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Darwin's Radio
Greg Bear is indisputably one of the preeminent "hard" science fiction writers working today. His past writings have taken ideas from many areas of contemporary scientific research and spun them into fantastic universes. Blood Music and Queen of Angels, aside from being absolutely engrossing tales, helped nanotechnology enter the mainstream vocabulary. In addition to his excellent treatment of science, the development of his characters seldom suffers at the hands of his concepts, and it is always the characters that make the story rewarding. His latest effort is no exception. Darwin's Radio sets complex and believable characters in a story that puts forth a convincing theory of punctuated equilibrium in evolution.
Darwin's Radio is set just after the (not-even-slightly apocalyptic) turn of the millenium in a universe that is recognizably our own. The story revolves around Kaye Lang, a brilliant molecular biologist who specializes in the study of retroviruses. Specifically, she studies endogenous retroviruses - RNA-based viruses that integrate their genetic material into the host's DNA, becoming part of the host's genome. As the book opens, Lang is on a trip to the former Soviet republic of Georgia, trying to win the cooperation of local scientists in a business venture. On a side trip to investigate a recently discovered mass grave filled with the bodies of pregnant women, she meets Christopher Dicken, a virus hunter for the Centers for Disease Control. Dicken is on the trail of a peculiar illness (eventually known as "Herod's Flu") that seems only to strike young pregnant women and cause miscarriages. Soon after her return to the United States, Kaye finds a media spotlight as other researchers discover that Herod's Flu is actually a Scattered Human Endogenous retroVirus Activation - SHEVA - which she predicted. SHEVA soon reaches epidemic levels around the world, causing virtually every pregnant woman to miscarry.
Meanwhile, two fortune-seeking mountaineers lead anthropologist Mitch Rafelson to a startling discovery in the Austrian Alps - a mummified Neanderthal man and woman with a human baby. Mitch sees the Neandertal family as direct evidence of the speciation of Homo sapiens and soon intuits a connection among his discovery, the Georgian mass grave and SHEVA. Already discredited by a previous fiasco with Native American remains, and held in suspicion for the company he kept in the Alps, Mitch is unable to influence the scientific inquiry into his discovery. However, he does eventually connect with Christopher and Kaye, who are working to explain and control SHEVA amid increasingly panicked reactions from the general population. Lang initially assists the federal government's efforts, but never really supports the view that SHEVA is a disease. Like Mitch, she's convinced that the virus is an agent of change for humanity.
I don't think I'm spoiling the book by stating that the story concerns human evolution. If the title doesn't give it away, a cursory glance at the dust jacket reveals comments like Anne McCaffery's: "WOW!...a human upgrade..." In the first 150 pages or so, through Mitch and Kaye's eyes, Bear gives the reader enough evidence to draw the conclusion that SHEVA is responsible for the human baby born to the Neanderthals and will soon create the next evolution of humans. However, he doesn't grace Christopher Dicken and his fellows in the CDC with the same insight. The government continues to treat SHEVA as a pathogen that threatens humanity's existence (which is not an altogether incorrect viewpoint). The CDC can't prevent the miscarriages, and Bear provides a vivid depiction of the violence that results from the government's inability to accept the truth and communicate it to the people.
This novel provides an excellent story as well as some new concepts to ponder. The evolutionary ideas Bear puts forth, aside from sounding extremely plausible (to this non-microbiologist), provoke some very entertaining thoughts. Humans have spent the last hundred years or so modifying nature to suit ourselves. We're used to dealing with problems that we inflict on ourselves. How do we react when nature modifies us? This conflict forms a vibrant backdrop for the human story - the political ambitions that blind Christopher to the true nature of SHEVA, Kaye's brilliance in research and naivete in practically ever other pursuit, Mitch's frustration as his past prevents him from persuading other scientists to his point of view. Bear renders the romance (yes, there's romance) between two major characters compellingly without being lurid, with a bit of unrequited love as garnish. The plot motors along, but gives the reader some time to consider the implications of evolving humans as the government's efforts to "cure" SHEVA patients goes nowhere. Even then, the author entertains us with nonviolent protests, outright riots, and pagan fertility rites. Bear's prose is crisp, if not quite up to the stratospherically high standards he set in Queen of Angels. The ending, while not totally unsatisfying, leaves several questions unanswered and is wide open for a sequel. This is not necessarily a Bad Thing, since Darwin's Radio presents a world that will certainly bear further exploration.
