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Title details for A Series of Fortunate Events by Sean B. Carroll - Available

A Series of Fortunate Events

Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You

by Sean B. Carroll
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available

"Fascinating and exhilarating—Sean B. Carroll at his very best."—Bill Bryson, author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants
From acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the world
Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.
Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things—any of which might never have occurred—had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible accidents in our parents' gonads, we are all here through an astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life and death.
This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by one of today's most accomplished science storytellers, A Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 6, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780691209548

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780691209548
      • File size: 19721 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from July 15, 2020
      The award-winning science writer offers evidence that pure chance governs life. "Look at...all the beauty, complexity, and variety of life," writes Carroll. "We live in a world of mistakes, governed by chance." Near the beginning, the author looks at the asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago, throwing up so much debris that it blocked the sun, cooling the planet for decades and exterminating most species, including the dinosaurs. Within a few hundred thousand years, the survivors, including mammals, flourished and evolved into many families, including primates and then humans. Such a collision is extremely rare, but humans wouldn't exist without it. Carroll then offers an expert summary of evolution, a process heavily influenced by geological processes and climate changes that have fluctuated wildly over the past 1 million years, during which our species appeared and grew its large brain. Darwin explained evolution as a series of random variations in offspring that persist if they increase an organism's reproductive fitness and, over time, spread throughout the species. His work teems with evidence, but scientists found much to quarrel with. Nearly a century passed before discoveries in genetics (the dazzling if clunky mechanism through which variations are passed on) and details of DNA (the engine of genetic changes, itself an ad hoc collection of chemicals) convinced the scientific community. Readers will learn numerous fascinating tales, such as a failed effort to produce a human-chimpanzee hybrid (a "humanzee"), how the ancestors of wooly mammoths from tropical Africa learned to live in the Arctic, and how the AIDS virus jumped from chimps to humans. An amusing coda featuring an invented conversation between dead geniuses and living comedians reinforces the necessity of science even when millions eschew it in favor of a belief that things happen for a reason. Ricky Gervais: "[Science] doesn't hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn't get a shot of penicillin, you'd pop a leach down your trousers and pray." A short, sweet, and scientifically solid view of life.

      COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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