Lavinia reviewed Supercontinent by Ted Nield
Review of 'Supercontinent' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
What happens to us
Is irrelevant to the world’s geology
But what happens to the world’s geology
Is not irrelevant to us
Hugh MacDiamid
Science has been trying to humble the hubris of humans from the start, in a series of what Sigmund Freud refereed as ‘dethronements’. The first dethronement was of the Earth as the centre of the universe. Second was our dethronement as a unique creation in the image of God. Third (in Freud’s op;inion was his demystification of the human mind’s deepest motivations.
Science is not often thanked for delivered such slights to our collective ego; though in fact these blows have been nothing like crushing enough. For when, we find ourselves standing on the brick of destruction it will be our arrogance, as much as the ignorance on which it feeds, that will prove our undoing.
Science cannot tell us everything that matters about being human, …
What happens to us
Is irrelevant to the world’s geology
But what happens to the world’s geology
Is not irrelevant to us
Hugh MacDiamid
Science has been trying to humble the hubris of humans from the start, in a series of what Sigmund Freud refereed as ‘dethronements’. The first dethronement was of the Earth as the centre of the universe. Second was our dethronement as a unique creation in the image of God. Third (in Freud’s op;inion was his demystification of the human mind’s deepest motivations.
Science is not often thanked for delivered such slights to our collective ego; though in fact these blows have been nothing like crushing enough. For when, we find ourselves standing on the brick of destruction it will be our arrogance, as much as the ignorance on which it feeds, that will prove our undoing.
Science cannot tell us everything that matters about being human, but it provides us with the only practical knowledge of the natural world in which we have any reason to believe. But science teaches us another important lesson – that there is no absolute knowledge of any kind - either about Earth, or anything else.
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Earth scientists often complain, with reason, that politicians underuse the full potential of their subject, especially for the benefit of the vulnerable (for which read ‘poor’) people living in unsafe housing in unstable places. But in dramatic situations, like the 2004 tsunami’s aftermath this feeling to a pitch higher than mere frustration. That feeling is despair:
that the world is still so ruled by the short-term, by superstition, inertia and irrationality, and their humane, possibilist long-term view of the world in not only ignored but even denied.