Unweaving the rainbow : science, delusion, and the appetite for wonder

Richard Dawkins

2000

Houghton Mifflin

Did Newton "unweave the rainbow" by reducing it to its prismatic colors, as Keats contended? Did he, in other words, diminish beauty? Far from it, says the author. Newton's unweaving is the key to much of modern astronomy and to the breathtaking poetry of modern cosmology. Mysteries don't lose their poetry because they are solved; the solution is often more beautiful than the puzzle, uncovering deeper mystery. With wit and insight, the author takes up the most important and compelling topics in modern science, from astronomy and genetics to language and virtual reality, and combines them in a landmark statement of the human appetite for wonder. This book offers an assessment of what science is (and what it isn't) and serves as a tribute to science not because it is useful, but because it is uplifting in the same way that the best poetry is uplifting. -- From publisher's description