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

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

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