Pick this book up at Amazon
Thats why its called science FICTION.
"Science Fiction" is an inherent contradiction, so shut up until you can find a better name for the genre.
I think maybe you might reliese evolution as a theory is majorly flawed. Just read and understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.. and you might see why.. this is why i cant understand why authors persist to promote this bad science in their works... oh when will it end.
Ok, for years I have heard poeple say that evolution violates the second law. If you're so sure that this is true, explain it to me, because I don't see it - and I have a physics degree! So please, let me know, because I am honestly curious.
Total agreement. It's insulting when you feel the author has to 'spell it out' for you. We get it..we get it... And it doesn't just apply to books either. The 'make a cool acronym' marketroids are everywhere. Itanium. Athlon. sigh. I keep expecting to hear about a processor update to merced called benz. :P
I've tried several times, last attempt was "Slant."
Even though he writes in my favorite genre (hard almost plausible scifi) there's something about his writing that just doesn't grab me.
That is All
What you fail to understand is that scientists (I know I am one) love to give stupid names to things. As anagrams go, it's a pretty likely one to come up with. Standardised naming of anything in biological sciences is fscked up. One method is to give genes names after their molecular wieght (p450) - but gets very confusiong very quickly. Hence the reason we have genes called things like 'Cerberus' and 'Sonic Hedgehog', 'Wingless'(Ok this is mainly because a lot of genes are discovered in fruit fly mutants, and the gene is named after the mutation it causes and are descriptive). Getting more off topic, standardised namings do cause problems. A gene was found and named MAP kinase (MAPK) its downstream target was another MAP kinase, so they called it Map kinase kinase (MAPKK), and this has another MAP kinase downstream in the biological pathway... MAP kinase kinase kinase. Lets not get onto JAK's (Just Another Kinase). hmm that thursday afternoon boredom just kicked in real bad....
Excellent book, despite the goofy ending.
Quite honestly I think the best Sci-Fi ends dealing with philosophy. Star Trek, Clarke, Gibson and many others. While I do enjoy various types of sci-fi, I think the real purpose is to make us think.. What is it to be human, what should we do with the power of technology etc. Sci-fi provides this by allowing androids, AI, aliens and other elements which make us question. This is Sci-Fi.
You are confusing the Integral Trees with Ringworld.
The Ringworld itself is a strip of some made-up
material 90 million miles in radius.
Shiva is that big-tittied ice goddess from Final Fantasy VII and VIII! She can "frost my pole" any time she'd like, if you know what I mean *wink wink* *nudge nudge* ohohohohohahahaha
I totally agree... I think, while cheesey, it's clever, and it works. I hate contrived/strained symbols in literature, but from what I can tell from reviews, the symbol and allusion really does work quite well. Go Bear! (anvil of the stars is my fav :) )
The White Plague was written by Frank Herbert.
coincidentally ... http://cnn.com/NATURE/9910/25/neanderthals.humans. ap/index.html
STFU
?
STFU ?
Shoot The First-base Umpire
HTH (Hope That Helps)
Alright, let's look at your flaws.
1) Neanderthal's are humans, just of a difference species or subspecies.
No. Homo Sapiens are humans. Neanderthal's are Neanderthal's. What you said is the logical equivelent of saying "Pony's are horses".
2) Parents will be very similar to their children.
Sure, usually. But how many "normal" parents give birth to dwarfs? Or autistic children? Or gifted children? How many brown eyed, brown haired parents give birth to blond haired, blue eyed children? There are more branches on the genetic tree than dear old mom and dad.
3) If really this was the speciation event, then there wouldn't be a homo sapiens species, because the baby died!
Who says this was the only one? Did you miss in the review the fact that this new virus affects a large number of women across the world? Is it in the nature of viruses to only attack a single host? Of course not. Viruses need a survivable population, or they themselves can not survive.
Any thermodynamics gurus out there? I want you to read this, and then this, and then come back here and tell us what you think of the "Amin Cycle."
So, having read a lot of Greg Egan's books and few of Mr. Bear's can someone who's read both compare the authors? I always thought Egan was the Undisputed Master of Hard Sci-Fi.
