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Books : Climbing Mount Improbable
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Climbing Mount Improbable by: Richard Dawkins List Price: £8.99 Childrens Toy Shop Price: £6.74 You Save: £2.25 (25%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback EAN: 9780141026176 ISBN: 0141026170 Label: Penguin Manufacturer: Penguin Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: April 06, 2006 Publisher: Penguin Studio: Penguin Sales Rank: 4957 Related Items:
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Editorial Review: Amazon.co.uk Review: Few scientific theories have been as influential or controversial in the past few centuries as Darwin's thoughts on natural selection; even now, laymen and scientists find fault with Darwin's argument. Richard Dawkins, the chair of the communication of science at Oxford University, has delivered a well-researched book supporting and supplementing Darwin's theories. Although not a work of Darwinian proportions, Climbing Mount Improbable is an advancement of those theories for scientists and general readers alike. Customer Reviews
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 Rating:  - Laborious, boring, and discouraging.I abandoned this book as it is utterly boring. It is certainly not a page-turner. Its author has a patronising and discouraging attitude. He underestimates the intellect of his readers. His major fault, however, is over-elaboration and particularly when it is so unnecessary. Anyone taking up the career of biology would be best advised to avoid this book. The author's communication skill is appalling. How anyone could find the book interesting is beyond my comprehension. It almost slayed my interest in biology. On reading it, it became apparent why the used editions are low in price! My copy too will be added to this heap. Rating:  - Have questions about life? Try natural selectionOf the many fine books Dawkins has given us, this one stands out as possibly the best. Although the importance of The Selfish Gene still transcends it, Climbing Mount Improbable has unique value. Dawkins has an exceptional ability to explain the immense spectrum of life's complexities. He demonstrates that skill admirably here in a volume that's proven timeless. Having bought this book when first published, it was particularly delightful to pick it up again and discover it's lost nothing since then. 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 ... Read More: Rating:  - Not his best - by a long shot.With all respect to Prof. Dawkins, this reads like either an early draft of the Blind Watchmaker or a later revision of it. It seems to me that Dawkins came up with the - admittedly brilliant - metaphor of Mount Improbable, and rather than losing it to the obscurity of his notebooks, decided to reinterpret everything he has written up to that point through it. Which is fine, for those who are unfamiliar with his works, but those who are not can expect to find little more than further examples which support the grand theories he, and many neo-Darwinists, are well known for. Climbing Mount Improbable is really a collection of fascinating Zoological tales (such as species mimicry, interactive symbiosis, and a wonderful insight into spider web building) ... Read More: Rating: - Give this to anyone that doubts evolution.I've read a number of Dawkins' books as I find his books such a stimulating read given its subject matter and his writing style. Of those I've read (Blind Watchmaker, River out of Eden, Unweaving the Rainbow, and Climbing Mt Improbable), I found this the best. Indeed, I would actually say it was 'exciting' to read as it uncovers details in nature that I would never have thought existed, yet beautifully suggests how all can be explained by Darwin's simple gradual mechanism of random change and non-random (but still natural) selection. Excellent book. Give it to anyone that doubts evolution. Rating: - Illuminating and astonishingThose who refuse to believe in evolution hold up examples such as the eye or the flight of birds - peaks of Mount Improbable - and ask how they could possibly have evolved. Dawkins goes a long way towards explaining just how these things could have happened, over a shorter time period than might be expected. He always bears his audience in mind and so the arguments are very easy to follow. And there are some facts presented which are even more surprising than those he sets out to prove. Who would have thought that figs represented one of the peaks? |
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