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cheekylaydee 's review for:
Climbing Mount Improbable
by Richard Dawkins
Sometime last year I read The Greatest Show on Earth by the same author. I also wrote a rave reviewon the book. Now I suspect you're expecting me to proclaim that this book wil get the opposite treatment....well not quite.
First off I do love the analogy of Mount Improbable that Dawkins has come up with. Mount Improbable being a symbol for life on Earth. On one side are the creationists. This mountain seems to them to be insurmountable, there are deep crevices, severe drops an pitfalls, and seemingly the only way the variou species have got to where they are is through some devine in fluence placing them there. What they fail to realise is that on the other side of the mountain is an easy gentle slope weaving a path through evolutionary time, gradually gaining height.
A superb way of looking at it yes? I certainly thought so which is why I was rather disappointed that the analogy wasn't really a running theme throughout the book. I do understand that certain flowers only attract a certain type of bee to guaruntee pollination, I understand that there are mutually beneficial relationshis between certain species in nature but where was Mount Improbable in all this?
When I read The Greatest Show on Earth what struck me was Dawkins' passon for his subject. The message of the book was constantly repeated, drummed into me as a reader and especially as this was an alien subject to me at the time it was something I really appriciated as a student wanting to learn. I found the passion lacking in this particular book.
Not to say it isn't well written and well researched. Dawkins is obviously an educated man and he explains himself well but to put my own analogy on it it was rather like sitting in on a rather mundane lecture, where the pupil gets to the point way before the teacher does. In short it rambles, going all the way around the houses before getting to the right address.
Now I can't really tell if this is a positive review or a negative one, but I think Climbing Mount Improbable is probably one that you'd have to read for yourself to understand what I'm really talking about.
All I can do is apologise, Richard Dawkins has mashed my brain! I hope the next book of his I read is more paletable!”
First off I do love the analogy of Mount Improbable that Dawkins has come up with. Mount Improbable being a symbol for life on Earth. On one side are the creationists. This mountain seems to them to be insurmountable, there are deep crevices, severe drops an pitfalls, and seemingly the only way the variou species have got to where they are is through some devine in fluence placing them there. What they fail to realise is that on the other side of the mountain is an easy gentle slope weaving a path through evolutionary time, gradually gaining height.
A superb way of looking at it yes? I certainly thought so which is why I was rather disappointed that the analogy wasn't really a running theme throughout the book. I do understand that certain flowers only attract a certain type of bee to guaruntee pollination, I understand that there are mutually beneficial relationshis between certain species in nature but where was Mount Improbable in all this?
When I read The Greatest Show on Earth what struck me was Dawkins' passon for his subject. The message of the book was constantly repeated, drummed into me as a reader and especially as this was an alien subject to me at the time it was something I really appriciated as a student wanting to learn. I found the passion lacking in this particular book.
Not to say it isn't well written and well researched. Dawkins is obviously an educated man and he explains himself well but to put my own analogy on it it was rather like sitting in on a rather mundane lecture, where the pupil gets to the point way before the teacher does. In short it rambles, going all the way around the houses before getting to the right address.
Now I can't really tell if this is a positive review or a negative one, but I think Climbing Mount Improbable is probably one that you'd have to read for yourself to understand what I'm really talking about.
All I can do is apologise, Richard Dawkins has mashed my brain! I hope the next book of his I read is more paletable!”