The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
Published 1986 · 352 pages · 120,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science & Nature
How hard is The Blind Watchmaker to read?
The Blind Watchmaker scores 32 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 40 out of 100
- Biological terminology. Technical but explained.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- Abstract evolutionary concepts grounded in concrete examples.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Dense with biological detail and logical argument.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Direct, thesis-driven argument.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The blind watchmaker as central organizing metaphor.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Polemical wit directed at creationist arguments.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Clear thesis with comprehensive argument.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Thematic chapters building a cumulative argument.
How The Blind Watchmaker is regarded
The Blind Watchmaker holds a literary regard score of 63 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.