While I enjoyed many aspects of the book, I'll agree with other's comments that it went on a little too long, and the ending was predictable. What really bugged me was the total implausibility and flatness of the characters. None of them developed, or even responded in what I would consider a consistant, realistic fashion. Did you really beleive Saul's insanity? (Felt like chapters were cut out in which it might have been developed...) Did Mitch/Kaye's relationship seem real? A little too "perfect" for me. At least Asimov understood he couldn't do honest emotional characters, and so, stuck just to a good solid plot. Summary: Good read for a long airplane ride. Don't expect too much.
I remember reading something, in New Scientist I think, that it was believed one retrovirus plays an important role in mammalian reproduction. I wish I could remember exactly what the article said. I think it did have something to do with the ability for a female mammal's body to not reject the foreign object which is growing inside her.
Unleash a disease that turns women to stone.....
This author obviously understands nothing about punctuated equilibrium. He should go to talkorigins more often! Punctuated equilibrium is - and let me stress this - NOT that a species suddenly gives rise to a very different species. It is that, over a brief evolutionary period (such as a mere few hundred thousand years) a species can change relatively rapidly (rapidly meaning somewhere between a few species of change to a few genuses) in a certain period of time, due to changes in outside conditions (whether biological or environmental), and then remain relatively stagnant for millions of years (again, a few species worth of change), only to repeat the process again when the environment changes. .5% of its DNA to a new perfectly valid form is contrary to every bit of scientific knowledge. The amount of "hard science" in this book, judging from the review, is on par with "The Puppet Masters", I'm afraid.
This man has a horribly warped view of punctuated equilibrium that is not supported by any evidence or scientist that I know of. In fact, it sounds more like a typical view of "god-guided evolution", that someone is guiding the process of evolution towards some end (if you need evidence that that is not true, again, visit talkorigins and check their collection of evolutionary dead-ends and horrible inefficiencies).
The concept that the world regularly goes through these sudden "lets change everything!" periods and a neanderthal suddenly changes
- Rei
Corrected link
- Rei
Maybe they could link to something like ISBN.nu and allow their readers to access the bookseller of choice (ISBN.nu lists several). Or maybe there is another similar service that they would like to use.
For demonstration: Darwin's Radio ISBN 034542333x.
I hate when writers make their acronyms mean something, rather than have what the acronym stands for mean something. "SHEVA" is a obvious anagram of "Shiva", the Hindu god of Destruction and it obviously stands for the destruction of humans. Dumb, but every writer has it drilled into them at school that EVERYTHING in a novel must have meaning, no matter how obvious or cheesy it is.
Not true. Lots of science fiction is completely within the bounds of physics. It's just the engineering that it extrapolates.
Perhaps it's more that Greg Bear despairs of the general state of humanity. We're really rather savage cusses, when you look at it.
Given the powers that we have (atomic energy, pervasive communication, etc) and the powers we are on the verge of acquiring, (nanotech, gene engineering, etc) we're in trouble, as a species. It may be due to mere luck and a little extra maturity at the critical times that we've survived so far. With the coming advancements, our chances may be just about nil.
We either have a LOT of maturing to do as a species, and FAST, or we need some other way to achieve the same end.
I believe that is where Bear's Therapy comes in. He has little hope of us growing up fast, and needs to find another way for the human race to survive long enough to become plot movers in his stories of the future.
Huh? When an author goes to every possible extent to ensure his story fits in with the currently understood model of physics, should we just forget that fact and move on? The stories are as bound by the laws of physics as the author wants them to be. For Greg Bear, the science is an intricate part of the story, so the accuracy is important. There's no reason to ignore it - in fact, Bear doesn't want us to ignore it.
By your argument, all classes of fiction are just fiction - historical fiction is fiction. Horror is fiction. Romance novels are fiction. Well of course they are! How else are we going to seperate Greg Bear from Ray Bradbury from Jackie Collins if we don't label their works? If, in fact, we don't use the very labels they give themselves!
If you want to argue whther or not Bear should be classified as hard science fiction, fine. But don't just dismiss the whole category out of hand.
Here's a link to my review.
So creationists, before you condemn me, allow me to pre-emptively point out that I know that I am truly a horrible person, and that I am condemning myself to everlasting pain, and that as far as I'm concerned, all of you people are completely right and modern science is completely wrong .. 'kay? Thanks.
