Neil Shubin: The Universe Within (Allen Lane)

Saturday 9 March 2013

I can't work out whether the timing of this book's publication is a catastrophe or a piece of canny marketing.

Custom byline text:

Review: Doug Johnstone

The subject matter of this erudite and accomplished piece of popular science writing bears a strong resemblance to the stuff recently covered by Professor Brian Cox in his series (and accompanying glossy book) The Wonders Of Life. Have Shubin's publishers decided to cash in on a raised awareness of science in the mainstream consciousness, or will The Universe Within get lost under a flurry of images of Brian Cox looking enigmatically off into middle distance and talking about how we're all made of stardust, man?

If this book was ignored because of its more high-profile competitor, that would be a shame, because Shubin shows he is that rarest of things – a science writer who manages to be comprehensive and in-depth on his subject without blethering on about it for far too long. Too often in pop-science circles, a sizable girth of tome is seen as an indicator of quality, yet this is seldom borne out by experience. In comparison, The Universe Within doesn't outstay its welcome, clocking in at a neat and tidy 190 pages, and yet Shubin delivers plenty of revelations and insight.Shubin is a world-famous palaeontologist and in his previous book, Your Inner Fish, he used his expertise and his own experience in the field to look at the legacy of evolution, how the forces of biology have shaped the way we are today. The Universe Within contains some of the same subject matter, but its scope and ambition are much grander, with Shubin going right back to the Big Bang and the laws of physics to try to explain how the origins of the universe dictate almost every facet of our life on Earth today.The book doesn't begin too auspiciously, with some unfortunate breathless flannel in the prologue: "...inside every species alive today, we uncover a sublimely beautiful truth. Within each of us lie some of the most profound stories of all." This sort of stuff is sadly de rigueur in science books these days, and while it is fine on primetime telly from a guy who used to be in D:Ream, it's just off-putting in a serious piece of work. Once Shubin settles down to the task in hand, however, he's really very good. Despite not being a physicist or cosmologist by trade, he writes succinctly and clearly about the early moments of the universe, and about the creation of the solar system, the Earth, the moon and so on.He is very good at linking disciplines. In a single short chapter he can go from, say, the physics of planet formation to the chemistry of water, to the biology of kidneys in prehistoric fish, and it all flows rather seamlessly from one to the other. His description of complex theories across the sciences is refreshingly easy to follow, and throughout he blends the big ideas with a little piece of scientific history here, a personal anecdote there, and a quirky little snippet of information there as well. The book is roughly chronological, beginning with the Big Bang and winding up with the recent emergence of humans on Earth. Some of the most interesting material, to this reviewer at least, is contained in the middle section of the book, which looks at such topics as continental drift and tectonics, the discovery of global cataclysms and subsequent mass extinctions over the millennia, and the roles of carbon and oxygen in regulating the Earth's temperatures over the same time frame.There is no brand-new science contained here, and no cutting-edge theories, but that's not Shubin's intention. Rather, The Universe Within sets out to highlight evidence from across disparate scientific disciplines and pull it together to demonstrate the extraordinary set of circumstances that have led to our existence within the universe, as well as the forces that influence the nature of that existence. In that respect, the book works very well indeed.The Universe Within Neil Shubin, Allen Lane, £20

Contextual targeting label:

Arts and Entertainment

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Neil Shubin: The Universe Within (Allen Lane)

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED