Calculating God

Or "Take Me To Your Paleontologist." This is a good read, not only because it gives some compelling scientific arguments for believing in G-d, but because it deftly shows the silliness of the ever-raging battle between creationists and evolutionists. Neither side is telling the whole truth. Each could benefit from a fair reading of the other. In any case…

Robert J. Sawyer is an easy-readin’ writer, but this one ain’t all smoothness. The ending is a bit disappointing. The main character suddenly turns into a family-deserting rat. I also got tired of the Up With Canada hoorah and the constant belittling of American health insurance. Barry should meet this guy. But I know the Canucks have their insecurities.

One gripping plot-point is when Betelgeuse goes supernova and Earth is threatened. It’s quickly resolved. (Read to find out how.) Then, an hour after finishing the book, I wander over to FoxNews and see a headline about the real Betelgeuse maybe getting ready to explode. Yipes. Quick Googling reassures me that, at six hundred light years away, a supernova there would just be a nice light show. Leaving me to wonder: aren’t SciFi writers supposed to be concerned with versimilitude? And Sawyer won a Nebula. To which book, The Terminal Experiment, I shall nevertheless venture next.

0 responses to “Calculating God

  1. That it is a matter of belief could be hardly challenged, and people rarely switch sides in that specific stand-off. But it gives lots of people a lot of things to do, to say and to write. And who is against gainful employment these days?

  2. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley

    True enough. The funny part is that many scientists believe in G-d. They just prefer not to talk about it because it will do their careers no good at all.