Enjoyed this book a lot especially the chapters on how humans delude themselves or allow others to delude them, including newspapers that include astrology columns. That seems very fitting for todays world where politicians yell fake news if they don't like the story about themselves. The final chapter is really great as well about memes and language.

The actual science bits in here are great. Learned heaps about the workings of light and colour, sound and hearing... was even reminded that the idea of "superstitious behavior" in animals is attributed to Skinner (and not, sadly, my own idea). Much geeky excitement experienced all round by yours truly. Dawkins does a fine job of explaining complex ideas clearly and well.That's what was good about Unweaving the Rainbow.Sadly, what feels like way more than half of the book was spent painstakingly...

The first half or so was amazing, and the rest was still really interesting (especially the end), if not quite as exhilarating. At the same time, you have to remember that even that powerhouse of scientific poetry, Carl Sagan, had some dry chapters every now and then. Some dryness definitely doesn't make it any less worth the read, and its mild anyway. Overall, this book was extremely enjoyable, and a breeze to get through. 4.5 stars, will probably be 5 on the reread.

One of the Goodreads reviews on this book relates, simply, that the writer of the review had been on a cruise ship with the author prior to reading the book. When she DID read the book, she regretted that she didn't "do some kind of small violence to his person" while on the cruise with him.In many ways, that sums up my take beautifully. This was the most interesting book I've ever despised. Certainly, I have a brain not suited to the exigencies of science. But when he wasn't losing me in a web

Written a few years prior to The God Delusion, this book serves as a useful bridge for anyone familiar with Dawkins's atheist output but unfamiliar with his more scientific titles. His critics often like to portray him as arrogant, hectoring (or that other old chestnut: 'shrill') and overly absorbed with the cold clinical application of the scientific method. Well he may not be cuddly, and I may not agree with his approach to everything, but for the most part I find him genial, honorable and goo...

Dawkins begins by bemoaning the fact that "poets, too many of them and for too long, have overlooked the goldmine of inspiration offered by science." I recently judged a poetry contest based on a science theme. The poems were a pleasure to read because I rarely see such a theme. Some lawyers prefer jurors who are clueless about DNA. Defense lawyers want to get their clients off, and prosecutors want to convict someone. Such a shame. Especially when you consider how flawed human visual identifica...

As a person unlearned--well, okay, let's be honest, frankly ignorant--in science, I enjoyed this wide-ranging book. Dawkins largely achieves his aim: to show that an understanding of the science of phenomena can create a sense of wonder equal to mythic or poetic metaphor, with a concomitant gain in understanding and an increased desire to know still more and to look askance at delusions that are unsupportable in light of what we know and continue to learn. Not every chapter is strong. The part o...

Dawkins makes a strong case for those of us who believe that scientific literacy not only does not have to come at the price of aesthetic appreciation, but can actually enhance it. Put another way, good science inspires good poetry. The sense of wonder we feel when watching the sun set should if anything be enhanced if we are aware of the physics of light reaching our retina, the 93 million miles the light had to travel to reach us, the ability of the light to at times be refracted into a rainbo...

A weak book from Dawkins. Regardless of his ideas being right or wrong, he is a bad writer, and here he is worse than ever. He stumbles from the banal to the sublime, to the complex to the simple, to the popular to the academic without even noticing that. One page you are reading a very important theory and in the next paragraph he goes on telling you about a trivial thing that has happened to him the day before. Sometimes pages and pages are spent trying to explain something not important, and

Admittedly, I didn't finish this book- which is why I didn't rate it. But the thesis that science doesn't diminish the beauty of the world is so obvious to me that it no longer felt valuable to read the second half of a book mostly of Dawkins congratulating himself for how smart he is. I did enjoy the actual description of how the rainbow works though. It's pretty rare for me to quit a book this far through though, so that's not a great sign.

I would love to praise Unweaving the Rainbow Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder as a layman's introduction to the wonders of science. The premise of the book is that the scientific view is not the bleak and cold perspective that it has a reputation for. In support of this, the book is chock full of little tidbits that demonstrate the beauty, the elegance, the chaos and the awe-inspiring complexity of the world around us. Dawkins endeavors to make science real to us, to seduce us with...

Hmph. This one has me all over the place in terms of how much I was liking it at any particular juncture. The final chapter is a solid 5 star essay on its own, an ode to the depth of the human brain, the (probably uniquely human) use of language, metaphor and representational graphics to advance our species' knowledge and create durable memes. My wording, not Dawkins'. At times I forgot myself and thought I was reading Stephen Pinker. If you start reading this book and find yourself bored or irr...

Hmmm, I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand I agree with him wholeheartedly that science and a scientific understanding of natural phenomena is a source of wonder. BUT, I think Dawkins throws the baby out with the bath water to a certain extent. To think of the rainbow in terms of water drops and light waves evokes one sort of beauty. But to think of the rainbow in terms of mythology, as something mysteriously wonderful, evokes quite another, one that is infinitely more suited to...

3.5/5 "The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that makes life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living it is finite."Sometime ago, I liked a book by Dawkins wrote for children - The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really...

Initially this was slightly infuriating. Though Dawkins does make a lot of sense, though I agree with a lot of his views and respect his scientific expertise, though this book does address a very interesting subject (the criticism of science by non-scientists that the detailed logical breakdown of how/why everything works is robbing the world and life of the mystery and magic), at times I felt that the author himself fell in to the trap he was criticising. So I had no problem with what Dawkins w...

The first 6 chapters of this book were great. Classic Dawkins in that he knows how to write to keep a reader engaged and motivated to learn. Chapters 7-11 however were a bit of a slog for me. He delved a bit deeper into biology and evolution, which is great, but I had a hard time staying engaged. Chapter 12 was the last chapter, and brought it all back together, and ended it off with some great poetry by John Keats.Overall, not a terrible book. He talks about the symbiotic relationship that shou...

In this mindblowing science-based philosophical text, Dawkins invites the reader to see wonder in a world which, though often counter-intuitive and surprising, invites deep understanding.Though Dawkins is a skilled scientist, this text shows that he is equally impressive as a philosopher. In his case, science and philosophy are closely linked-- before beginning this text, I described my anticipation at reading "this Athiestic firecracker of a mind", and my hopes were not disappointed. Dawkins sk...

Another fantastic collection of essays.

This is a book of mostly opinions and perspectives, although there is a great deal of science to be learned. Dawkins' opinions and perspectives as well as his speculations are certainly well-informed and, as so many have said, he is a wonderful writer. It's a treat to read what he writes, even if you don't understand it. Dawkins addresses many of the metaphors that science writers use and how they are often used correctly and incorrectly to conceptualize and explain scientific ideas. My preferen...

This month, while in a Twitter hiatus, I managed to get around to reading a book. Yes, a real book, with paper and pages and a cardboard cover! The book I chose to read is by Dr Richard Dawkins, and this is one that is overlooked in terms of its importance and place in society, having been overshadowed by his more groundbreaking and most famous publications such as “The Blind Watchmaker”, “The Selfish Gene” and of course “The God Delusion.”“Unweaving the Rainbow” was originally published in 1998...