Who the fsck tells you this?
Assuming this isn't a strawman of sorts, I'd like to apologize for the behavior of my fellows. Please do make a distinction among people responsibly pursuing their own faith (and spreading it when such is welcome) and rabid... ahh, how can I politely describe them?
Never mind.
See subject. This is generally something taught by guest speakers at churches to folks who don't know any better, who then repeat it to those who do.
Rather unfortunate, that.
I seriously doubt you'll find any of the better-informed creationists embracing that belief.
(Oh... you wonder how I manage to believe in creationism? I just don't interpret things in quite as bounded a manner as many of my fellows... that is to say, I'm more than glad to believe that, for instance, God created the universe by selecting it from the series of all possible ones. I suppose this could be almost termed a meta-creation... how the 0-stage creation itself occured is not necessarily relevant. Of course, the possability I just threw out has interesting implications for free will and the like; I'm offering it as an example of compatibility, not as a belief I espouse).
Fossil evidence indicates Homo Sapians/CroMagnons lived alongside Neanderthals. Oddly enough, though they often lived peacefully RIGHT beside each other, there's no evidence they ever lived WITH each other (that I've heard of anyway). This co-existence would seem to put a damper on the virus in the book, which seems to be quite communicable. If it's so damn communicable to warrant mass graves, how could the poor infected Neanderthal population hope to survive alongside proto-humans long enough to leave the fossil records they did?
Of course, they would be two different viruii, with two different levels of communicability. Maybe the Neanderthal variant just took longer? I get one head smack there.
Not to mention the fact that these proto-humans weren't as crowded as we were. Even up to the last few centuries, certain populations were spared the horrors of viruii that are common all over the world today. Look at the affect Europeans had on the native American populations! Not anymore; the global economy and environment today is in the chute for some nasty virulent surprises.
Since I can't debunk the premise, I'll have to buy it. Looks damn interesting! ;)
--
Indeed. You have just illustrated the difference between SciFi and Science Fiction.
--
I disagree. Let me start out by saying your post SHOULD NOT have been moderated to Flamebait. It's certainly on topic, and while it will probably draw considerable fire, Flamebait it ain't.
That being said, I need this term! Without it I could be saddled with crappy Piers Anthony books (no offense to the legions of 13 year olds who seem to enjoy them!) and no way to tell them apart from the good stuff.
Hard Science Fiction is just that... fiction. Part of the fun lies in finding the scientific errors and debunking them.
Take Ringworld for example. As an abtract idea, it's brilliant! An artifical ecosystem that offers the benefits of a planet on a huge scale. The first novel however, left glaring holes in it's implemenation. (The ring world is unstable! The ring world is unstable!) Erosion, instability, and numerous other snafus were detected and addressed in the next novel (which also contained it's share of snafus).
Hard Science Fiction, while giving us a healthy dose of entertainment, also gives us an opportunity to exercise our intellect and decide for ourselves what's plausible, possible, and probable.
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I never came away from his novels with that impression. The impression that all humans would be expected to undergoes some form of psychotherapy, yes. Given the touchy feely attitude prevalent in today's society, and the fact that it's just getting worse I think it makes for a rather realistic (and scary!) view of the future.
He's also partial to his main characters NOT requiring this help. Look at Olmy in Eon for example. He's entirely self-contained, extremely private, and considered somewhat anarchistic by his peers. A throwback, but a necessary throwback. I think what he's saying is fiddling and fixing is all well and good, but shit gets done by unmodified, crazy humans. ;) Larry Niven takes the same slant in his Known Space stories (at least the pre-Man-Kzin war stories) where the ARM pretty much runs the show and keeps the population uninformed and conditioned. Who runs the ARM? Old men who are not well adjusted by their own standards. Who does the dirty work? Borderline wackos and paranoids kept in check with medicines.
It's the wackos that get things done, and I don't want anyone messing with my head either! ;)
--
Never mind this thermodynamics hogwash -
where did the virus come from?
If the new species of man was "caused" by the virus - what caused the virus?
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Well, just like ultra-right-wing conservative Christians judge all of those people of color based on the bad actions of a few, there are those out there who will judge all Christians by the few Pat Buchanans of the world.
