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An Appetite For Wonder: The Making Of A Scientist (2013)

by Richard Dawkins(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Ecco

review 1: I listened to this audio on the way to Iowa and back. It passed the time quite well since it covered so much - psychology (like any good memoir - reflections on childhood and growing up), science, the life of a student in British school, family history, and all with a lovely sense of humor and insightful reflections. Richard "practically born with a pith helmet on my head" Dawkins turns out to be far more interested in theoretical biology than in running around outside. His love of reading, science, and fond (& sometimes not so fond) recollections of schoolboy days are all on charming display. So many ideas stood out to me and I'm sure will stick with me. One example: Dawkins says that linguistic evolution is a good enough metaphor for biological evolution to be both illum... moreinating and confusing. He compares the separation of species (based on the inability to produce offspring) to the separation of languages - not with the obvious choice but rather with the moment when a speaker of one attempts to speak other and it is considered a compliment rather than an insult.Very much looking forward to the second installment of this memoir.
review 2: Strong first half. His memoirs matched with those of his family's make a human and humane retrospective in this pleasant amble through the last days of colonial empire as he critiques current educational practices that align with the best of his Oxford-style learning. At once he speaks out for more argument and critical thinking and less assessment-based instruction while he is the model for the opposite. He speaks against his own ill-disciplined efforts at music while he had strong innate talents. At the same time he speaks ill of the lack of intellectual freedom among today's schools. He seems to endorse following one's muse while critiquing his own tendency for the same. Oddly Hirsch, whose book i also just reread is in the opposite camp. Both men are brilliant minds looking down at how others struggle to learn, in the same way Michael Jordon might not understand how others can't play ball.A kind man who rather abandons the personality and personable tone in the first half to describe scientific tasks in the second. It was like cracking the door open to his life and then shutting the door instead. less

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