Richard Dawkins

BOOK REVIEWS Finding Awe, Reverence, and Wonder in Science KENDRICK FRAZIER Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, ana1 the Appetite for Wonder. By Richard Dawkins. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1998. ISBN 0-395-88382-2. 337 pp. Hardcover, $26. he central challenge addressed in interpretation is different but what Richard Dawkins's Unweaving excites us is the same." The scientist has the Rainbow is the perception Richard the same wonder, the same sense of the T profound, as the mystic, but with an among many that science somehow diminishes our appreciation of the additional impulse: let's find out what world. It is a problem all who attempt to Dawkins we can about it. (SKEPTICAL INQUIRER explain science to the wider public must readers got a teaser of some of the book's sometime face, and noted thinkers like arguments in Dawkins's article "Science, Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, and Delusion, and the Appetite for Martin Gardner all have written about Wonder," March/April 1998.) it. In 1995. Dawkins. the noted Oxford I n weaving Dawkins argues that while poets zoologist and evolutionist (and CSICOP might well seek inspiration from science, Fellow), became the first Charles the Rainbow science should reach out to wider con- Simonyi professor of the public under- stituencies among poets, artists, and all standing of science at Oxford. In this others who share some of the same book he faces these wider issues, which impulses. Science, Delusion go far beyond evolutionary biology but He doesn't argue that scientists ml the . tppetite are still enriched and informed by should attempt to write poetically, Dawkins's intimate familiarity with that Br Wonder unless like Sagan or Loren Eiseley they subject. His title is from Keats, who have unique skills in that area. Simple believed that Newton had destroyed all into light of different wavelengths led clarity will do. Says Dawkins: "The the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it onto Maxwell's theory of electromagnet- poetry is in the science." to its prismatic colors. ism and thence to Einstein's theory of Along the way, Dawkins examines Dawkins quickly lays that particular special relativity," notes Dawkins, superstition and gullibility, lamenting complaint to rest by showing how adding: "If you think the rainbow has how people can find the "meaningless Newton's optics led to spectroscopy poetic mystery, you should try relativ- pap" of astrology appealing, in the face which led to measurement of emission ity." All from a little "unweaving of the of the real universe as revealed by astron- and absorption line spectra and thereby rainbow." And nothing about it need omy. He suggests that grouping people to direct understanding of the nature diminish our astonishment and appreci- according to which of only 12 mythic and characteristics of stars—their size, ation of the beauty of a rainbow arcing signs they were born under is "a form of luminosity, history, and future across the rain-darkened sky. discriminatory labeling rather like the ("Barcodes of the Stars")—and then to The positive message throughout is cultural stereotypes that many of us our wider understanding of the cosmos. that the impulses to awe. reverence, and nowadays find objectionable." He "Newton's dissection of the rainbow wonder that led the poet William Blake regrets that we are "in the grip of a near to mysticism (and lesser figures to para- epidemic of paranormal propaganda on Kendrick Frazier is Editor of the normal superstition) are "precisely those television." He recalls Arthur C. Clarke's SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. that lead others of us to science. Our Third Law, "that any sufficiently 5 4 Mafch/Apnl 1999 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER BOOK REVIEWS advanced technology is indistinguishable sameness of their everyday experience, digital archives of the African Pliocene, from magic," and thoughtfully considers, leading us to expect a very modest level even of Devonian seas; walking reposito- "How are wc to know when skepticism is of coincidence. Yet today we are ries of wisdom out of the old days. You justified, and when it is dogmatic, intol- immersed in a giant global media cul- could spend a lifetime reading in this erant short-sightedness?" He refers to a ture and our access to stories of all kind ancient library and die unsated by the "spectrum of improbabilities" and sug- is multiplied many times compared widi wonder of it." In a related sense, the gests ways to think about how to evaluate that of our small-village ancestors. This brain of an individual houses a parallel an amazing or miraculous story. means, says Dawkins, that the number set of models of the animals own world. Abetted by the media, astrology, para- o f opportunities for coincidence is The final chapters deal with the won- normalism, and