The blind watchmaker

The book The Blind Watchmaker, written by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is a powerful defense of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Its main goal is to show that the incredible complexity of living things does not require a divine creator or a grand design.

Dawkins responds to William Paley’s famous 1802 metaphor. Paley claimed that just as a complex watch implies the existence of a watchmaker, a complex living organism must imply a divine creator.