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It is often argued that scientific understanding
lessens our appreciation of life's specialness. Perhaps
a scientist understands nature's mechanism, but what of
its beauty? Newton took a prism to create an artificial
rainbow, so revealing the coloured spectrum hidden in white
light; at that moment, when the rainbow was properly understood,
was its poetry diminished for ever?
Richard Dawkins answers with a passionate
'No', not just for the rainbow but for all of nature. The
wonder of the universe and our place in it is revealed through
science in ways otherwise impossible to appreciate or imagine.
Dawkins urges us to see that the desire for what is beautiful
should not lead us away from the search for what is true.
Still less should we be tempted towards the false refuges
of pseudoscience and superstition. Whether in the analysis
of starlight or sound waves, animal footprints or human
DNA, the seemingly miraculous worlds that science continues
to reveal should inspire rather than undermine the poetic
imagination.
Richard Dawkins's previous books have established
him as a leading figure in the new literature of science.
This is his first book to move away from the particular
task of explaining evolution. Elegant, witty and often moving,
it is also his most personal and provocative book. An inspiring
defence of the scientific imagination, Unweaving the
Rainbow is as pleasurable and uplifting as it is timely
and important.
Richard Dawkins was born in Nairobi in 1941.
He was educated at Oxford University, and has held various
academic appointments at the universities of California
and Oxford. In 1995 he became the first Charles Simonyi
Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford
University.
His many awards include the 1989 Silver
Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the 1990 Royal
Society Michael Faraday Award for the furtherance of the
public understanding of science, the 1994 Nakayama Prize
for Human Science, and the 1997 International Cosmos Prize.
He has been awarded an Honorary D.Litt. by the University
of St. Andrews and by the Australian National University,
Canberra, and in 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature.
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