Book Review
Dawkins, Richard. Illustrated by Dave McKean. (2011). The Magic of Reality: How We
Know What’s Really True. Free Press, New York. [ISBN 978-1-4391-9281-8]
REVIEW: THE MAGIC OF REALITY
When I read Richard Dawkins’ book, The Greatest Show on Earth, The
Evidence for Evolution (2009), I thought Dawkins lived up to his
reputation as an eminent scientist and writer. Therefore, when I saw
this book referred to in a blurb, I imagined it would be just as great.
I was mistaken. I could give The Greatest Show on Earth five stars,
but for The Magic of Reality, How We Know What’s Really True (2011), I
could give only three stars. Nonetheless, the book is a clever
production combining Dawkins’ scientific presentation and the adroit
illustrations by Dave McKean, an award-winning graphic artist. The
former book is an excellent scientific one that objectively makes a
strong case in support of the theory of evolution; the latter is a book
that is a collection of twelve modern-day questions in general science
and the author’s answers, probably written for some presentation in
mind, perhaps for his television show in the U.K. It is definitely a
book for U.K. consumption, for Dawkins takes examples from British life,
as in making references to cricketer, batsman, and bowler, with which
Americans are most likely unfamiliar. I found, moreover, his style to
be confrontational.
The twelve questions he raises are the following:
1. What is reality? What is magic?
2. Who was the first person?
3. Why are there so many different kinds of animals?
4. What are things made of?
5. Why do we have night and day, winter and summer?
6. What is the sun?
7. What is a rainbow?
8. When and how did everything begin?
9. Are we alone?
10. What is an earthquake?
11. Why do bad things happen?
12. What is a miracle?
Dawkins states these questions and in eleven of the twelve chapters
mentions the myths that persist or have persisted in various cultures,
shoots them down (because they need to be shot down), and follows that
with what the reality is, based on his and his staff’s scientific
understanding. In my reading I could not help but note his evident
disdain for religion. I weighed his view of myths and contrasted it
with that of Karen Armstrong as presented in her book, A Short History
of Myths (2005). Armstrong wrote in a respectful tone: “The history of
myth is the history of humanity, our stories and beliefs, our curiosity
and attempts to understand the world, link us to our ancestors and each
other. Myths help us make sense of the universe.” This is essentially
what Rudolf Bultmann meant when he wrote about the mythology of the
Bible.
There are creation stories in every culture. They are attempts by
people of ancient cultures to define where human beings came from. In
most cultures today, these ancient myths are relegated to the literature
of the past. They are no longer believed. Therefore, to assume that
such myths are still held today in those cultures is disservice.
Dawkins presents the creation myths and counters them with genetic
science. He then explains that the DNA tells us all of creation is
related, but over millions of years there were many branching in the
tree of life. He traced the branch of the branch of the branch of the
tree of life on how humans developed and evolved over millions of years.
Most people could accept this as reality, although of course there are
the fundamentalists who take the Bible literally and do not. They,
however, cannot explain from the Genesis account from where the wife of
Cain came.
I questioned Dawkins when he wrote: “One of the great virtues of
scientists is that scientists know when they don’t know the answer to
somethings. They cheerfully admit that they don’t know.” But that is
not reality, for so often we see pseudoscience paraded as science.
Creation science is an example. I can, however, agree that true
scientists are skeptics, who are always asking, “Is that true?”
In reading the book, I developed a personal beef with Dawkins, who, not
unlike quite a number of writers, use English pluralization of foreign
words; to wit, he used tsunamis. The word is Japanese, but the Japanese
people would never add an ‘s’ to tsunami to make the noun plural.
Nouns in Japanese are not pluralized as in English. They remain the
same for the singular and for the plural. Elsewhere he wrote, “data
is,” but ‘data’ is a plural noun. We correctly pluralize ‘alumnus’ as
‘alumni,’ and ‘alumna’ as ‘alumnae.’ We accept the Hebrew pluralization
of goy as goyim, and the pluralization of ‘criterion’ from the Greek as
‘criteria.’ So why do we not follow how tsunami is used in Japanese?
The last chapter is on the subject of miracle. This Dawkins explains
away. Here, of special interest to me, he highlighted the account in
the Gospel of John in which (Dawkins writes) “a wandering Jewish
preacher called Jesus was at a wedding where they ran out of wine. So
he called for some water and used miraculous powers to turn water into
wine - very good wine as the story goes on to tell us.” Dawkins
proceeded to list three possibilities of what happened, likening them to
cards.
