Skip to main content

On the Future - Martin Rees ***

When I was at school we had a great young history teacher who got everyone in the class to go out and buy a copy of Mao's Little Red Book. Some parents were decidedly unhappy, but it was a fascinating exercise, and though I found most of the contents impenetrable drivel, it was something I was really glad he did.  The Little Red Book was more formally The Thoughts of Chairman Mao and this little black book is not Martin Rees's social contacts list, but rather The Thoughts of Astronomer Royal Rees. 

 What we get is a fairly loose collection of Rees's thoughts on life, the universe and everything, from climate change to religion - though (not surprisingly) it concentrates on scientific matters more than anything else. As the subtitle Prospects for Humanity indicates, Rees indulges a little in that most speculative of ventures, futurology, but not to an extent that the book becomes one of those interminable collections of thoughts that are either bright and bushy-tailed 'The future will be wonderful!' or dark and dismal 'The future is dystopian, haven't you seen Blade Runner?' 

 There's nothing particularly new here, but it is interesting to see what one of the grand old persons of British science (and, by all accounts, a jolly nice chap), Rees has to say on the matter. Oddly, the parts I found more interesting were those more removed from his fields of expertise. So, I felt quite engaged with the lengthy section on climate change and where Rees discusses his view on religion. This is very refreshing when compared with the that of the fundamentalist atheists. Rees tells us that he does not believe in God but does sometimes go to church, as he likes being involved in the ritual of his cultural heritage. This seems to me a far better attitude than berating anyone with religious beliefs or practices for their stupidity.

 The part I thought least effective was where Rees dived into cyber futurology. While it was good to see that he was sensibly sceptical of the widespread acceptance of self-driving cars and the idea that everyone will abandon car ownership, his consideration of AI and machine learning seemed overly optimistic, compared with the more realistic approach, say, in Gary Smith's The AI Delusion.

 There was also a useful analysis of the nature of science, on the whole de-stressing the 'scientific method' and emphasising the more ad-hoc approach that really happens. Rees also makes it clear how important it is for the general public to be more aware of science, as decisions about the future direction of science and technology influence us all and should be made by us all, not just as scientific technarchy.

 All in all, On the Future proved genuinely interesting. I can't give it more than three stars as it feels rather bitty and is perhaps too personal if you don't happen to be interested in Martin Rees - but I am interested and am really glad I read it.

Hardback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Govert Schilling - Five Way Interview

Govert Schilling is an acclaimed and prize-winning freelance astronomy writer and broadcaster in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines, but he also has written for New Scientist, Science and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and he is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope. He wrote dozens of books (including a couple of children’s books) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, many of which have been translated into English, German, Italian, and Chinese, among other languages. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10986 Govert after him, and in 2014, he received the David N. Schramm Award for high-energy astrophysics science journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.His latest book is Target Earth . Why science? We live in troubling times. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound, and trust in science is diminishing. Many adults don't seem to realize that almost everythi...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Infinite Book – John D. Barrow ****

Authors are often asked to review books on a topic they’ve written on themselves. The reasoning is sensible – they ought to know something about the subject – but there’s always that uneasy suspicion that there’s going to be a bit of bias creeping in. So I think it’s only fair to admit up front that I have written a book on infinity (of which more later). Infinity is a wonderful subject, because it’s intimately mind-bending (if the combination sounds paradoxical, that’s what infinity is all about) and gives you the chance to pull in all sorts of different concepts and assocations along the way, something Barrow does with great gusto. There’s a surprisingly large amount of coverage here for God, and for the universe, and the book jumps around from Aristotle to Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel (explained at great length), from the paradoxes of infinite sets to the paradoxes of time travel. Overall it’s an enjoyable journey that gives plenty of opportunity to be amazed and surprised. The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...
Post a Comment
Read more