A while back, Young, who is a physicist by training, wrote a
lyrical book celebrating earth's charms called The Blue Planet; the
title was based on the then-new and spectacular images of Earth
seen from space. In this volume the physicist has turned
philosopher; the writing is less lyrical and more doctrinaire.
Young turns out to be a staunch supporter of James Lovelock's
"Gaia" hypothesis. Lovelock is a British scientist who in 1979
published the theory that the earth is a gigantic living system in
which atmosphere, oceans, and soil interact in a self-regulating
system to support and maintain life. The movement is toward order
and against entropy; from the simple to the complex. Such a view
need not impose a deity's directing hand, but does invoke a
creative directing hand of nature, one that sees a connectedness of
everything to everything that Young herself sums up in Francis
Thompson's lines: "Thou canst not stir a flower/Without troubling
of a star." The evidence for such a view tends to lie in the
selective eye and interpretation of the beholder. Thus Young
rhapsodizes about snorkeling off coral reefs to see the vast cities
of coral animals, the symbioses of predator fish and their cleaner
shellfish. She describes the hypotheses concerning the first
nucleated cells, composed, as some believe, of cooperating
organisms (e.g., mitochondria may originally have been bacteria).
Many biologists agree with some of these ideas; many have reasoned
on the advantages, from an evolutionary standpoint, of sexual
reproduction rather than fission, of cooperation and communication
in higher organisms rather than isolation and competition. However,
to state such ideas does not imply that some organic earth force is
at work, It took eons for the first self-replicating units to form;
more eons before multicellular organisms came into existence. Those
who see an inevitable gain in order and complexity ignore the
prodigal waste of nature, the devastating effects of climate and
catastrophe; the extinction of many species and the dead-end of
others (where are sharks headed?). It may offer comfort to some to
see on earth a grand defiance, or even a suborning of the second
law of thermodynamics to life's purposes, as Young suggests. But
for many, the wonder of nature lies in the unexpected and the
unknown - the surprise that awaits and not the movement toward the
universal mind, which Young sees as the finishing touch to the
unfinished universe. (Kirkus Reviews)
From the dawn of humankind, men and women have looked at change--as wrought by weather, the seasons, and, most strikingly, the inexorable advance of time--as something essentially to be feared. And partially from this fear the great religions and mythologies have arisen, systems which gave meaning to the ever-changing world, and, quite often, immortality to ourselves. By the late nineteenth century, the quest for ultimate meanings became largely the province of science, and today, change still figures (on the surface, at least) as a malevolent force: most of the cosmological theories formulated in recent years predict the ultimate extinction of the world by universal entropy.
Bringing together the evidence and insights of biology and physics, of astronomy and cosmology, Louise Young offers a profoundly original and stirring vision of order, form, change, and the creative forces in the universe. Opposing the long-held beliefs of many scientists that the universe is running down and will eventually collapse upon itself, Young eloquently argues that the tendency toward increasing entropy is merely one aspect of a single process that is creating more complex, highly organized, and more efficient forms of matter all the time, and at every level--from the microscopic to the stellar.
In vivid, compelling prose, Louise Young--an award-winning writer on science and a former physicist--takes us on an unforgettable tour of the world around us, showing how even the most ordinary aspects of life and the universe display a strangely beautiful symmetry. She clearly demonstrates that creation was not simply some big-bang eons ago, but rather is an ongoing process, one in which we are both witnesses and participants. Illustrating her findings with many remarkable photographs and fascinating examples ranging from geology to animal behavior, and from oceanography to genetics, Young gracefully canvasses the themes of growth, change creativity, and the mystery of the universe in a book that is as much poetry as it is science.
Based on solid scientific knowledge, yet informed by a refreshingly philosophical sensibility, The Unfinished Universe is a book that will inspire anyone who has ever questioned their place and purpose in a world filled with uncertainty and change.
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