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

Richard Dawkins

Apr 2000 · Sold by HMH

About this ebook

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Science in the Soul. “If any recent writing about science is poetic, it is this” (The Wall Street Journal).
 
Did Sir Isaac Newton “unweave the rainbow” by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as John Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says acclaimed scientist Richard Dawkins; Newton’s unweaving is the key too much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don’t lose their poetry because they are solved: the solution often is more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deeper mysteries. With the wit, insight, and spellbinding prose that have made him a bestselling author, Dawkins takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, combining them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder.
 
This is the book Dawkins was meant to write: A brilliant assessment of what science is (and isn’t), a tribute to science not because it is useful but because it is uplifting.
 
“A love letter to science, an attempt to counter the perception that science is cold and devoid of aesthetic sensibility . . . Rich with metaphor, passionate arguments, wry humor, colorful examples, and unexpected connections, Dawkins’ prose can be mesmerizing.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Brilliance and wit.” —The New Yorker

Ratings and reviews

This book is an attempt on the part of Richard Dawkins to undo the harm of his best seller, "The God Delusion", which told us bluntly that there is no cosmic security, that there is some kind of a future in our DNA, and that we are doomed to obvlivion - so why not make the most of it while we're at it." His idea of a good time is apparently hope in Darwinism(his version, of course), a dose of random selection, a round or two of bottled atheism, and "let's all sing in the dark because we are doomed anyway. He actually thinks that his Gospel of the Absence of God is something that will cheer people up. Who is he talking to anyway? What kind of logic is behind the simple statement that "God doesn't exist because I say so?" We have to begin by dissolving the imaginary iceberg that he has placed between human reason and the existence of God. He has not shown in any believable, cogent, and reasoned way that his version of Darwinian evolution disproves the existence of God. He has merely created a massive smokescreen asking people to believe it on his word alone. That is the crux of the question: can you demonstrate God's non-existence from evolutionary biology? In his new book he pulls out all the stops, and there is one solid truth behind this wealth of words: atheists can be as moral, as upright, as honest, as in love with beauty, and as concerned about their neighbors as anyone else. That is not the issue in question. The issue in question is: Does Darwinian evolution disprove the existence of God and the foundation of religion?. The answer is no. This book adds nothing to "The God Delusion". It attempts to turn his roaring lion into a pussycat. Richard Dawkins' first book, "The Selfish Gene" is a masterpiece of evolutionary biology - except for the End Notes, and this book is an extended End Note on his brand of evolutionary biology. There are golden threads throughout the book, as there are in the End Notes. But most are actually moral and ethical principles hanging by the thread of their own weight, with no intellectual or reasoned foundation, their only authority: Richard Dawkins. The best refutation I have found of the thesis of this book is Joyce Kilmer's "Rouge Bouquet". It is poetry, and so is "Unweaaving the Rainbow". But Richard Dawkins' poetry does not blot out the stinging and sterile prose of "The God Delusion". If Richard Dawkins cannot make sense out of life, he certainly cannot make sense out of death. "Unweaving the Rainbow" is a feeble attempt to do so.

One of the Goodreads reviews on this book relates, simply, that the writer of the review had been on a cruise ship with the author prior to reading the book. When she DID read the book, she regretted that she didn't "do some kind of small violence to his person" while on the cruise with him. In many ways, that sums up my take beautifully. This was the most interesting book I've ever despised. Certainly, I have a brain not suited to the exigencies of science. But when he wasn't losing me in a web of convoluted explanation, he was was looking down his nose at me like a curmudgeonly professor who is inordinately piqued that an average undergraduate had the audacity to drop by during office hours and ask a stupid question. That said, I learned a lot and, while I did not become a convert to his thesis that science can be as beautiful as poetry, I will admit that, were my brain more suited to the beauty of, say, probability, I would have been in ecstasy while perusing the pages of this tome. In discussing how we discover our world; "... we arrived by being born, and we didn't burst conscious into the world but accumulated awareness gradually through babyhood. The fact that we slowly apprehend our world, rather than suddenly discover it, should not subtract from its wonder." And maybe that's where he lost me. I haven't accumulated enough awareness to see what he sees. And to believe what he believes. But condescension does not encourage me to become more aware. It encourages me to shrug and go back to my music, or my poetry, or my philosophy. All of that said, there were several "aha" moments; some "I-never-knew-that-before!" aha, some "I-never-thought-about-it-that-way-before!" aha and some "I-had-totally-forgotten-about-that!" aha. Like his analogy about how expansive the earth's past is; "Fling your arms wide in an expansive gesture to span all of evolution from its origin at your left fingertip to today at your right fingertip. All the way across your midline to well past your right shoulder, life consists of nothing but bacteria. Many-celled, invertebrate life flowers somewhere around your right elbow. The dinosaurs originate in the middle of your right palm, and go extinct around your last finger joint. The whole story of Homo sapiens and our predecessor Homo erectus is contained in the thickness of one nail-clipping. As for recorded history; as for the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Jewish patriarchs, the dynasties of Pharohs, the legions of Rome, the Christian Fathers, the Laws of the Medes and Persians which never change; as for Troy and the Greeks, Helen and Achilles and Agamemnon dead; as for Napolean and Hitler, the Beatles and Bill Clinton, they and everyone that knew them are blown away in the dust from one light stroke of a nail file." In my opinion, that qualifies as scientific poetry. But that's because it takes an idea and sketches it with metaphor and examples that are accessible and understandable to my way of thinking. And Dawkins, too often, refuses to "stoop" to "that level." For example, consider this quote from astrophysicist Chandrasekhar; "... beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound." Indeed. Of course, I left out the beginning of the quote which talks about math and how it relates to nature. That's not beautiful to me. I understand why it's beautiful to those whose brains process math differently. But my brain does not work that way. My mind responds to a different beauty. Does that make my idea of beauty any less valid? Dawkins would undoubtedly say, "Yes." Then he'd kick me out of his office and grumble discontentedly as he adjusted his suspenders and wandered back to his desk. But when Dawkins DOES lower himself to my level and speak my language, he pulls me right in; his discussion on coincidence and how, in our multi-media age, we are more likely to see a pattern where there

Though by now many of the themes in this book have passed into more common availability, there are still many conceptualizations worth reading the original for. One I read today was that elephant and virus DNA are both programs that copy themselves, but one takes the digression of building an elephant in the process.

About the author

RICHARD DAWKINS taught zoology at the University of California at Berkeley and at Oxford University and is now the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he has held since 1995. Among his previous books are The Ancestor’s Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, and A Devil’s Chaplain. Dawkins lives in Oxford with his wife, the actress and artist Lalla Ward.