaniac dreams, "superior" beings from outer space come to visit him, as arguably the most civilized man on earth, since he knows evolution theory so well. Is it really a coincedence that Dawkins comes out on top of the world by his own words? Not entirely. His hatered for religion slants his wordusage towards value-laden terminology like "civilization" and "superior" in an effort to push religion into the background.

The would-be science in this book has mostly been proven wrong already in the years since it was published. There are some factual errors like the fable of the female mantis eating the male mantis after mating. This is found to occur most only under stressful conditions, like captivity. Does the mantis have a "when in stress then eat the male after reproduction gene" ? Is this gene selfish? Does the male Mantis have an altruist "eat me after reproduction gene"? Can the selfish female genes support the male altruist gene? This is the sort of convoluted logic that keeps Dawkinites wondering and wondering about Nature. It has absolutely zero scientific value.

Nevertheless, this is an important book in the science of Darwinism. Unlike other disciplines such as chemistry or physics, pop-science books like this are the mainstay of Darwinist science. Unlike in other sciences which are standardized, systemized and formalized, every Darwinist has their personal pet-definition of Natural Selection. Some definitions focus on survival, others focus on reproduction, some require variation for Natural Selection to apply, some definitions don't, some make reference to reproductive success, others to a reproductive rate, some include struggle or competition, other definitions don't etc.

It can't be any other way for the organization of knowledge to be meaningful, that most of these definitions should be held to be false.

Sometimes Dawkins talks about individual organisms as "survival machines" of genes, and sometimes he talks about individuals as "machines for propagation". Ever stood behind a xerox copymachine and when you push the buttons all it does is "survive"? It's very annoying. Survival and reproduction are two different things, but you wouldn't know it reading Dawkins.

Dawkins' personal definition of Natural Selection reads "non-random survival of randomly varying organisms". It falls in the very large category of faulty definitions. Natural Selection isn't about survival it is about reproduction. Natural Selection doesn't require any variation at all to apply. Reproduction is often random, and this is still covered by Natural Selection. You might wonder if it's not my definition that is false, and Dawkins definition that is correct. That sort of critical thinking is what science is all about. You won't find much of that within Darwinism in trying to find a correct definition.

The definition of Natural Selection Dawkins employs is biased towards evolution, and within that bias for evolution it is biased towards scenario's of shared resources. By his biased definition he comes to typify Natural Selection as "Nature red in tooth and claw". But Natural Selection basicly defined is no more then reproduction any which way, even random ways. ...

Dawkins explicitely states that he wants his theory to be used in the field of psychology, for a new morality where people try to overcome their inborn selfishness from their genes in becoming adults. Obviously a theory that is intended to encroach on the most personal aspects of our lives, our psychology, should be utterly scrutinized in every possible way. We should not be afraid to demand the highest standards of the writings of people who have such pretenses. But in a converse relationship to the pretenses, this book has about the lowest scientific standards imaginable. It is not unlike the talk of the eccentric at the local bar who has this theory about life and everything, where Dawkins distinguishes himself for being that much more hateful then the average eccentric at the bar.

In the beginning of the book, you will find a sort of definition of Natural Selection, which is about all the space Darwin spends on formulating his hypothesis.

"Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally become extinct? We shall see that all these questions, as indeed is obvious in respect to most of them, must be answered in the affirmative, in the same manner as with the lower animals."

On about 15 occasions later in the book he writes about how this selective encroachment of human races occurs, most signicicantly when writing that:

"Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race. (.....) and when of two adjoining tribes one becomes less numerous and less powerful than the other, the contest is soon settled by war, slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption."

Racial and tribal genocide is the chief operator in shaping humans as they are today from an apelike progenitor, according to Darwin.

This work is not up to scratch compared to classics of biological science from the same timeperiod, such as Mendel's "Versuche". This work is more appropiately read together with Haecekel's "Natural Creation History" (Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte), which Darwin profusely praises in the beginning of his book.

Both these works from Haeckel and Darwin carry decidedly racist and generally judgemental content. Generally judgemental in continuously talking about higher and lower in an expressely moral way. For instance Darwin finds it neccessary to assert what the highest state of morality is for a person, and elsewhere he urges people in any way "inferior" not to marry.

The science is shoddy, especially the formulation is seriously lacking. The moral judgementalism, which makes up a great deal of the book, is generally coarse and without significant emotion showing through.

