The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch

The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch
Terry Pratchet, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
Ebury Press 2005 ISBN 00918 982 34

When I was thinking about writing this I came across http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/intelligent_des_2.html, which as you can see is all about the issue of intelligent design. This is one of the topics covered in the book. I have to say the comments in the blog really do fit my own views, except that I come from the other side of the argument. Now I wasn’t looking for this, I just ‘stumbled across it’, and it’s a really nice way into what I want to say. The book starts out with a zeal for its message that the religious fundamentalists would understand. Why do we have to read through all this anti-religious ‘preaching’ about evolution? The authors clearly have strongly held views, and have not considered adequately either the effect on the reader, or that many of the scientists have a strong religious faith of their own. Throughout the rest of the book there is a story of the discworld Wizards acting as God in the roundworld, to alter the timeline, so that Darwin writes “The Origin of the Species”. It’s a nice story, but again somewhat overplayed. If the probability of Darwin actually writing this book is so low, why did it happen?

So what are we left with? Well there’s some interesting ‘science’. Not the sort of science where a prediction is made and then tested, revised, tested, and so on. This is the sort of ‘science’, which is mainly ‘mathematical models’. Entirely theory, and not able to be validated by observation. This it seems is where all ‘science’ leads. Perhaps we’ve gone far enough with pure ‘science’, and our future is in technology – the exploitation of our understanding, to make our lives more bearable, but I’ll get accused of preaching if I go on.

Unless you’re a REAL fan – don’t bother.