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Kirk's Reviews > A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
by Bill Bryson
Bryson certainly succeeds in producing a layman's version of a wealth of scientific knowledge, often bringing a dark humor remniscient of Catch 22 to the fold. The book drags a bit during the chapters on the micro scale of life and science: atoms, cells, particles, etc., but overall I found myself anticipating each coming chapter. Throughout the book I was waiting for Bryson to acknowledge what role human beings have in the intricate, universal system he lays out, and, in the last chapter, he addresses it. He says that if you were going to pick one group to watch over and appreciate everything in the universe, we're the worst possible candidates for the task. I heartily agree, and come away from A Short History... further convinced of the need for humanity to be on its way out. We are not needed here, nor anywhere, for that matter.
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Nick
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rated it 5 stars
Aug 06, 2010 01:56pm
awesome.
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PLEASE READ* Do you remember when he talked about stromatolites-the ancient rock structure dated from 3.5 billion years ago, made from cynobacteria-blue/green algae. He says the scientist agree that these were the first origins of life. My question is how do scientist know that the rock is the object that is 3.5 billion yrs old and not the organisms? Because the organisms could just have appeared when man first appeared.(Adam and Eve)
I've paused my Jimmy Smith album to ponder your comment and offer the following unresearched guess: by comparing other rocks of a similar age. And by man "appearing," I don't follow the logic there. Do you mean the first lifeform, which, through a long chain of evolution, became man as we know him today? Or is this a pro-Creation argument? If it's the latter, consider my involvement in this conversation over.
No not the latter at all. It just that with evolution there are gaps, from the transitional phase from fish to amphibian-the syapsid from which the humans derived. In the book Bryson says, scientist dont know what was the first land animal. There was one fish/ampibian that was a candidate(tikktak) but there is great debate. What do you think?
I'm really not sure. It's been a few years since I read Bryson; and, honestly, the book appealed to me because of my weak scientific knowledge. I went into it with a rather blank scientific mind. You certainly raise an interesting question about the evolutionary chain, one to which I'd love to some day know the answer. Bryson will have to update the book within the next decade, for the Higgs Boson and other reasons.
