Rating: 
Summary: Insightful, simple, clear and captivating
Review: Few books have such a concentration of insights per chapter.
I was glued to "the blind watchmaker" from almost the beginning. Bats sonar-recognition system, genetic algorithms, there are captivating stuff almost at every page. :-)
Richard Dawkins seems to be able to write about just any subject both an interesting *and* simple&clear way; even about the more complex ones.
Now, when I came here, I wondered why this book is rated only 3,5/5. But it's pretty clear. It angers/afraids some deeply religious people, because the author outlines (quite a persuasive way as far i am concerned) why lots of wonders of this world can be explained without a God. Some would like to banish it, like Galileo's (and many other's) works, but the world has changed!
That's why there are so much 1-star reviews.
(By the way I think amazon shouldn't count reviews from account which have reviewed only one article. It would limit fake, and multiple rewiews from one person.)
I warmly recommend this book. If you are afraid, take it at the library. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: An important book for creationists and evolutionists
Review: For anyone at all interested in the wonderful world we inhabit, this is a superb book. The negative reviews posted on amazon.com are not objective critiques of Dawkins' science, but rahter reactions based on religion and the nature of observable 'truth.' If you believe unquestioningly in the literal truth of every word in the Bible, no, Dr. Dawkins will not change your mind. If, however, you read this book with an open, inquiring mind, you will learn that many of the arguments against evolution are ignorant of what evolution is claiming.Dawkins is not arguing that cells spontaneously developed from random atomic arrangements (If you're interested in the relative improbability of evolution, read Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable). If all one gets from a reading of this book is that Dawkins thinks monkeys pounding on typewriters can write Shakespeare, by all means stick to reading humor writers. Charles Darwin, for all his flaws, understood this basic concept: natural selection. The Blind Watchmaker is a prime example of how far our understanding has improved since the Voyage of the Beagle.
Rating: 
Summary: blind faith in brute forces of dumb selectivity
Review: I actually read the book. Like good sci-fi, interesting but fictitious in its premises and conclusions. Even if natural selection mechanism is not statistically equivalent to chanciness, to endorse the notion that a pimple on some primitive creature migrated or gravitated or transmogrified to today's sophisticated eye (in matching colored pairs, mind you) takes more faith than accepting Genesis as eyewitness account of Someone Who was there In the Beginning.
This book is not just about The Blind Watchmaker. It is about Blind Faith in Brute Forces of Dumb Selectivity unintelligently creating intelligence. Life as we know it emerged from pre-life as we don't know it? Pre-life emerged from ... chance? Or is it pre-chance?
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing!
Review: I'm a person who loves to be challenged in my thinking. I'm also a believer in creation. When I picked up this book, I was looking for something meaty to challenge my thinking; I genuinely wanted to see how he could make his case against design. Boy, was I disappointed.
Here's a summary of his argument:
1. Assume a universe without a designer.
2. It's really hard to imagine how the complexity of life could have arisen without a designer, but here's an analogy to show how it might have happened.
3. Therefore there was no designer.
It doesn't take years of study to recognize that as arguing in a circle. It's the same thing that drives most of the evolutionary agenda: lets' assume there's no God, build up all our evidence and theory on that basis, and we'll take that as proof that there is no God.
By the way, the analogy I mentioned in point 2 is seriously flawed, for it includes a designer.
In a parallel line of argument, Dawkins seriously misunderstands the creationist position. He says:
1. Some people (the creationists) have hypothesized a God strictly in order to explain the complexity of life.
2. Other explanations can be provided for the complexity of life.
3. Therefore there is no need to hypothesize a God.
4a. Thas, when "God" is used to explain life, he is a weak proposition, a "God of the gaps" invented purely as a deus ex machina to explain phenomena we do not understand.
4b. As we gain new knowledge, the gaps in our knowledge shrink and our need for this "God of the gaps" diminishes.
4c. God gets pushed into a smaller corner with every advance of science.
Dawkins feels that believers should be very embarrassed by our shrinking God. He has invoked a classic "straw man," however. (A "straw man" is a distorted statement of an opponent's position. The arguer shows the weakness of that position and claims he has demolished the opponent's position, when in fact he has been talking about something else.)
Dawkins's suggestion is that the only reason some people believe there is a God to explain mysterious phenomena. There is, however, a great deal of evidence for God, not only in nature's wonders but also in history, in philosophy, in revelation, and in the very real experiences of believers. A better description of a theist's view (one who believes in a personal Creator God) would be:
1. We believe on the basis of very good evidence, from multiple sources, that there is a God who has revealed himself in a trustworthy manner.
