Dawkins, in contrasting the differences between human design and its potential for planning with the workings of natural selection, therefore dubbed evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker.

Beginning with a simple organism, capable only of distinguishing between light and dark, in only the crudest fashion, he takes the reader through a series of minor modifications, which build in sophistication until we arrive at the elegant and complex mammalian eye.

Dawkins then describes his experiences with a more sophisticated computer simulation of artificial selection implemented in a program also called The Blind Watchmaker, which was sold separately as a teaching aid.

The program displayed a two-dimensional shape (a "biomorph") made up of straight black lines, the length, position, and angle of which were defined by a simple set of rules and instructions (analogous to a genome).

In an appendix to the 1996 edition of the book, Dawkins explains how his experiences with computer models led him to a greater appreciation of the role of embryological constraints on natural selection.

Tim Radford, writing in The Guardian, noted that despite Dawkins's "combative secular humanism", he had written "a patient, often beautiful book... that begins in a generous mood and sustains its generosity to the end."

"[1] Philosopher and historian of biology Michael T. Ghiselin, writing in The New York Times, comments that Dawkins "succeeds admirably in showing how natural selection allows biologists to dispense with such notions as purpose and design".

[4] The journalist Dick Pountain described Sean B. Carroll's 2005 account of evolutionary developmental biology, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, as the most important popular science book since The Blind Watchmaker, "and in effect a sequel [to it].