alien visitations have an greater for each one of us than it would derful machinery of perception. One- example is how the nerve cells economize inside track on the public consciousness, have been for our ancestors, and conse- by registering only changes from moment Dawkins notes, but there may be para- quently greater than our brains are cali- to moment and ignoring the more com- doxical grounds for encouragement in the brated to assess. Theoretically, we can mon stasis—all the boring stuff. realization that at least some of this ten- learn to recalibrate ourselves, but that is Computers arc poor at recognizing pat- dency exploits "our natural and laudable "revealingly difficult even for sophisti- terns such as faces, but humans, through appetite for wonder." This wonder, given cated scientists and mathematicians." evolution, have become superb at these proper access, can be fulfilled just as well There is much else in Dawkins's by science and the real wonders of nature. In one chapter, "Unweaving the The scientist has the same wonder, the same sense Uncanny," Dawkins shows how to "take the sting out of seemingly astonishing of the profound, as the mystic, but with an additional coincidence by quietly sitting down and impulse: let's find out what we can about it. calculating the likelihood that it would have happened anyway." He invents a purview. He writes about DNA finger- and other pattern-recognition abilities. cenn he calls PETWHAC, for Popula- printing (a bit hard-going, I must We usually create fairly accurate models rion of Fvenrs Thar Would Have admit) He offers chapters on not just of the world but can also create illusions Appeared Coincidental, useful in evalu- good poetic science, where helpful and concoct hallucinations when some- ating how probable improbable-seeming analogies and metaphors stimulate the thing goes just slighdy awry. "A brain that events actually are, liberating us from a imagination, but also on the danger of is good at simulating models in imagina- need to invoke occult forces. He offers a "bad poetic science," the power of tion is also, almost inevitably, in danger number of fresh examples, such as when poetic imagery to inspire bad science, of self-delusion," Dawkins warns. When his wife bought her mother an antique even if it is good poetry. Included here we see visions of angels, saints, or gods, watch and she got it home and peeled are Teilhard de Chardin's "euphoristic they seem real because they must, they are off the label to find revealed her prose poetry" and also the notorious models put together by the normal simu- mother's initials, "M.A.B." "Uncanny?" fondness of mystics for "energy" and lation software in the brain using the Dawkins asks. He docs the calculation "vibrations," technical terms creating same modeling techniques that it ordi- based on frequencies of names in phone the illusion of scientific content where narily uses when presenting its continu- directories and finds that if everyone in there is no content of any kind. ously updated edition of reality. Britain bought an antique engraved Quantum uncertainty has provoked its Dawkins is one of the treasured few watch, 3,000 of them would find their share of bad poetic science too, as has the scientists today writing in depth about mother's initials on it. postmodernist movement in academia science and scientific processes for intelli- Seeking to understand how we are so and even, surprisingly, Dawkins's own gent general readers whose works are strongly impressed by coincidences, field of evolutionary theory. Dawkins simultaneously scientifically rich and Dawkins turns to his Darwinian roots. considers his own concept of the "selfish provocative, accessible (although there is Like all other creatures, humans must gene" good poetic science that aids never a sense o f being watered down), and behave as intuitive statisticians. We need understanding rather than impedes it successful. He brings a discerning critical to steer between false positive and false but says it is susceptible to being misun- intelligence and an impassioned concern negative errors according to which offer derstood by bad poetic science. in the hope that wc will find science wor- the greater penalty in a given situation. Another chapter describes how there thy of our own awe. At the same time by Furthermore, our willingness to be is a sense in which our DNA is a coded learning about our own genetic and envi- impressed by uncanny coincidence was description of the worlds in which our ronmental heritage and the workings of influenced by the smaller population ancestors survived. "And isn't it an arrest- our brains wc can learn how to be aware size of our ancestors and the relative ing thought?" Dawkins asks. "Wc are of our own capacities for self-delusion. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER March/April 1999 55 .

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