Ever hear the phrase "bear a cross"? It could be worse. Christians used to get thrown to the lions.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
So is Slashdot now joining the legion of web sites that make a little nookie on the side by linking to Amazon catalog records? ;-)
I read Darwin's Radio a couple of months ago and found it a very engaging and well written book with an unfortunately implausible and poorly justified central hypothesis. I am very much looking forward to the sequel, however, when the problem of why the thing happened will be far less central than the cultural and societal problems that come out of it.
Greg Bear is on my list of hard sci-fi authors to pick up on sight, but I think the actual scientific plausibility of Darwin's Radio is a bit weak, for all that Greg Bear's writing does emphasize the science.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Or since the dawn of the first stone shard, used to cut, scrape or pierce nature into his liking.
Agriculture was the biggie, though, no doubt. Beginning of The End.
**>>BELCH
Anyways, if you're into the whole "evolving in one step" thing, I strongly recommed Childhood's End.
Have to disagree. John Cramer, author of ``Einstein's Bridge'' and ``Twistor'', is a working physicist when he's not writing. Those two novels are full of references to current scientific theories. At least one of the novels I mentioned has an appendix that describes the relationships between those theories and the concepts used in the story.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
You haven't read the book -- your issues are answered in a scientifically plausible way.
POSSIBLE SPOILER
Parents won't be similar to their children -- that's the whole idea of a virus changing the human species. But maybe they will be given adaptations so that they can interact with their "different" children better.
And yes, if it's a speciation event, then a neanderthal could give birth to a homo sapien -- that doesn't mean the dead homo sapien is the end of ALL homo sapiens -- that's the whole point of the book (evolution isn't an "accident" that only happens in isolated incidents).
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Man caused the virus that changed man.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Like Nanotech? Like Bear?
Take a look at "The Forge of God".
Depressing ending, but some interesting nanotech
shows up in the book. Some in "The Anvil of Stars" too.
Tweet, tweet.
The ``punctuated equilibrium'' theory you mention, by which I guess you're referring to Stephen Jay Gould, is pretty obviously bogus...there are no ``litteral explosions of new species''...only an incomplete and discontinuous fossil record which permits such speculation to stand without definitive refutation being possible. However Occam's Razor if nothing else suggests such hypothesis are of little value, and introduce unnecessary complication into the overall theory of evolution. Unfortunately science is forever tangled up with wishful thinking, though that may be a fine thing for a novel...
Johnny
Let's hear it for the Aquatic ape theory !!! Humans have a pronounced diving reflex, streamlined shape,water-wasteful waste disposal, a tendency to pig out on shellfish, quite good 3D spatial awareness, etc. etc. We're much better adapted for shoreline life than for the savannah. (and cetaceans seem to have a soft spot for us... maybe they remember something...:-) )
It seems to me we're actually specialised to be nonspecialists - we function adequately on land, in shallow water, and in the trees..
Choice of masters is not freedom.
Can you explain what your sigfile's signifying?
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
!
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
I think we should discontinue all further use of the term "hard science fiction" - there are NO hard sci-fi writers, even among those (like Bear) with strong science groundings. Let's enjoy these books for what they are - great stories - but remember they're works of fiction and fantasy, not bound by the laws of physics.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
I would argue that science fiction has been very predictive in many occasions, even where the 'hard' sf seemed implausible at the time. C.f many stories about cloning, prior to the advent of Dolly.
Oh, and just to be on topic, I do highly recommend Greg Bear, esp. the Queen of Angels series & Forge of God/Anvil of Stars (esp. the latter).
-- 'As it all washes away you know -- as it all is one, no one is alone.' -Cosmic Disorder
Has Bear undergone a lot of therapy in his life? I don't know that much about his past.
Besides, we non-social geek types will probably be the first to get "corrected". :(
Read a good book lately?
Read a good book lately?
Little strings of atoms that "know" how to
build things using other strings of atoms.
can you say nanotechnology?
crack open a chicken egg. spread the yoke and
white around on a large plate. poke around in
it till you find a leg bone.
It's too bad people go around writing books like this without actually figuring what the next evolutionary step actually is. The libraries are filled with books that "set up a sequel." I'm sick of it. I want to know what's actually going to happen. I don't mind fiction but can't there be some correspondance to reality?
Good review. Sounds like a good book; I've enjoyed Bear's other books, I'll be sure to give this a look when I have time.
