Book Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

 

 



This book is not a history of nearly everything (ie. political history) but is really a history of science and all the discoveries that have been made in both the physical and biological sciences.  Apparently the author was dissatisfied with his level of scientific knowledge (he had very little) and set out to write a book for a non-scientific audience.  I felt that he succeeded.  I enjoyed reading the book and found it quite comprehensible and entertaining, most of the time.  In fact, my husband who is a physicist with a doctorate degree, read it some years ago and also found it quite interesting and wants to read it again.  Because of the breadth of this book, I'm certain everyone could learn something from this book, no matter what their training.  One thing I liked was reading about the lives of the early scientists.  They were a quirky bunch and Mr. Bryson really made their stories come to life.  He writes very well.

As you can imagine from the title, this is a book that takes a long time to read.  It has nearly 600 pages although the illustrated version has some really nice full-page pictures (so those pages go quickly!).  However, the writing is dense.  I consider myself to be a quick reader largely because I'm good at skimming, but this writing was not skimmable.  In order to understand the scientific concepts, I had to read every word.  And I don't regret that.  It took me several months to finish the book, mostly because I kept stopping to read other books.  But I was determined to finish and I'm glad I did.  I feel much more scientifically literate as a result.

I can't possibly give an overview of the whole book but here are the ideas that I think I will remember:

1.  The earth we live on is an amazing place.  The magnetic forces, the atmosphere, the molten inner core all profoundly impact the quality of our lives on earth.  We are not only in the right place in our solar system but we have the right kind of star powering it, one that is not too big and not too small.  The Earth would have been uninhabitable if we were 5 percent nearer or 15 percent further.  In addition, the molten core of our earth makes it possible for us to be here for various reasons.  The moon is also a crucial influence, steadying our orbit.  We have the right amount of the proper elements.  And it goes on and on.

2. The living world around us, including the human body, is incredibly complex.  DNA is amazing in the way it creates copies of itself.  Cellular activity is mind-boggling.  I can't even begin to describe all the biological processes that are constantly going on within our bodies.  And I'm not going to forgot the greatly-enlarged picture of the dust mite that lives off scales of human skin.  Ugh!

3.  There is a LOT that scientists don't know.  I could be mistaken but it seemed as if this were especially true in the biological sciences.  I felt sometimes that the book was telling me more things that scientists DON'T know, than things that they DO know.  If anyone thinks that the verdict is settled on much of anything, they would be mistaken.

4.  "Man is nothing..." (Moses 1:10)  As Mr. Bryson points out, in the history of the world, the history of humans is a blip in the relative time scale.  He compared the history of the world to a 24-hour day and all of human history would take place in the last few minutes before midnight.  A large asteroid crashing into our world or a large volcanic eruption would either wipe us out or make life very difficult for a very long time thanks to the disruption to our climate--and those things have happened in the past.  We are so fortunate to enjoy the quality of life that we do.
 
5.  This book affirms my faith in God as the creator of the earth and life.  At no time did the author bring this up and I have no idea what his personal beliefs are.  However, over and over, I felt my own faith being affirmed as the author pointed out the incredible odds of our earth having just the right characteristics to support life. And scientists have not figured out how life started in the first place.  Yes, in 1953, they were able to do some work in the lab creating the infamous "primordial soup" and they produced a mixture that contained amino acids, fatty acids, etc.  However, amino acids are relatively easy to produce.  Forming proteins spontaneously seems just about impossible. "No-one really knows, but there may be as many as a million types of protein in the human body, and each one is a little miracle. By all the laws of probability proteins shouldn't exist.  To make a protein you need to assemble amino acids...in a particular order." (p. 361)  For example, to make collagen requires 1,055 amino acids in exactly the right order.  I was not looking for this book to do anything besides educate me a little, but finding it faith-affirming was a nice bonus.

I recommend this book! It will be worth the time it takes to read it.