Bill Bryson
A delightful trek through the development of the world we live on. A broad and deep look at science from a non scientists point of view.
Great book, full of quirky facts and great ideas both. Good summary of most basic science, although just a summary. More a narrative encompassing as many aspects of the world as Bryson can then any sort of definitive text.
The follies of scientists and thinkers are well documented in the book, Bryson serenely utilizes his cheeky wit pointing out easily as many odd and disturbing facts as he does compellingly amazing ones. The book ends on a somber note, in chapter thirty, titled “Goodbye” 469. Bryson details the extinction of the Dodo, then the extinction of the thousands of other organisms for which humans are to blame, and then he points out that we don’t know in the slightest the scale to which we’ve desecrated the world (and I believe that the consensus is that we surely have).
Yet we are quite possibly the only ones who have the power to care for the earth, but for earth itself. And the earth is a bigger and more different place then we humans lead ourselves to believe. We aren’t the pinnacle of earth’s millions of species, we don’t live in her ultimate environment or culture. We’ve existed only for a pinprick in the miles that make up the history of earth. I don’t think we matter at all to earth.
In the book, Bryson can’t get over how little we really know. Humans have accomplished quite a marvelous amount in our time, but when you look at it from a larger point of view (at least the greatest point of view we humans are able to fathom, which recursively raises the same issue) we know very little. We understand little about the world around us, and little about ourselves. We don’t know how we got here, how we work, or what we should work for.
And the frightening thing is how much power we have. Willy nilly, here and there, we can go anywhere and do anything. In advance, we don’t often know what will come of the things we choose to do. For all we know we will all suffer from some self inflicted catastrophe tomorrow, leading to nothing less then our extinction.
The most discouraging thing is that no matter how much good we achieve, we do markedly more bad. Even worse, in the progress of doing good, we unknowingly do irreparable harm. I would hope to be able to say that that half of us are overall good, and half overall bad, but it’s probably more like ten percent good, eighty percent ignorant, and ten percent bad. When you figure in the probability that the ignorant do more bad then good out of pure blunder, that makes the net effect of humanity negative.
I don’t want to seem a pessimist, I’ve always considered myself the opposite. It’s not that what I’ve just thought isn’t true. It is, at least to some degree. But what is there that I, or anyone for that matter can do about it? Everyone can make a difference, but who is to say whether that difference they make is for better or worse? I’ve always wondered if it was even possible to know what is or isn’t good for you. Or your family, community, the world at large. Are we really as smart as we think?
What keeps us, at this point, from doing what we want with the earth? Nothing but the eventual fact that the odds are immeasurably in earth’s favor that we will be completely and utterly obliviated by whatever force of nature we decide to bring against ourselves.
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