---
title: "Unweaving the Rainbow"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:37:40.175236+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder is a 1998 book by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author discusses the relationship between science and the arts from the perspective of a scientist.
Dawkins addresses the misperception that science and art are at odds. Driven by the responses to his books The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker wherein readers resented his naturalistic world view, seeing it as depriving life of meaning, Dawkins felt the need to explain that, as a scientist, he saw the world as full of wonders and a source of pleasure. This pleasure was not in spite of, but rather because he does not assume as cause the inexplicable actions of a deity but rather the understandable laws of nature.
His starting point is John Keats's well-known, light-hearted accusation that Isaac Newton destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by 'reducing it to the prismatic colours.' See Keats's poem Lamia and Edgar Allan Poe's To Science. Dawkins's agenda is to show the reader that science does not destroy, but rather discovers poetry in the patterns of nature.

== Summary ==

=== Preface ===
It is of little concern whether or not science can prove that the ultimate fate of the cosmos lacks purpose: we live our lives regardless at a "human" level, according to ambitions and perceptions which come more naturally. Therefore, science should not be feared as a sort of cosmological wet blanket. In fact, those in search of beauty or poetry in their cosmology need not turn to the paranormal or even necessarily restrict themselves to the mysterious: science itself, the business of unravelling mysteries, is beautiful and poetic.  (The rest of the preface sketches an outline of the book, makes acknowledgements, etc.)

=== The anaesthetic of familiarity ===

==== Opening lines ====
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, greater scientists than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"

==== Summary ====
The first chapter describes several ways in which the universe appears beautiful and poetic when viewed scientifically.  However, it first introduces an additional reason to embrace science.  Time and space are vast, so the probability that the reader came to be alive here and now, as opposed to another time or place, was slim. More important, the probability that the reader came to be alive at all were even slimmer: the correct structure of atoms had to align in the universe.
Given how special these circumstances are, the "noble" thing to do is employ the allotted several decades of human life towards understanding that universe. Rather than simply feeling connected with nature, one should rise above this "anaesthetic of familiarity" and observe the universe scientifically.

=== Drawing room of dukes ===
This chapter describes a third reason to embrace science (the first two being beauty and duty): improving one's performance in the arts. Science is often presented publicly in a translated format, "dumbed down" to fit the language and existing ideas of non-scientists. This offers a disservice to the public, who are capable of appreciating the beauty of the universe as deeply as a scientist can. The successful communication of unadulterated science enhances, not confuses, the arts; after all, poets (Dawkins's synonym for artists—see page 24) and scientists are motivated by a similar spirit of wonder. We should therefore battle the stereotype that science is difficult, uncool, and not useful for the common person.

=== Barcodes in the stars ===
Studying a phenomenon, such as a flower, cannot detract from its beauty.
First, some scientists, such as Feynman, are able to appreciate the aesthetics of the flower while engaged in their study. Second, the mysteries which science unfolds lead to new and more exciting mysteries; for example, botany's findings might lead us to wonder about the workings of a fly's consciousness.
This effect of multiplying mysteries should satisfy even those who think that scientific understanding is at odds with aesthetics, e.g. people who agree with Einstein that "the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious".
(For evidence, the rest of this chapter discusses the fascinating science and beautiful new mysteries which followed in the wake of Newton's "unweaving" of the rainbow, e.g. his explanation of the prismatic effects of moist air.)

=== Barcodes on the air ===
This chapter offers more evidence that science is fun and poetic, by exploring sound waves, birdsong, and low-frequency phenomena such as pendula and periodic mass extinctions.

=== Barcodes at the bar ===
A fourth reason to embrace science is that it can help deliver justice in a court of law, via DNA fingerprinting or even via simple statistical reasoning.
Everyone should learn the scientist's art of probability assessment, to make better decisions.

=== Hoodwink'd with faery fancy ===
This chapter explores what Dawkins considers to be fallacies in astrology, religion, magic, and extraterrestrial visitations. Credulity and Hume's criterion are also discussed.

=== Unweaving the uncanny ===
Amazing coincidences are much more common than we may think, and sometimes, when over-interpreted, they lead to faulty conclusions. Statistical significance tests can help determine which patterns are meaningful.