Unweaving the Rainbow

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A dazzling, passionate polemic against anti-science movements of all kinds.

Keats accused Newton of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours. In this illuminating and provocative book, Richard Dawkins argues that Keats could not have been more mistaken, and shows how an understanding of science enhances our wonder of the world. He argues that mysteries do not lose their poetry because they are solved- the solution is often more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering even deeper mysteries. 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 on the human appetite for wonder.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

"Poetic science" is not an oxymoron, according to Oxford scientist Dawkins, because both poetry and science draw inspiration from a sense of wonder at the natural world. Dawkins (Climbing Mount Improbable, LJ 1/96) has been criticized as coldly analytical and reductionist‘and this book is his rebuttal. He begins his exposition of the aesthetics of science by examining the improbable‘almost miraculous‘complexities of life itself. He debunks paranormalism and pseudoscience, giving readers an excellent statistics lesson in the process, and concludes by exploring the "balloon of the mind" and the intricate neurological processes by which science, poetry, and all thought are created. Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World (LJ 1/96) is similar in spirit and purpose, but Dawkins is more of a firebrand, pulling no punches with his criticisms. Both books should be required reading in any core curriculum course for nonscience majors or for anyone who wants to nourish their "appetite for wonder." [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 8/98.]‘Gregg Sapp, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Gables, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Keats complained that Newton's experiments with prisms had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow. Not so, says Oxford biologist Dawkins (The Selfish Gene) who, in an eloquent if prickly defense of the scientific enterprise, calls on the "two cultures" of science and poetry to learn from each other. Yet Dawkins cautions against "bad poetic science," i.e., seductive but misleading metaphors, and cites as an example " `Gaia': the overrated romantic fancy of the whole world as an organism," a hypothesis proposed by atmospheric scientist James Lovelock and bacteriologist Lynn Margulis. Dawkins (continuing a celebrated battle that has been raging in the New York Review of Books) also lambastes paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould for "bad poetry," rejecting Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium, which holds that new species emerge during relatively short bursts of evolutionary advance. In these conversational, discursive essays, Dawkins is, as always, an elegant, witty popularizer, whether he is offering a crash course in DNA fingerprinting, explaining the origins of "mad cow disease" in weird proteins that spread like self-replicating viruses or discussing male birdsong as an auditory aphrodisiac for female birds. However, in venturing into realms beyond the immediate purview of science, he reveals his own biases, launching into a predictable, rather superficial assault on paranormal research, UFO reports, astrology and psychic phenomena, all of which he dismisses as products of fraud, illusion, sloppy observation or an exploitation of our natural appetite for wonder. Dawkins is most interesting when he theorizes that our brains have partly taken over from DNA the role of recording the environment, resulting in "virtual worlds" that alter the terrain in which our genes undergo natural selection. Agent, John Brockman. 50,000 first printing; first serial to the Sciences. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

As modern science, with its esoteric formulas and technical jargon, gradually receded from the grasp of the nonscientifically trained thinker, a gradual distrust, if not aversion, for science began to arise. When science became a veritable threat to artists, writers, and theologians, some began to say it robbed humans of the mystery of Nature. Science was condemned by poets like Blake and Keats, and even Whitman once walked out on a learned astronomer to meditate on the mystic grandeur of the starlit night. In these persuasive chapters composed in beautiful prose, a devotee of science communicates some of the joys and mystic delights that can be derived from science. Dawkins's lack of sympathy for scientific mumbo-jumbo comes through; he shows that good science can give supreme poetic satisfaction, even more so than religions and mythologies. Alas, only readers with some familiarity with science can fully partake of the thrills that Dawkins spells out. Others, like those little acquainted with opera, can only watch from the outside and believe that the aficionados are really having fun. But there is also lots of interesting science here, especially biology, that is accessible to most. Highly recommended for all science students and curious nonscientists. V. V. Raman; Rochester Institute of Technology

Booklist Review

As Dawkins has done in each of his much-discussed books, including Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), he employs a supple analogy, this time plucking the striking trope, "unweaving the rainbow," from a poem by Keats, who was lamenting Newton's destruction of the beauty of the rainbow with scientific analysis. Not so, objects Dawkins, "the feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable." Dawkins deftly unweaves the rainbows of light and sound in discussions of spectroscopy and sound waves, then unweaves the double helix of DNA in a well-reasoned consideration of the pros and cons of using DNA fingerprinting. At his best on solid scientific ground, Dawkins is less illuminating when he dabbles in literary analysis and presents harsh critiques of popular culture. The intuitive aspects of our brains may still be in the Stone Age, as Dawkins convincingly and somewhat condescendingly proposes, but ordinary readers will still manage to find his interpretation of evolution stimulating and provocative. --Donna Seaman

Kirkus Book Review

Dawkins takes to heart his title of Charles Simonyi Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford in this thoughtful exegesis on the nature of science and why its detractors are all wrong. More with pity than anger, he takes Keats to task for faulting ""cold philosophy"" for unweaving the rainbow in the long poem ""Lamia."" On the contrary, Dawkins observes, Newton's use of a prism to split white light into the spectrum not only led to our understanding of how rainbows form in raindrops, but enabled astronomers to read the make-up of stars. Dawkins devotes a few chapters to debunking astrology, magic, and clairvoyance, arguing that, as rational adults, we need to be critical about ideas. This notion serves him handily in chapters on coincidence: He explains the exacting calculations of probabilities to show that coincidences aren't so unusual. Yet people have a penchant for finding patterns where there are none, which leads Dawkins also to address superstitions, the class of errors known as false positives and false negatives, and a wealth of cultural practices from rain dances to human sacrifice. He takes to task what he calls bad poetic science, in which he includes the theories of his rival Stephen Jay Gould in relation to what Gould sees as the three perennial questions in paleontology: Does time have a directional arrow? Do internal or external forces drive evolution? And does evolution occur gradually or in jumps? The spleen's so heavy here that one can anticipate a debate, if not a duel. Final chapters provide him with a platform for reweaving the rainbow, enlarging on his earlier themes and metaphors in relation to memes, genes, and evolution. The speculative writing here is less rooted in complex gene analysis than in philosophy of the Dennett school. A sharp mind is much in evidence, delighting in exposing fraud, providing instruction, baiting a colleague, and indulging in his own high-wire acts of evolutionary dreaming. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.