2. Part of God's revelation states that he created life, and its various kinds, through direct personal action.
3. We seek evidence of his work in natural history. We are not surprised that there are phenomena we do not understand, and we seek to close the borders of ignorance through scientific study.
4. In the meantime, this God is not a "God of the gaps" invoked to cover our ignorance. He is the God of all: the God of that which we believe we do understand and that which we do not.
Rating: 
Summary: very good book (with patience)
Review: I've wanted to read this book for years because I find the intricacies and nuances of evolution fascinating, and I've always admired Richard Dawkins as well.
A few chapters were captivating, including discussions about how bats use sonar to "see", and the amazing complexity of the eye. Dawkins makes excellent arguments about how and why mechanisms so amazingly improbable could evolve over millions of years. I admire the incedible depth of his intellect and lets face it, to truly understand evolution one must really think deeply about it. It's not all black and white and I admit that sometimes evolution itself is not something that is always easy to accept. But I believe it. It's makes so much sense to me when I learn about it. Yes, there are unanswered questions that can't be easily answered in a high school biology lab, but that doesn't mean the whole thing should be abandoned.
Dawkins does tend to ramble and go off on tangents in too many places to the point where I lost what he was trying to get at. Although I lean heavily on the side of not believing in intelligent design, after finishing the book I didn't feel as a whole he made a clear and concise argument that the watchmaker is indeed blind because of the somewhat disorganized writing. But I still recommend this book for people interested in the subject because there are enough gems in here to make it worth the effort.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books on evolution
Review: If you need a better understanding of evolution, this book is for you. If you want a fun biology book, this book is for you. If you want a book that will show you that creationists are more illogical than you'd ever imagined, this is the book for you!
The only thing that I could possibly hold against this book is that Dawkins hasn't updated the book to offer a cheaper version of the software that is discussed so much in the book. In fact, the order form still has the option for a 5" floppy... Come on, I want it on a CD!
Rating:
Summary: There is more to reality than Dawkins might assume
Review: In this book Dawkins explains the physical mechanisms of evolution. Yet when Dawkins drew his ultimate conclusions regarding the nature of life, I don't think he could see the wood for the trees. Evolution is a process whereby physical matter patterns itself upon invisible forms of information. This information is not `physical'. It is more akin to Spirit. The Ground of Being is God-Consciousness, and the unfolding of life on earth is actually the expression, or manifestation, of a grand Idea - God's Idea. Science is the enterprise which explores God's Idea. Dawkins' book is a good read, though, and correctly describes a certain level of reality.
Rating:
Summary: THEORY WORSHIP
Review: Nothing like a little theory-worship via natural darwinology to spice up the competition with Genesisology.
Made for enjoyable reading the same way Aesop's Fables amuse.
Amusing thinking process by Dawkins & disciples: E=mc2
E is Evolution, m is material world, c is credulity.
Evolution creates material world ONLY IF credulity is squared as your religious constant in the atheistic equation. Amen.
Thanks to the author for making his article of faith and religious belief system he worships by evident to all.
Rating:
Summary: Why the evidence reveals how he reads the evidence
Review: Reading this book shows how far some will go with 'just-so' stories and hypothetical 'explanations' that substitute for expositions of what really happened. Having a plausible, Occam's Razor sort of alibi for every miraculous emergence that cannot be rationally explained without CreatorGodWhoCares doesn't make evolution really so; it's 'just so'.
The question begging to be answered at book's end is: given that one chooses to believe all we observe arose from evolution, where did evolution itself come from? Dawkins admits evolution evolves, so please tell us why the evidence reveals not Creation ex nihilo, but Creation ex creatio? All the apparent design is blind, dumb, mindless designation imposed coincidentally on our evolved brains to notice that all the apparent design needs a rational explanation or explaining away?
Poof! Everything nested solo from scratch?
If so, think, Braille, think: there is a catch -
Can we deny First Hatcher given hatch?
Rating:
Summary: Dawkins is right?
Review: Take a look at the complexity of the human eye. That's all the evidence needed for intelligent design. Something that complex doesn't come together by chance. If one knows anything about probability, the odds of it happening by chance are astrononmically against it. It's time we put the fairy tale of evolution to rest.
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