Knowing of Richard Dawkins and knowing his work are different things. To close this gap, I started reading his book Unweaving the Rainbow. Much of it so far, I’m only just beginning chapter three, is an arrogant defense of science. He builds straw-men and knocks them down, but that is for another time. What’s interesting now is this passage:
It is possible to enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. In fact, you can learn to be an expert connoisseur of music without being able to play a note on any instrument. Of course, music would come to a halt if nobody ever learned to play it. But if everybody grew up thinking that music was synonymous with playing it, think how relatively impoverished many lives would be. Couldn’t we learn to think of science in the same way?
Dawkins argues in the book that people don’t have an appreciation of science, which I support. He posits that the education system’s reliance on scientific experiments rather than the language of science is to blame. He suggests that people focus on reading great books of science and forget “playing science” via experiments. He argues that this will teach science better and cause more appreciation. This doesn’t require experiments, but it would require good books and engaging teachers. This makes sense to me. To start, one could do much worse than Bill Bryson’s The Body.
P. S. I went to Unsplash for a picture for this post. I searched for “science book.” It didn’t produce much of what I wanted it, but did provide a lot of pictures of The Bible. Dawkins would be proud.
