The poetry of scienceThe poetry of science

Just sitting around unweaving the mysteries of the unverse: John Cleese
and author Richard Dawkins chat it up in San Francisco
The San Francisco Examiner. November 22, 1998, Sunday

When comic actor John Cleese interviewed zoologist-cum-evolutionary

-biologist Richard Dawkins at the Herbst Theatre Wednesday, it seemed an
odd pairing. But Cleese, "Monty Python" alumnus and star of films such as
"A Fish Called Wanda," was originally trained as a scientist, and while
backstage he expressed the hope "to spend my remaining years, when I don't
have to get into dresses to earn money, following up questions like this."
Cleese is a friend of Dawkins and his actress wife, Lalla Ward (Ophelia in
the BBC's "Hamlet" and lovely assistant to the sci-fi hero Dr. Who), and
the interview evolved naturally out of their conversations, and took shape
when they discovered they'd both be in California this month.
As for Dawkins, author in 1976 of the revolutionary new gospel of
Darwinism "The Selfish Gene," this sort of thing is his job, literally. As
the newly endowed Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding
of Science at Oxford University, his job is to promote said understanding
"by writing my books, and by doing broadcasts and newspaper articles and
public lectures." He described his new book, "Unweaving the Rainbow," as a
sort of inaugural statement: "All my previous five books have been about
evolution, and this one is about science as a whole: the importance of
science, the poetry of science, the fact that science is inspiring, or
ought to be."
"Unweaving the Rainbow" is a love letter to science, an attempt to counter
the perception that science is cold and devoid of aesthetic sensibility, a
charge particularly leveled at Dawkins himself, whose "The Selfish Gene"
explains that a chicken is simply an egg's way of creating another egg, a
human being a gene's way of replicating itself. Some readers, Dawkins
writes in the preface, "have asked me how I can bear to get up in the
mornings."
"There has been a tendency among some poetic spirits to feel that
mysteries do lose their poetry when solved," Dawkins explained. "The title
comes from Keats, who was talking about Newton unweaving the rainbow and
thereby spoiling the poetry, which I think is nonsense. When you do
explain something, you usually uncover still greater mysteries, which are
even more beautiful. The unweaving of the rainbow eventually led to
spectroscopy, and spectroscopy is how we know what the stars are made of,
by detecting what chemical substances are in the stars. Looking at red
shift in the far distant parts of the universe shows us that the universe
is expanding; that shows us when the universe began, it shows how big the
universe is. A very great deal of what we now know about the universe has
come to us from unweaving the rainbow."
In a sense, Dawkins is the ideal PR man for science. Though his missionary
zeal can be off-putting to the religious and those with differing (that is
to say, wrong) views on scientific matters, Dawkins' writing is precisely
the sort that captures the drama of science. Rich with metaphor,

passionate arguments, wry humor, colorful examples, and unexpected

connections, Dawkins' prose can be mesmerizing. Cleese cited a passage in
which Dawkins wrote, regarding physics, "I find it disturbing, because I
cannot tell when I am reading generally accepted physics versus the
author's own theory or speculation", and noted that he felt the same way
reading Dawkins' book.
Wednesday's talk was chatty and informal, incorporating readings (by both
parties) from "Unweaving the Rainbow." The discussion was, in fact, much
like the one they would have over fruit cobbler after the event, though it
retained its scientific thread throughout. "If any of you have come along
hoping to ask questions about Monty Python or "Fawlty Towers,' " as Cleese
cautioned the crowd, "I'm going to ask Richard to answer them, from an
evolutionary standpoint."
Though Cleese played it straight, his easy wit elicited general laughter
for the smallest clever turns of phrase, his or Dawkins', even when they
weren't intended as funny. "Why do you people laugh at this serious
discussion?" Dawkins chided at one point. "They're hoping we're going to
have a real fight," replied Cleese.
Dawkins exudes an appropriately professorial air, that of someone who's
given each matter a great deal more thought than you have, but who will
toss the ideas around once more for your benefit. If he mentioned that a
room's wainscoting was rather nice, the observation would seem
incontrovertible. When he marveled onstage that Darwinism "explains
everything about life, and you have to postulate only one thing, which is
heredity," the listener could do little else but marvel with him.
Consequently, it was reassuring to hear him confess that there are things
that mystify him utterly, such as the existence of subjective
consciousness: "I don't even know what an explanation of it would look
like. I don't think we have even properly formulated in our minds the
nature of the question. I believe, if it can be answered at all, science
will answer it."
Backstage, he conceded that though all things can be explained, it's
possible that they can never be explained by us. "Brains function on a
need -to-know basis, and the need-to-know is what you need to know in
order to survive on the African plains as hunter-gathers. It's pure bonus
if we manage to understand a bit about relativity and quantum theory as
well. I think it's a tremendous privilege that we can understand as much
as we can."

John Catalano Site

headlines
site map
search
what's new?
newsletter
Dawkins
calendar
books
writings
media
quotes
videos
software
biography
bibliography

more pages
Features
Behe's box
C is for Creation
the Gould Files
book of month
the green room
Links
best & useful
'new?' central
science news
bookstores
biology
evolution
evo & creation
memetics
artificial life
other science
philosophy
art, music, +