In his book Unweaving the Rainbow, Richard Dawkins challenges the idea that a scientific understanding of natural phenomena somehow lessens their beauty and the sense of awe that they inspire, and instead argues that the exact opposite is true. The title is from a quotation by Keats, who said, maybe in jest, that Newton had destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by 'reducing it to the prismatic colours'. (Incidentally Unweaving the Rainboom was my working title for

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