What Richard Dawkins could learn from Goldilocks and the Three Bears

an article by Meg Rosoff published in the Guardian

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. One day, while strolling about in a dark wood, she happened upon a charming cottage. Actually it was more of a filthy den dug deep in the earth. Goldilocks knocked, but when no one answered, she crawled down into the den.

On the table in the den, she found three bowls of porridge.

No she didn’t. Bears don’t have the fine motor skills to build tables, nor can they cook. And they don’t like porridge. What Goldilocks actually found was the rotting remains of three dead rabbits.

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Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, agrees. He announced a few years ago that most fairytales do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. “There’s a very interesting reason why a princess could not turn into a frog,” he said. “It’s statistically too improbable.”

Fairytales are dangerous, Dawkins believes. Parents “should be fostering in children a spirit of scepticism instead of filling their heads with fantasy”. Children’s imaginations are dangerous.

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Beauty and the Beast: ‘Without stories we are trapped in a static version of ourselves.’ Photograph: AP

One of the best ways to start answering questions such as “who am I?” and “what can I do in the world?” is to read books.

I would say that. I’m a writer. But in my lifetime I’ve lived thousands of lives. I’ve lived on other continents and other planets, been a champion runner, a neurosurgeon, a standup comedian. I’ve survived Auschwitz and a plane crash in the Andes, fought with the East India Company in the 1857 uprising. I’ve bombed Ferrara, crossed the Pacific on a raft, advised Henry VIII not to marry again. I’ve lived inside the head of a man, a horse, a vampire, a gentle Neanderthal. I know what it feels like to be different, to be on the wrong side of history, to be someone other than a middle-class, middle-aged suburban-born American writer who now lives a somewhat ordinary life in London.

Continue reading because by this point I think I may have copied more than enough to break copyright law! H

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