1. There has been a supernatural miracle, perpetrated by some wizard
or witch or warlock or god with special powers, who violated the
laws of science in such a way as to change all the little hearts
and clubs and diamonds and spades on the cards, so that they were
perfectly positioned for the deal.
2. It is a remarkable coincidence. The shuffling just happened to
produce this particular perfect deal.
3. Somebody has performed a clever conjuring trick, perhaps
substituting a previously doctored pack of cards which he had
concealed up his sleeve, for the pack we all saw being shuffled
out in the open.
He, of course, said, “Each of the three possibilities may seem a bit
hard to believe. But Possibility 3 is by far the easiest to believe.”
He then calculated the odds mathematically, which of course were huge.
Reading his prose, I thought that he went through a whole lot of trouble
disproving how the event was unlikely.
A student of the Bible would, on the other hand, think about how events
became exaggerated in the Near Eastern culture of the time the Gospels
were written. The Gospel of John, the most mystical of the gospels, was
a later gospel probably written around 95 CE, many decades after the
death of Jesus. The entire gospel presents Jesus in superlative
language. We find exclusive claims in the more familiar passages, John
3:16 and John 14:6. In the latter the claim is that Jesus is ‘the only
way.’ The synoptic gospels do not make this claim. These words are in
reality words of the testimonies of followers of Jesus in the first
century based on their own experiences. They experienced salvation;
they saw themselves to be born again, and from the experience they could
say, “He is the way!” This is testimony!
I thought of this in a more modern sense. I can recall at the time I
was discharged from the Army, the major giving us our final instructions
saying, “Go. Tell your war stories.” And many of us have done so to
our grandchildren, emphasizing our own roles. Perhaps, when our
grandchildren were very young, in our telling they felt we were the ones
who single-handedly won the war. I know that in three battles we
underwent harrowing times, but the grandchildren selectively saw the
glamour, the hero that grandpa was. The nonfiction takes on a fictional
glow. The first century Christians experienced no differently.
So what is a miracle? Events may not be miracles, but they can be told
miraculously. I can after reading the book say, “It’s truly a miracle
that Dawkins can tell his stories as though every word is true.”
Review by Dr. Kazuyoshi Kawata, Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins
University. November 2011.
Know What’s Really True. Free Press, New York. [ISBN 978-1-4391-9281-8]
REVIEW: THE MAGIC OF REALITY
When I read Richard Dawkins’ book, The Greatest Show on Earth, The
Evidence for Evolution (2009), I thought Dawkins lived up to his
reputation as an eminent scientist and writer. Therefore, when I saw
this book referred to in a blurb, I imagined it would be just as great.
I was mistaken. I could give The Greatest Show on Earth five stars,
but for The Magic of Reality, How We Know What’s Really True (2011), I
could give only three stars. Nonetheless, the book is a clever
production combining Dawkins’ scientific presentation and the adroit
illustrations by Dave McKean, an award-winning graphic artist. The
former book is an excellent scientific one that objectively makes a
strong case in support of the theory of evolution; the latter is a book
that is a collection of twelve modern-day questions in general science
and the author’s answers, probably written for some presentation in
mind, perhaps for his television show in the U.K. It is definitely a
book for U.K. consumption, for Dawkins takes examples from British life,
as in making references to cricketer, batsman, and bowler, with which
Americans are most likely unfamiliar. I found, moreover, his style to
be confrontational.
The twelve questions he raises are the following:
1. What is reality? What is magic?
2. Who was the first person?
3. Why are there so many different kinds of animals?
4. What are things made of?
5. Why do we have night and day, winter and summer?
6. What is the sun?
7. What is a rainbow?
8. When and how did everything begin?
9. Are we alone?
10. What is an earthquake?
11. Why do bad things happen?
12. What is a miracle?
Dawkins states these questions and in eleven of the twelve chapters
mentions the myths that persist or have persisted in various cultures,
shoots them down (because they need to be shot down), and follows that
with what the reality is, based on his and his staff’s scientific
understanding. In my reading I could not help but note his evident
disdain for religion. I weighed his view of myths and contrasted it
with that of Karen Armstrong as presented in her book, A Short History
of Myths (2005). Armstrong wrote in a respectful tone: “The history of
myth is the history of humanity, our stories and beliefs, our curiosity
and attempts to understand the world, link us to our ancestors and each
other. Myths help us make sense of the universe.” This is essentially
what Rudolf Bultmann meant when he wrote about the mythology of the
Bible.
