But I found them well worth encountering again. River Out of Eden is strong on argument, but I would have enjoyed more examples, more of the riches of anomalies and exceptions. In many species the sex ratio is uneven, for example, the parasitoid wasp Nasonia, which has genes producing female biased broods, others causing male-biased broods, and still others trying to suppress these deviations. Dawkins' approach from his armchair is to deduce the utility function of God, but the details are needed to complete the story. Dawkins strays further from his well-versed arguments to challenge the reading of nature as a struggle between good and evil.
Nature is neither kind nor unkind, it is wholly indifferent to suffering.
We may find inspiring the lengths to which parents may go to defend their young or horrifying the pain and fear of those pursued to death. But none of this is good or evil. It is simply the result of genes being favoured by selection. Dawkins's forthright advocacy of the Darwinian view exposes the shallow thinking of its many critics. The simple logic of selection on self-replicating entities remains an immensely powerful explanation.