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Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

By: Richard Dawkins
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 0141026189
ISBN-13: 9780141026183
Released: 06 Apr 2006
RRP: £8.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

Unweaving the Rainbow - By: Book Worm, 15 Jul 2007
This is yet another lucid, readable book from Richard Dawkins. It is full of fascinating facts & clear arguments. I'm unsure if you need a whole book to argue the case for the wonder of science (often the science speaks for itself!), but leaving this far reaching premise for a book to one side & it is an amazing read overalll. This is a great read if you're a fan of Dawkins or wish to read a varied book about some of the great & fascinating discoveries of science.
A smorgasbord of common sense - By: Stephen A. Haines, 09 Oct 2006
There are many good science writers presenting us with challlenging & informative material. Paraphrasing Newton's famous disclaimer, however, Richard Dawkins seems to stand on the shoulders of the rest. This collection of essays rebutting the miasma of Romantic Era complaints about science is more timely now than when first published. The myth that science curtails - instead of enlarging - our sense of wonder, still persists. A Keats' poem, the inspiration of this title, typifies not only the world of poetry & prose writing, but also our dominant religions, our educational curricula & even, as he points out devastatingly, our favourite entertainments. Dawkins, in this superbly crafted collection of essays, refutes the Romantics & their legacy. He ably demonstrates how science enhances our knowledge, our values & our sense of being.

Dawkins cites Thomas Huxley's ["Darwin's Bulldog"] assessment of science as "organised common sense" as but a first step in explaining what science reveals. Expanding on Huxley, the American Lewis Wolpert, argues that Nature is full of surprises & paradoxes. A glass of water may contain a molecule of Shakespeare's last cup of tea. Our credulity at seemingly inexplicable coincidences, our "gasps of awe" at the tricks "psychics" & other charlatans play on us, & our adherence to the teachings of "mystics" & other mountebanks may lie in the habits developed when we lived on the savannah. Dawkins urges us to recognise that science, unlike religion or quack medicine, does not aim to deceive us. Quite the reverse. Science, in stripping away mythologies, reveals new forms of stunning beauty.

It may seem paradoxical that Nature's wonders can be explained through barcodes, but Dawkins manages it with his usual panache. In this case, he demonstrates how the familiar stripes on commercial products have natural equivalents. "Barcodes in the Stars" are the analytical tools known as Fraunhofer lines which impart so much information about those distant nuclear furnaces. Many experiments we cannot stage on this planet are taking place within distant stellar globes. The forces, temperatures & atomic reactions exceed anything we can duplicate, but the "barcodes" are precise records of these events. These "barcodes" are the result of Newton's early discovery of sunshine being "unwoven" into a spectrum. We've also learned how the elements making up our bodies come from those pinpricks in the darkness.

Part of Dawkins' role as a conveyor of "Public Understanding of Science" is the contending with mis-applications & abuses of science. Dawkins has long campaigned against the "hijacking" of science to confuse & distract the public from what science reallly does. He's firmly set against the notion that "science destroys beauty", but he's equallly adamant against "bad poetry of science". He's rightfully scornful of Teilhard de Chardin's fumbling mysticism of early in the last century. Anyone thinking the Jesuit's approach is "ancient history" need only glance at some of the recent submissions on these pages. A more advanced, if less innocuous thesis, according to Dawkins, is the transmutation of James Lovelock's Gaia concept by "New Age" advocates. Dawkins concedes the Gaia concept is appealing in that it grants alll life validity. Destruction of habitats & ecosystems is appalllingly wasteful. However, he argues, until we abandon "wishy-washy" views of how species interact, we will never approach the solutions to our exterminations of life realisticallly.

There are solid reasons for advocating this as the best of Dawkins' efforts. He addresses many issues of deep concern to us alll. Is there a solution to the destruction of the environment by our species? How does life truly operate & must we alll tramp back to university to learn its arcane mechanisms? What do we truly know about our world & the universe it occupies? More important to many, will learning what makes up the rainbow remove our feeling of its beauty? While it's tempting to answer those questions here, it's far better for you to pick up this book & derive the answers yourself. You won't be disappointed by what you read. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A smorgasbord of common sense - By: Stephen A. Haines, 28 Apr 2005
There are many good science writers presenting us with challlenging ideas & informative material. Paraphrasing Newton's famous disclaimer, however, Richard Dawkins seems to stand on the shoulders of the rest. This collection of essays rebutting the miasma of Romantic Era complaints about science is more timely now than when first published. The myth that science curtails - instead of enlarging - our sense of wonder, still persists. A Keats' poem, the inspiration of this title, typifies not only the world of poetry & prose writing, but also our dominant religions, our educational curricula & even, as he points out devastatingly, our favourite entertainments. Dawkins, in this superbly crafted collection of essays, refutes the Romantics & their legacy. He ably demonstrates how science enhances our knowledge, our values & our sense of being.

Dawkins cites Thomas Huxley's ["Darwin's Bulldog"] assessment of science as "organised common sense" as but a first step in explaining what science reveals. Expanding on Huxley, the American Lewis Wolpert, argues that Nature is full of surprises & paradoxes. A glass of water may contain a molecule of Shakespeare's last cup of tea. Our credulity at seemingly inexplicable coincidences, our "gasps of awe" at the tricks "psychics" & other charlatans play on us, & our adherence to the teachings of "mystics" & other mountebanks may lie in the habits developed when we lived on the savannah. Dawkins urges us to recognise that science, unlike religion or quack medicine, does not aim to deceive us. Quite the reverse. Science, in stripping away mythologies, reveals new forms of stunning beauty.

