Geschreven bij Unweaving The Rainbow
Eloquent as always, this is Richard Dawkins at his best: an evolutionary biologist describing the poetic beauty and diversity of nature. Far from "killing the mystery" by analysing how something works, he passionately argues that looking at something through scientific eyes only enhances the wonder. The main idea of this book is that science is also worthy of poetry - but there's no need for obscuring and lazy mysticism. We should not take things for granted, but rather have a look with new eyes - to shake off our (aptly put) "anaesthetic of familiarity".
The text is divided into several larger sections. In the first part, Dawkins looks at what "unweaving the rainbow" (Keats' description of Newton's famous prism experiments) brought us - light waves, radio waves, computers, and even the ability to gather information about distant stars from the pattern of light they emit. The second part deals with astrology, the gullible and "miracles": amazing coincidences that are firmly put into perspective by sobering statistics and the laws of probability. The third part analyses the gene pool of a population as a "book of the dead", where all information of our forefathers' ways of life are stored. These chapters link to his first book "The Selfish Gene". In the last part, Dawkins looks at our mind: how it works, and especially how we construct a virtual reality in our heads - effortlessly, although it would require supercomputers to simulate complexity on this level.
By touching upon several highly interesting themes, each worthy of a book on its own, in the end the book almost feels like a (too small) collection of essays around the theme of "unweaving magic".