Differential reproductive success. This is the modern definition of Natural Selection. Simply put, 2 variants in a population that have a different "success" in reproducing themselves. What needs to be noted here is that there is no requirement for the variants to influence each other's reproduction, through competition, to call a process Natural Selection. The theory is thus similar to for instance measuring the height of mountains, and calling that the mechanism of differential mountainlength. Obviously to call this a mechanism, where there is no physical influence on each other's reproduction between the variants, is ridiculous. However, such nonsense is what you will find in this book, again and again.
You cannot see nature with this theory, because in most all cases there will not be the variation present in a population that is required for Natural Selection to occur. And even if so the variation is present, then it will give you a skewed look on the organisms, where you are transfixed on this one difference, and ignoring all other qualities the organism has. Darwinists know there are black and white moths, and that white moths live on white birch trees, and black moths live on polluted black trees. For the rest of it, moths are much the same, and so to see how all the other attributes of a moth function in it's reproducion, simply falls outside the theory of Natural Selection.
To see nature, you would need a general theory of reproduction, and not a theory that is limited to a special case of reproduction, like differential reproductive success. To know to describe organisms in terms of a possible future event of their reproduction, is to know much of everything about the organism. This knowledge is hidden by the theory of Natural Selection, through it's focus on a comparison on reproductive success.

Strictly speaking, and strictness is important in science, it is false to say that Natural Selection acts on an individual, as Darwinists often say, because clearly Natural Selection acts on a differential pairing. A general theory of reproduction is of course individual, and any variational others there might be in a population, are simply so many more environmental factors to the individual, equal to environmental factors such as completely diffferent species, the weather etc.

Since there is no physical relationship required between the variants in Natural Selection, there can then be no strict objection to meauring the differential reproductive success of "variants" which are in similar environments but wide apart. This means that you can have Natural Selection where one variant is in Europe, and the other in the USA. And actuallly there is no meaningfull objection to talking about there being Natural Selection where one "variant" is on earth, and another is on another planet somewhere in a similar environement... Again, this follows from there not being given any reason in the theory for having the variants be together.

Also it becomes *very* difficult to see variants that help each other's reproduction, when you are comparing the reproduction to each other. For instance if there is type A and type B, who will have mutually enhanced rates of reproduction when together. There are other relationships possible on reproduction between variants, like mutual decrease, no net-increase or neutrality. These *actual* physical relationships where the one variant increases or decreases the reproduction of the other variant, become obscured through focusing on an essentially platonic comparison on reproductive rates.

If you think this through, you will find you can do everything you want to do with a general theory of reproduction, including what was originally intended to be covered by the theory of Natural Selection. What was originally intended to be covered was the origin of new species. When a mutation brings on offspring into a different environment then it's ancestor, this occurrence then falls outside the theory of Natural Selection. The incredible diversity of environmentt to living beings virtually guarantees that such an event has occcurred, but Darwinists can see it not.

When I read Darwin in "Origin of Species" saying that "as natural selection works by and for the good of each being, all physical and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection." it makes me want to throw up. There is absolutely zero elegance of theoretical understanding in Darwin, Dawkins, Fischer, Gould, Dawkins, Lorenz or Haeckel's writings. No systemacy, no formalcy, no neutrality. Talk to a Darwinist about Natural Selection, and odds are that the person will go mumbling about a "drive to reproduce" the "goal" of every organism, about "selfish genes" and "innate aggression", or a "feeling" of "complexity". After that they fall into generic racist language saying that the black moth is "better" then the white moth, that through the weak dying out the population has become "better", and so on....

As a science consumer, I like my science neat, I like it to the point and straightforward. A two page masterpiece like the work of Mendel.

Not a theory of "what happens when there are 2 different sorts of organisms in a population which difference applies to the same environment, that have a different rate of reproduction" or something like that...What is CLEARLY needed is a flexible GENERAL theory of reproduction, anchored in the observation that given a feedingdish and some DNA, the DNA will reproduce, and all else to follow.