It may seem paradoxical that Nature's wonders can be explained through barcodes, but Dawkins manages it with his usual panache. In this case, he demonstrates how the familiar stripes on commercial products have natural equivalents. "Barcodes in the Stars" are the analytical tools known as Fraunhofer lines which impart so much information about those distant nuclear furnaces. Many experiments we cannot stage on this planet are taking place within distant stellar globes. The forces, temperatures & atomic reactions exceed anything we can duplicate, but the "barcodes" are precise records of these events. These "barcodes" are the result of Newton's early discovery of sunshine being "unwoven" into a spectrum. We've also learned how the elements making up our bodies come from those pinpricks in the darkness.

Part of Dawkins' role as a conveyor of "Public Understanding of Science" is the contending with mis-applications & abuses of science. Dawkins has long campaigned against the "hijacking" of science to confuse & distract the public from what science reallly does. He's firmly set against the notion that "science destroys beauty", but he's equallly adamant against "bad poetry of science". He's rightfully scornful of Teilhard de Chardin's fumbling mysticism of early in the last century. Anyone thinking the Jesuit's approach is "ancient history" need only glance at some of the recent submissions on these pages. A more advanced, if less innocuous thesis, according to Dawkins, is the transmutation of James Lovelock's Gaia concept by "New Age" advocates. Dawkins concedes the Gaia concept is appealing in that it grants alll life validity. Destruction of habitats & ecosystems is appalllingly wasteful. However, he argues, until we abandon "wishy-washy" views of how species interact, we will never approach the solutions to our exterminations of life realisticallly.

There are solid reasons for advocating this as the best of Dawkins' efforts. He addresses many issues of deep concern to us alll. Is there a solution to the destruction of the environment by our species? How does life truly operate & must we alll tramp back to university to learn its arcane mechanisms? What do we truly know about our world & the universe it occupies? More important to many, will learning what makes up the rainbow remove our feeling of its beauty? While it's tempting to answer those questions here, it's far better for you to pick up this book & derive the answers yourself. You won't be disappointed by what you read. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A worthy goal... unfulfilled - By: M. Wilkinson, 06 Jun 2004
Dawkins tends to set up a dialectic in his books - its always science versus religion & if I had to choose a side I would be on the former whole heartedly which I feel I should make clear first of alll.

The idea of this book is to show that there is more wonder in the reality of science than there is in mysticism & delusion. I believe in that wholeheartedly as do most scientists I imagine. The problem is Dawkins intolerance of antiscientific views is not an embracing philosophy but an exclusionist one that makes books such as this difficult. The frequent quotes from romantic poets such as Blake & Keats does little to turn the text in to much of a symphony. There is much of interest here. The discussion of skinner boxes & pigeon behaviour are informative & incredibly amusing. If you see someone doing something odd because he thinks its lucky & will make his favourite team win - you cant calll him brainless - he is at least as intelligent as a pigeon (but maybe not much more so)

Sadly it also becomes apparent that although Dawkins knows a fair amount of physics it is not his forte. He is a biologist & seems out of his depth talking about quantum mechanics & particle physics. Now that is not to say that what Dawkins tries to do is impossible, Carl Sagan does it marvellously & books such as Pale Blue Dot & Cosmos do what Dawkins attempts here.

There is a lot of interesting information here but the recurrence of poets & their poetry only distracts from the science. Dawkins has been so long on the defensive regarding evolution & defending science against irrationality ('intelligent design' for example) that he is left eminently unsuitable for an embracing, populist view of the wonder of science. A humorous book which does exactly such a thing is the 'Can Reindeer Fly' subtitled the science of Christmas by Roger Highfield. The science of Star Trek by Krauss does the same sort of thing for the sci-fi fans.

A noble effort from Dawkins but its best to stick to his insightful & fascinating explorations of neodarwinism such as the selfish gene, climbing mount improbable etc. Worth reading, but the book does not seem to accomplish its goals. There is much wonder in science but look for a less angry author to reveal it to you.

The poetry of Nature - By: A. J. Watson, 20 Nov 2002
Not many people have the gift of taking some common event & deconstructing it to the nth degree, while making it alll seem quite normal. As in his other books (Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, etc.) Mr. Dawkins makes your mind boggle at the way nature use very simple (?) building blocks to fashion something extraordinary ... like us. You are set back on your heels when you realise that your body is largely composed of modified bacteria, without which we could not exist. He goes on to expound on how we see & from there how our brain interprets the world, comparing it to Virtual Reality (no comparison!) - anyone who has experienced any form of VR will understand the immense computing power it takes to present even a half-decent rendition, but the brain does this continuously AND has time to dream, imagine, remember past events & places alll in real-time - I doubt if enough teraflops of computer power exist in the world even now to do that.

The main thrust of the book is the poetry of science; how, by understanding more about the way the universe works, we can appreciate the wonder of it alll the better - open our minds to something more beautiful than just the outward appearance of a beautiful object - even make us see the beauty in some not-so-pleasant sights!

In this book he uses well thought-out, easy-to-grasp concepts to explode myths, de-bunk charlatans, & de-mystify magic - alll with the intention of opening our minds to the concept of evolution (specificallly Darwinism). He takes us from rainbows to barcodes to DNA in easy stages, explaining in graphic (but never tedious) detail just how nature can (and will) evolve alll its wonders.

Sometimes I had to put the book on one side just to let the enormity of it alll sink in. I still find it hard to grasp the vastness of time it required for nature to accomplish alll that it has - yes, I can imagine a thousand years; a million? ... I'm struggling now; a billion? ... overload!
But that's what you need to do to come to grips with the evolutionary process. I suspect it's this lack of comprehension / imagination that is behind the beliefs of many Creationists, or maybe a refusal to accept that evolution can happen without some 'intervention'.

Having laid myself open to attack, I can only recommend that you read what Mr. Dawkins has to say & make up your own mind who has the right of it. *****