Silly little nitpick: you said:
Humans have spent the last hundred years or so modifying nature to suit ourselves.
I'd argue that humans have been doing that since at least the dawn of agriculture.
Who the fsck tells you this?
:-)
Try spending some time in talk.origins.
Assuming this isn't a strawman of sorts, I'd like to apologize for the behavior of my fellows.
Oh, nobody (least of all me) is trying to attribute the rabidness of the most fundamentalist creationists to creationists as a whole. There are plenty of zealots who are only too willing to resort to vague threats to try to get their point across. Nevertheless, the sentence of mine that you quoted was overly sarcastic and was, in retrospect, ill-advised. Please consider it stricken from the record.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Ok, for years I have heard poeple say that evolution violates the second law.
.. 'kay? Thanks.
Evolution violates the Creationists' Second Law of Thermodynamics. This is the law that says that things tend to progress from order to disorder, and since evolution says that the opposite is true, it must violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Now, this conveniently ignores such pesky terminology as "closed system", and for the sake of simplicity, minor things such as the Sun are not factored in. (Incidentally, I wonder if any of the creationists who claim that order cannot come from disorder in nature have ever seen a snowflake.)
Anyway, you might want to check this link out:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability
It is only my intention to provide more information related to this query; it is not my intention to ignite some drawn-out thread about religion versus science in a place where it is clearly inappropriate. So creationists, before you condemn me, allow me to pre-emptively point out that I know that I am truly a horrible person, and that I am condemning myself to everlasting pain, and that as far as I'm concerned, all of you people are completely right and modern science is completely wrong
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I ordered this book the day it was released, anticipating a masterpiece in Bear's usual style. I was sorely disappointed.
First of all, the style he assumed for this book is of a movie script. I got the same impression from the style of this book as I did from "Airframe" by Michael Crichton (also read recently) that the book was written to be adapted to a movie. Every chapter ends the same way with the same contrived suspense.
Second, I think Bear spent more time explaining aspects of biology than developing the plot. But he explained the wrong things. The simple biology he explained concisely, but the more complicated biology he let pass without an explanation.
Though he characterized well, the plot was thin as hell. The entire book led to a [predictable] conclusion which I feel should have come about 200 pages earlier.
The science fiction in this book was minimal. This felt like the kind of book I get when I'm desperate for something to read on a long airplane ride.
Bleh, skip it.
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow" was a great book! You really can't go much further than the end of the Universe with a book. Kind of like Poulsen's "Tau Zero" (also a great book).
Sounds like an interesting theory to expalin punctuated equilibrium or the theory that evolution happens in litteral explosions of new species isntead of only just gradual change.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
I mean really, what I consider a romance and what some unfulfilled housefrau considers a romance are two different things.
What I consider fantasy, some people interpret as religious truth, and vice versa.
And let's get rid of that pesky Dewey Decimal system, classifications are bad.
And let's get rid of book titles too, since they can be misleading. An author can name his book just about anything she or he wants, it doesn't necessarily have to relate to the book matter in the way I think it does.
So we'll end up with a huge mass of undifferentiated, unorganized texts, but we won't offend anyone.
Please Chris, I understand that "hard science fiction" may break the rules of physics, but it is fiction after all, and as a science fiction reader I appreciate the way the genre is divided into hard, cyberpunk, soft, fantasy, alternate history, etc. It makes it easier for me to find a book that I will enjoy, and avoid the sub-genres that I don't like.
Thanks,
George
I think maybe you might reliese evolution as a theory is majorly flawed. Just read and understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics.. and you might see why.. this is why i cant understand why authors persist to promote this bad science in their works... oh when will it end.
Hey AC, the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not apply to evolution because the Earth is not a closed control volume, you have scads of energy pouring in from the Sun, a far lesser amount emanating from the Earth, matter falling on the Earth and a far lesser amount leaving the Earth.
The Earth and the Sun taken together as one control volume are closer to a closed system. The increasing complexity of life on the Earth is more than balanced by the increasing entropy on the sun, and soon (universally speaking) when all the hydrogen on the sun is gone and it swells into a red giant, we'll see that.
Do you know anything about thermodynamics besides what you parrot of web pages? My qualifications come from several thermo courses I passed to get my BS in Aerospace Engineering.
