Climbing Mount Improbable

An audiobook for those who want to understand how life on Earth developed and what incredible events happened along the way. How do spiders, weaving their web, throw the very first thread of it? What gifts does a male spider make for his beloved? Could figs exist without God? Why did the giraffe grow such a long neck? Why, when land animals returned to the water, didn’t they rediscover the old set of adaptations for aquatic life? And why, on the other hand, didn’t whales and sea cows trade lungs for gills? Could such a complex biological machine as a human appear on its own, without the involvement of some kind of Designer?

Globally known scientist Richard Dawkins explains how living organisms move—slowly, carefully, but persistently—along the path of evolution, gaining new body parts, perfecting their structure, and ultimately reaching peaks that seem completely unbelievable. Living organisms that we can observe around us—and to which we ourselves belong—are unique creations. And each of them is unique in its own way. Someone is ideally adapted to living in conditions where, it seems, life is impossible at all; someone has instincts that work more accurately and reliably than any clock; someone has grown body parts optimized for attack; someone else, conversely, for defense or even for avoiding battle. And all these abilities, entering into relationships with one another, form a complex and grand picture of life on Earth.

Could a chain of accidents—meaning genetic mutation—lead organisms to such perfection? Or isn’t it easier to imagine that this enchanting diversity has a Higher Creator? Dawkins agrees, it’s simpler—but this idea would be wrong. The very summit that evolution, through living organisms, seems to reach completely impossibly is, in fact, the result of a million years of trial and error. Climbing this mountain of Unlikeliness is not a heroic assault on ever-new heights, but a long and very slow path in which random mutations face harsh natural selection.