Astronomer Martin Rees reacts to Suzan Mazur’s Darwin Overthrown

With characteristic boldness, Suzan Mazur showed astronomy icon Martin Rees a copy of her book Darwin Overthrown: Hello Mechanobiology, a move that—with participants other than Mazur and Rees—might have resulted in a trip past the recycle bins on the way out. And not for Rees. So what happened?

“Heresy!” Lord Martin Rees, UK’s Astronomer Royal, exclaimed—though seemingly tongue-in-cheek—when I handed him a copy of Darwin Overthrown: Hello Mechanobiology prior to his May Day Simons Foundation lecture in New York: “Physics in Real and Counterfactual Universes.” Suzan Mazur, “Martin Rees on Darwin Overthrown, Our Flat Universe, and Post-Humans” at Oscillations

Martin Rees

Hey, “tongue-in-cheek” it had better be if Rees’s own lecture is about physics in real—and counterfactual—universes…