{"id":4349,"date":"2017-10-20T05:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T12:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4349"},"modified":"2017-10-15T14:09:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-15T21:09:23","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-chapters-24-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2017\/10\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-chapters-24-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Science of Discworld’: Chapters 24 – 25"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of The Science of Discworld<\/i>, we learn about the complicated and mysterious ways in which life formed, and the Librarian goes on an errand. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I know I said this before, but THIS IS LITERALLY HOW EVOLUTION WAS DISPROVED TO ME. Knowledge wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a life-long process of learning as much about the world as one could; it was a rapid-fire quiz that reduced existence to whether or not I could provide an answer to deeply complicated processes. When I first started questioning creationism and the things I was taught, I was presented with a frustrating logic: the world was as my mother said it was unless I could prove otherwise on the spot. To make matters worse, that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proof\u00e2\u20ac\u009d never seemed to stick. Obviously, someone constantly shifting goalposts on you is a sign of a different problem, but the basic phenomenon followed me throughout my teenage years. It definitely<\/i> cropped up in church, too, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hear the same shit: Show me an animal that evolved here<\/i> in our modern world. How could humans have been monkeys? Why would God allow that?<\/p>\n

Anyway, despite my own interest in all this stuff, I AM STILL LEARNING! One of the lies-to-children mentioned here that I \u00e2\u20ac\u0153learned\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was the whole primordial soup thing, that this was the only<\/i> way complex chemicals formed on Earth. The reality is that\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way more detailed than that, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also<\/i> mysterious. I appreciate how frequently this text just says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It makes me feel better about not knowing things, either!<\/p>\n

And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge<\/i> unknown smack in the middle of all this. Does anyone else find it difficult to even fathom<\/i> the sense of time that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spoken of in the Roundworld chapter? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just the length of time, but I also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even picture a world like the one I read about in this chapter. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so long ago; it seems so alien; and humans have been here for such a relatively tiny time compared to everything else. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a vastness to this that almost unnerves me, sort of like when I think about the deep ocean for a long time, or if I consider how big our known universe is. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so much I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know and probably won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever<\/i> know. WHICH KIND OF FREAKS ME OUT, but at the same time, I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trade away the sense of wonder I have about this world and our universe. One of the main delights of The Science of Discworld<\/i> is that it basically fulfills this desire to learn of mine by giving the reader little doses of education. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I am not sure I ever heard about triploblasts until I read this book. THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO COOL.<\/p>\n

Thus, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wizard who is also quite enamored with trying to learn as much as possible, so Ponder is a lot of fun. But was the end of chapter 25 a hint that the Bursar is going to contribute to this, too? I hope so!<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/QE26Ajr07cs?a<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"