Mr. Harris read and liked Mostephl's review of The Blind Watchmaker:

"wow and double wow. i read this through and turned back to p.1 to read it again.

blind watchmaker has been amazingly influential in the way i think about just about everything- the world, existence, life forms, physics- down to the micro,...more wow and double wow. i read this through and turned back to p.1 to read it again.

blind watchmaker has been amazingly influential in the way i think about just about everything- the world, existence, life forms, physics- down to the micro, myself and my craft. it's sent chills down my spine, made me euphoric and angry. the first for finally addressing questions that have long been in my mind (but receive no echo in society as i've known it), the second for the willful repression of information and large-scale institutionalized dumb-down that is the public school system i grew up in.

it makes me want to cry to think that i didn't learn about evolution until i already had a master's degree. i am learning now, though, largely through dawkins, stephen j. gould and others who've been able to bring the complexities of this subject to the laypeople. still angry that whatever my daughter learns about evolution, she'll have to learn from me, a social scientist and by no means an authority. nonetheless, in a college classroom if her professor asks if anyone's heard of darwin, her answer will be a resounding, "yeah!!". small victory, but something.

p.s. there's a great, great BBC documentary on Galapagos- highly worth checking out. (less) "