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River Out Of Eden (Richard Dawkins) - Book Review

Mere Mortals Book Reviews
Mere Mortals Book Reviews
Episode • Jun 18, 2021 • 9m
"Never were so many facts explained by so few assumptions."

'River Out Of Eden' by Richard Dawkins is a simplified explanation of Darwinian evolutionary theory. It contains 5 sections, all of which provide arguments for why natural selection is true and debunking those of creationists. These arguments are based on the science of DNA (ATCG base pairs), experiments/studies on animals (why bees dance for example), theories about replication/mutation and the utility function that results in a 50/50 gender split across most animal species.

I summarised the book as follows. "It's a Richard Dawkins book so you know what to expect, evolution evolution and more evolution! He goes over the basic principles of evolution as well as some common pitfalls of its explanatory powers. It's not too difficult to understand, but I wouldn't say it is particularly easy either. Personally I prefer 'The Selfish Gene' but found this a nice short summary as well."

As always, I hope you have a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Kyrin out!

Timeline:
(0:00) - Intro & Synopsis
(3:34) - Evolution: To answer why why why
(6:20) - Personal Observations/Takeaways
(8:02) - Summary

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