Books Do Furnish A Life

Title: Books Do Furnish A Life – Reading and Writing Science

Author: Richard Dawkins

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9781787633698

Pages: 452

 

Today’s world watches with increasing concern the tussle between science and superstition on the ideological front. The exact sciences like physics, chemistry and astronomy have virtually vanquished their opponents with razor-sharp mathematical predictions and other tangible devices people can feel with their own hands. There is no device in all the lore of humanity that can even remotely be compared with the mobile phone in your pocket. NASA predicts a total solar eclipse in Mexico on Apr 8, 2024 beginning at 18:18 UTC and lasting 4 min 28 sec. Can any traditional astrologer match the precision of this prediction? But the biological sciences obviously don’t enjoy this privilege in equal measure. There are people who challenge the advisability of adopting cutting edge medical technology in favour of traditional medicinal practices or unproven alternatives like homeopathy. However, biology finds greatest resistance when evolution is presented as the most viable explanation of the origin and transmutation of species. Creation and Intelligent Design are the two alternatives put forward by the believers in order to accommodate the divine element somewhere in the grand scheme of things, especially after the collapse of flat earth or earth-centric solar system hypotheses. Scientists thus have a paramount duty to explain their subject and make it as simple as possible, but not simpler, as Einstein insisted. This is especially important as 45 per cent of Americans are reported to believe that all species originated through intelligent design less than 10,000 years ago. In this volume, Richard Dawkins summarises his vast experience in popularizing science through own books and reviews, forewords and afterword written for others’ books. It also includes informative discussions he had with doyens of science.

 

There is no original material in this book as it consists of articles published as early as the late-1980s. In spite of this, none of it appears dated or irrelevant. Dawkins’ arguments against creationism and intelligent design are as sharp as ever. A glaring chink in the armour of Design-advocates is the laryngeal nerve in mammals, especially the giraffe. In the case of lower animals in the evolutionary pyramid, this nerve started from the brain, went past the heart and reached the larynx which was nearby. As the neck became longer through evolution, this nerve was caught on the wrong side of the heart. In man, the distance between brain and larynx is hardly 10 cm, but the nerve comes down from the brain, takes a detour around the heart and goes up again to the larynx. In the case of a giraffe, the length of this nerve is around 15 feet whereas a good designer could have made it within one foot by redesigning. So, Dawkins concludes that the design is not that intelligent, unfit to be the handiwork of an omnipotent divine being.

 

Religion thrives on the innate urge of people to find a purpose to their lives. It is perfectly okay to feel disappointed when you first learn that there is not much purpose to it, as nature has decreed. On closer look, what purpose could there be, other than those equally regulating an animal’s life? Science denies any pre-ordained purpose to life, but Dawkins warns that this should not be treated as a spoilsport. There is reason for everything and understanding it is a part of the pure delight that science gifts to us. While on the topic, he also describes how even reputed scientists can go totally wrong sometimes. When Darwin first published his theory of evolution, it proposed a very long timeframe to sculpt the various life forms. However, the accepted consensus at that time was that the earth, and even the solar system, was only a few thousands of years old. The great physicist Lord Kelvin countered the Darwinian claim with the outrageous contention that assigning an age of millions of years to the earth does not tally with physical principles. Having only the arsenal of thermodynamics with them, the physicists thought that sun’s energy output is caused by burning of a fuel such as coal and the sun’s size constrained it to an age of a few thousands of years. Clearly, the physicists were in serious error of the most fundamental kind here. Though their calculations of the rate of coal burning and estimation of the time required for exhausting a mound of fuel the size of sun was mathematically correct, the energy output from a star followed a brand new approach unknown to nineteenth century physics. The concept of nuclear fusion, which is the secret of sun’s energy, was developed only half a century later, but Kelvin did not live long enough to see his ridiculous arguments upended.

 

Apart from evolutionary biology, of which the author is a master, the book contains some essays on rationalism and scepticism. A talk with the legendary Christopher Hitchens is included which is a leading light for science enthusiasts of all time. The book is divided into many sections, and the part titled ‘Supporting Scepticism’ is the most interesting. Dawkins also gives a tantalizing hint about the title of his next book. He had planned the title of his previous book as ‘Evolution, the Greatest Show on Earth, the Only Game in Town’. Perhaps ‘The Only Game in Town’ is what it is going to be.

 

As with other books from the same author, all articles carry the same incisive flare in exposing superstition or pseudoscience. It is also good for readers to find and read those books for which Dawkins had written testimonials which are reproduced in this book. The book takes the readers along with it in a lucid exposition of the ideas at stake which is delightful and at the same time enlightening too.

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star