George
Unless maybe your story ends at the Omega Point like Charles Sheffield's strange and interesting Tommorrow and Tomorrow, though I guess even that has room for a sequal of sorts.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I don't know... given what we started with (a slow, weak, hairless body ill-adapted to an upright posture) I think we're doing rather well. It's not as if we've met anyone else who's doing any better.
=DIVIDE BY CUCUMBER ERROR: REINSTALL UNIVERSE AND REBOOT=
=DIVIDE BY CUCUMBER ERROR: REINSTALL UNIVERSE AND REBOOT=
Settting up books so that they lend themselves to sequels is what makes sci-fi the cheesy genre that it is. I don't mind it when it absolutely makes sense but most of the time it's a publishing ploy to milk the readers. Until Sci-Fi artists are content to submit their works to stand on their own, the genre will never truly get the respect that it deserves.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Just because Bear creates such a society doesn't mean he's advocating it. He may just be extrapolating what he sees of current trends out a couple of years.
:)
Robert Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers, in which the charachters lived in a fascist state. A Lot of the book was spent on *why* that state was the way it was and what rights it and the citizens within it had, but Heinlein wasn't advocating such a state; he firmly believed in freedom of the individual. He had simply created an interesting idea and was exploring the possibilities; that's what fiction authors are supposed to do.
I see in the preview I mispelled something in my sig.. Natch
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
I much preferred Blood Music.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Hard science fiction is NOT hard science fiction if it violates the currently accepted laws of physics. The fact that many people use the term wrongly is NOT the issure here. (This is the reason the term was invented in the first place). The fact that they are works of fiction as far as the story goes does not give them the liberty to go against accepted physical laws. If hard science fiction were soft I'd be reading Stephen King or fantasy novels...
Hajo
Hajo Monogamy: Belief so strong that millions of people end perfectly good relationships in order to start a new one.
You can disprove the creationist version of thermodynamics right in your own home. All you need is some potting soil (preferably sterilized so you have no other living stuff in there), some seedling plants, and a big bottle or balloon you can seal adequately for use as a terrarium. (A 5-gallon springwater bottle will probably do.) Put the seedlings into the bottle, give them adequate light, and keep them from overheating. Add water and carbon dioxide as needed, and some inorganic plant food (nitrates, phosphates, potash) now and then.
After a while your seedlings will have turned this input of purely inorganic, high-entropy stuff (and light) into a lot of low-entropy plant mass and oxygen. The grown plant is a lot more organized than the matter which went into it. So doesn't this violate the 2nd Law? No. The ignored input is sunlight, which has very low entropy. Some part of the sunlight which is absorbed by the plant's leaves gets turned into useful energy, but the rest of it comes out as heat. A given amount of energy in the form of heat at room temperature has much higher entropy than the same amount of energy as sunlight. So the Earth merrily absorbs low-entropy sunlight at the effective temperature of about 5700 Kelvin, and radiates high-entropy heat at the effective temperature of about 250 Kelvin. The Earth is constantly creating and radiating entropy, and some of that entropy has been extracted from disordered matter when it is organized by some process (biological or otherwise). So there's nothing at all in thermodynamics which rules out the increasing organization of life over time, so long as the Sun continues to shine.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
My Favorite Greg Bear book was hardly Hard Sci-Fi.
Songs of Earth and Power is almost totally Fantasy.
I had the same feelings about the ending of Darwin's Radio as the reviewer. When I loaned my copy of the book to my girlfriend I told her that I thought the ending was not entirely what I would have liked. Not bad, just not what I had hoped for.
Being hooked into the Seattle SF scene, my girlfriend asked around and found out that Greg Bear does have a sequel planned. Meaning that the ending is intended to set up the next part of the story.
Jack
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Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Sheesh. Its just an acronym, which many times are made to actually have some kind of meaning. MADD, DARE, whatever. Who really cares, its a book. How could you be so irritated by something so trivial?
Can't remember author, but book (which i enjoyed) involved biologist who takes revenge on society by unleashing a disease that only kills women.
However, given /.'s highly political stance on software patents (and that of its readership) is perhaps a different bookseller in order? I personally have sworn off Amazon as long as they insist on pursuing their one-click patent. It would be nice to see /. put its money where its mouth is. In fact, it might be very nice if they spearheaded a techie boycott of Amazon on this subject.