The peculiar theory of Natural Selection / differential reproductive success contains numerous logical errors. For instance a breeder is able to select from a population of one, if need be. In essence the breeder selects between breeding and not breeding, and not between breeding the one or the other. This is significant because the practice of people breeding animals, is where Darwin derived the logic for his theory from. He got it wrong however, which is very stupid because a systematic working out would show that fault in an instance. Obviously by this fault, numerous occurences in Nature fall outside the theoretical framework of Natural Selection, which were originally intended to fall inside it. In fact the scope of Natural Selection is so peculiar, that it almost never applies. When some pigs are introduced on some deserted island odds are that there will be massive environmental change. Not likely any of this would be covered by the theory of Natural Selection. On the other hand, all would fall under a general theory of reproduction, which unfortunately, is not in any science book.

Gould in his meandering style, does nothing for me beautywise or factwise. I'm sorry, but this just seems like someone who doesn't have a bona-fide religion, and then substitutes for that with injecting his personal emotions into a science theory.

This book is a version of Dawkins previous book the Selfish Gene, which is supposed to be aimed at the scientific community, in stead of the general public. Why Mr. Dawkins chooses to write a book like this for his colleagues, in stead of writing a science paper and submitting that to his colleagues for review should be obvious. His ideas are intuitive, which means they don't actually make sense. It is impossible to make it into a science=paper because there is no formal systemized knowledge there. I'm sure that this book, like his previous, will be an inspiration to the British National Front. There are innumerable things wrong with this book, but mostly what's wrong in it is the theory of Natural Selection. The theory of Natural Selection deals with a very special case of reproduction called differential or comparitive reproductive success. What's wrong here is the comparitive and the success part. It's a little difficult to explain how this is so, so in stead I will give a theory that is right. What is right is a *general* theory of reproduction, which consists of describing organisms in terms of their chance of reproduction. Unlike Natural Selection which needs some very special conditions to apply, this general theory would apply all the time, and give meaningfull information about what events normally influence the reproduction of an organism greatly. For instance when a bird flies south and makes it the arduous journey there, the chance of reproduction would be higher after then before the journey. This has nothing neccesarily to do yet with their being a differential other to compare the bird with.

You should ask yourself why you haven't been taught a general theory of reproduction, but have been taught the peculiar Natural Selection. Ask yourself does a breeder select only between specimens, or does he select for each specimen to breed or not to breed (general)?

The theory of Natural Selection is false, as I will show here in a few easy steps. Bear with me as I strain your idealism to always hold a scientific theory open to doubt.

1. the theory of Natural Selection almost never applies, because the condititions under which it applies are almost never meaningfully present. For share of organisms that do, or have existed, the theory of Natural Selection didn't apply throughout their lives. The same is said on this point more or less by Gould's theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. Stasis is the rule, and in punctuations the theory of Natural Selection applies. Take for instance the famous example of the peppered moths. For a *short* time Natural Selection selects on wingcolor of moths, and then Natural Selection stops to apply for a *long* time, because the conditions under which it applies are no longer met.

2. Seeing that the theory of Natural Selection almost never applies, it occurred to me that to simply describe organisms in terms of their chance of reproduction would apply most always. This general theory of reproduction gives meaningful information about what events in the life of an organism normally influence the chance of reproduction of an organism greatly. What the chance is at birth, how the chances of reproduction fluctuate wildly during matingseazon for some organisms, how these chances are conferred from one organism to another in events, and things like that. I don't understand why there doesn't yet exist such a general theory of reproduction. What possible argument can there be against such a simple thing, and how obviously of *main* interest it is to know about the normal fluctations in the chance of reproduction of an organism!

3. If the theory of Natural Selection is at all legitimate, it would have to show up in a systematic working out of subsets to the general theory of reproduction. Unfortunately it doesn't. What shows up similar to NS is a theory of reproductive replacement, but not differential reproductive success.

4. It is possible to save the theory of Natural Selection somewhat, by reconfiguring it's meaning. To do this you would have to answer the question "Is an artifical breeder able to select from a population of one?" I say yes, in essence a breeder selects between breeding and not breeding for each organism, and not solely between breeding the one or the other. So the changed meaning of selection would then be, reproduction (select in) or no reproduction (select out), in stead of selecting the one organism in, and the other organism out.

So again, is Dennet wrong? Is 140 plus years of Natural Selection simply and obviously wrong? The answer to that is yes, if you would say a general theory of reproduction is right.