There are creation stories in every culture. They are attempts by
people of ancient cultures to define where human beings came from. In
most cultures today, these ancient myths are relegated to the literature
of the past. They are no longer believed. Therefore, to assume that
such myths are still held today in those cultures is disservice.
Dawkins presents the creation myths and counters them with genetic
science. He then explains that the DNA tells us all of creation is
related, but over millions of years there were many branching in the
tree of life. He traced the branch of the branch of the branch of the
tree of life on how humans developed and evolved over millions of years.
Most people could accept this as reality, although of course there are
the fundamentalists who take the Bible literally and do not. They,
however, cannot explain from the Genesis account from where the wife of
Cain came.
I questioned Dawkins when he wrote: “One of the great virtues of
scientists is that scientists know when they don’t know the answer to
somethings. They cheerfully admit that they don’t know.” But that is
not reality, for so often we see pseudoscience paraded as science.
Creation science is an example. I can, however, agree that true
scientists are skeptics, who are always asking, “Is that true?”
In reading the book, I developed a personal beef with Dawkins, who, not
unlike quite a number of writers, use English pluralization of foreign
words; to wit, he used tsunamis. The word is Japanese, but the Japanese
people would never add an ‘s’ to tsunami to make the noun plural.
Nouns in Japanese are not pluralized as in English. They remain the
same for the singular and for the plural. Elsewhere he wrote, “data
is,” but ‘data’ is a plural noun. We correctly pluralize ‘alumnus’ as
‘alumni,’ and ‘alumna’ as ‘alumnae.’ We accept the Hebrew pluralization
of goy as goyim, and the pluralization of ‘criterion’ from the Greek as
‘criteria.’ So why do we not follow how tsunami is used in Japanese?
The last chapter is on the subject of miracle. This Dawkins explains
away. Here, of special interest to me, he highlighted the account in
the Gospel of John in which (Dawkins writes) “a wandering Jewish
preacher called Jesus was at a wedding where they ran out of wine. So
he called for some water and used miraculous powers to turn water into
wine - very good wine as the story goes on to tell us.” Dawkins
proceeded to list three possibilities of what happened, likening them to
cards.
1. There has been a supernatural miracle, perpetrated by some wizard
or witch or warlock or god with special powers, who violated the
laws of science in such a way as to change all the little hearts
and clubs and diamonds and spades on the cards, so that they were
perfectly positioned for the deal.
2. It is a remarkable coincidence. The shuffling just happened to
produce this particular perfect deal.
3. Somebody has performed a clever conjuring trick, perhaps
substituting a previously doctored pack of cards which he had
concealed up his sleeve, for the pack we all saw being shuffled
out in the open.
He, of course, said, “Each of the three possibilities may seem a bit
hard to believe. But Possibility 3 is by far the easiest to believe.”
He then calculated the odds mathematically, which of course were huge.
Reading his prose, I thought that he went through a whole lot of trouble
disproving how the event was unlikely.
A student of the Bible would, on the other hand, think about how events
became exaggerated in the Near Eastern culture of the time the Gospels
were written. The Gospel of John, the most mystical of the gospels, was
a later gospel probably written around 95 CE, many decades after the
death of Jesus. The entire gospel presents Jesus in superlative
language. We find exclusive claims in the more familiar passages, John
3:16 and John 14:6. In the latter the claim is that Jesus is ‘the only
way.’ The synoptic gospels do not make this claim. These words are in
reality words of the testimonies of followers of Jesus in the first
century based on their own experiences. They experienced salvation;
they saw themselves to be born again, and from the experience they could
say, “He is the way!” This is testimony!
I thought of this in a more modern sense. I can recall at the time I
was discharged from the Army, the major giving us our final instructions
saying, “Go. Tell your war stories.” And many of us have done so to
our grandchildren, emphasizing our own roles. Perhaps, when our
grandchildren were very young, in our telling they felt we were the ones
who single-handedly won the war. I know that in three battles we
underwent harrowing times, but the grandchildren selectively saw the
glamour, the hero that grandpa was. The nonfiction takes on a fictional
glow. The first century Christians experienced no differently.
So what is a miracle? Events may not be miracles, but they can be told
miraculously. I can after reading the book say, “It’s truly a miracle
that Dawkins can tell his stories as though every word is true.”
Review by Dr. Kazuyoshi Kawata, Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins
University. November 2011.
