Sadly Irritating!

In this substantial work, David Christian endeavours to present no less than the history of the Universe, from the Big Bang to the 21st century and to conclude with various scenarios for its close and distant future.
The first two thirds of the book are unswervingly fascinating by smartly integrating scientific knowledge from a variety of disciplines that are generally kept apart: cosmology, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.
When the timeline reaches the industrial era, however, a strong negative bias is palpable and reasoning at times ceases to be coherent. The author insists for instance that the huge increase in population over the past centuries is the cause of the current technology race and of what he sees as an enormous energy drain on fossil fuels that accumulated over millennia. Of course, the increase in world population results from technological and medical improvements and not the reverse!
Many other elements must be pointed out as irritating:
• the author repeatedly states that there is no need for God in the Creation Story he presents but attempts no explanation for what he himself describes as the very highly improbable sequence of events that led to the flourishing of intelligent life on Earth;
• the author appears obsessed with current climate change whereas it is clear from his own presentation that it has shifted tremendously over the past 4 billion years!
• when discussing the future of mankind, no reference is made to artificial intelligence and the positive and negative impacts it may have;
• the text could have been better edited to avoid the multiple repetition of formulaic expressions such as “Goldilocks’ conditions”.
Consequently, it appears difficult to wholeheartedly recommend this work to anyone.
In fact, a much more satisfying offer on basically the same topic is Robert Hazen’s “Story of Earth”.

Merci. Votre vote a été pris en compte.

Vous avez donné votre avis sur cette évaluation !