Actually Dawkins is quite upfront about his evil, like the villain who wears a black cowboyhat. He says that at the bottom of the universe is "blind pitiless indifference", and that this affords him his freedom to do as he likes. He may look the champion of freedom when railing against religion, but this freedom conceived in blind pitiless indifference, turns to horror when applied in the real world. So far Dawkins hasn't personally killed anyone, but it should be expected he might. Fortunately there are less oppurtunities for him to do so. Like his forebearer Konrad Lorenz who enthusiastically joined the Nazi-race office, we might expect Dawkins to go on a commission to advise about population control. You see, medicine is in a race to find cures for the genetic damage that mounts up in the human genepool. In times before, this genetic damage was filtered out by Natural Selection, so the story goes. It's just a fantasy of course, just like Dawkins saying that people are born selfish is a fantasy. Dawkins doesn't care about the complaints of peadiatricians about his modern superstition, because, is he not free to write what he likes? We should expect Darwinist parents to view their children, and all children, as selfish, and treat them accordingly.

These demonic influences of Darwinism on society are much checked in the West by democratic organizations, although that would be different if there was a recession or some crisis like that. In countries such as Russia and China however, the impact of the pseudoscience of Darwinism is much unchecked. There genocide, or having Natural Selection take it's course in human society, is a popular tool of political leaders and docters alike, in making their population more healthy in an affordable way.

Currently, january 2002, former president of Bosnia, Plavsic, who holds a proffessorship in biology, stands trial for warcrimes in The Hague. Plavsic sold the policy of ethnic cleansing to the Serb population using Darwinian terminology.

But don't take that as evidence of the demonic influence of Darwinism. Just pick up a dictionary or science textbook, and read the definition of Natural Selection. Then, as Dawkins encourages you to do, freely philosphise for some hours about what this theory tells you about your greed, your genoristy etc. After recognizing that your mind has turned into a sewer of pseudoscience, you may start to wonder about what your own doctor thinks about Darwinism.

I can just see hundreds of nerds transfixed behind their computerscreen googling over the one thing coming from another thing. All you need is a piece of paper and a pencil, and you can do the same thing. Dawkins does not use the computer well, neither does he explain his use well. A small change in a program, can give dramatic differences, a large change can give insignificant differences. There is no rule of small steppiness involved here, much as Dawkins likes to twist the regular meaning of words to have it be so. Also Dawkins has failed to simulate intelligence in the program. Much as Darwinists like to deny intelligent design, simulated intelligence is actually required for any lifelike computerprogram. That means a sophisticated use of the computer's randomizer function. In the computerenvironment only the randomizer has the power of decision. The rest of it works in a preordained fashion so to speak, one would get the same results over and over, if not using the randomizer function. Alternatively a sophisticated use of the computerclock would also work, if the clock strikes irregularly. Dawkins has cheated, because he has introduced symetry in the program. All the forms would look awful without symetry, all the forms just reflect the lifelike nature of symetry. If you buy this, you would support turning science into a commercial enterprise, and deny peer-review.

What you won't find in this book, is an abstract model of Natural Selection theory. In a few quick quips a definition of Natural Selection theory is jotted down, the rest of the book containing highly philosphical meanderings based around these quips.

An extreme example of this philosphical meandering, is when he redefines biology as the study of complexity. He then goes to write about how he feels that mountains are less complex then organisms, but provides no argumentation how this is the case. Having meandered this way about complexity for numerous pages, he then drops the subject in the rest of the book, leaving the reader miffed about the whole thing.

A basic error that shows through, is his view of chance. That is, his many views of chance. Dawkins shifts and gears between many different definitions of chance, as can be deduced by the way he uses the word. This gets to be quite problematic in the end of the book when he explicitely and strongly denies that Natural Selection is a chance event. This is simply not true by any standard definition of chance, and not true by professional biologists using Natural Selection in a statistical way, based on the chance of reproduction. When looking at any unit of selection biologists theorize about the reproductive chance it has, and what selective events would influence that reproductive chance. Certainly reproductive chance can't reasonably be called the "antithesis of chance", can it? But this curious redifinition is what you absolutely *have to* accept, by the authority of the rather demanding and defensive professor Dawkins.

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Dawkins says "'nature red in tooth and claw' sums up our modern understanding of natural selection admirably. Indeed it does, and that was how it was in Darwin's books as well.

A more appropiate metaphore for nature is: "Nature wet in pen*s and vag*na". It is reproduction that defines nature.

Natural Selection theory confuses the mechanism of competition, with a non-mechanical comparison on reproductive success.