The Power of Science

The beginning of Immortal Coils was quite challenging to understand. I had to reread several paragraphs over and over again in order to grasp a vague idea of what the author was trying to say. One of the ideas that confused me the most was the metaphor of the architect`s plans. Dawkins states: “I shall make use of the metaphor of the architect`s plans, freely mixing the language of the metaphor with the language of the real thing.” (Dawkins Pg. 22). He then defines what each term in the metaphor would mean in real life. It gets complicated though, when he begins to mention the several volumes of the different plans. This is one thing that he himself absolutely clear of: there are several files in this plan, each one representing different parts of a chromosome.

One thing I noticed, is that the book became more of what you would expect to hear in an average science class, than a reflection of the author`s thoughts. I actually did learn these topics in my science class this year. It was quite relieving to reach a point in the chapter where I clearly understood Dawkins`s flow of thoughts. This included all the talk about the alleles, and the dominant and recessive genes. I then began to consider the complexity of what it takes to make a baby, and how amazing nature is in doing so. As mentioned before, there is a huge amount of possibilities, or files which contain the baby`s potential genetic information. The chances that it will have blue eyes or brown eyes, red hair or black hair, light skin or dark skin, etc., are all genetically defined. And the most unbelievable part is thinking how we all started as one single cell, which eventually turned into millions of millions, of millions.