Henry Gee - Four Way Interview

Henry Gee was born in London in 1962. He was educated at the universities of Leeds and Cambridge and has been an editor at the science journal Nature since 1987. As well as his latest title A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, his books include The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution; The Science of Middle-earth; Jacob’s Ladder: The History of the Human Genome, and Deep Time: Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution. He has also written science fiction (The Sigil trilogy) and mystery (By The Sea). Sharp-eyed viewers will recognise him as the bloke sat next to the Rev Richard Coles on the 2019 Christmas series of University Challenge where, with other alumni of the University of Leeds, he won the series championship. He lives in Cromer, Norfolk, England, with his family and numerous pets.

Why science?

Most children go through a phase during which they know the names of at least ten dinosaurs before they are potty trained. I never really grew out of it (the dinosaur phase, that is, not the potty training). I’ve always been interested in the roots of things - how things got to be the way they are - and the infant Gee could be found in museums, usually the most obscure corners. Insatiable curiosity perhaps inevitably meant that this early fondness for museums became combined with journalism and writing, and directed me to Nature, where I have been a writer and editor for nearly 34 years. It’s the best job in the world. And, to be frank, nobody else would have me.

Why this book?

In the back of my mind for years I’ve had the idea to write the story of life on Earth, but the thought didn’t advance any further forward in my mind until a colleague at Nature, David Adam (The Man Who Couldn’t Stop; The Genius Within) suggested I write a book celebrating all the amazing fossil discoveries, news of which has passed across my desk at Nature. After all, as an editor there, and chief bone-botherer, I am in part responsible for the world knowing about such things as feathered dinosaurs; the ‘fishapod’ Tiktaalik, and Homo floresiensis, the incredible hobbit creature from Indonesia.

What’s next?

After each book I swear I’ll never write another book.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

Extinction - how it happens, what it means, and the fate of our own species. If I am going to write about human extinction, I should probably start now.

Comments

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). ...

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein, but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...

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