A review by octavia_cade
Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins

4.0

Extremely clear and very interesting exploration of how evolutionary change is a result of small useful changes built up over time. And when it's laid out like this it reads like clear common sense - apart from the last chapter, which repeats "fig" and "wasp" so very bloody often that both terms begin to lose all meaning, like when you spend too much time looking at a single word and the shape of it turns alien. But that's a small quibble, when placed against the chapter on the development of the eye. At near 60 pages, it's by far the longest chapter in here, but it's also the absolute highlight of the entire book. At first glance (ha, I know) the eye seems such a complex organ to have developed, and though I know that it's a product of evolution like all other organs, I couldn't have made the first guess of how the intervening stages developed. Well now I understand the basics at least, and isn't science marvellous? (Yes, even the figs.) It's fair to say this book requires some effort, but such effort is well-rewarded I think.