{"id":4941,"date":"2019-05-06T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4941"},"modified":"2019-05-05T13:46:57","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T20:46:57","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapters-9-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/05\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapters-9-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld III&#8217;: Chapters 9 &#038; 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the ninth and tenth chapters of <i>Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch<\/i>, the wizards face a setback, and Darwin faces a million setbacks but somehow DOES IT. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>The Science of Discworld III<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><b>Discworld<\/b><\/p>\n<p>OH, NO, I KNEW IT WAS TOO EASY! And it also took me too long to realize that the ship itself was <i>nine more tasks<\/i>. So, in just a few pages, the wizards accomplished everything that Hex had told them to do. THIS IS BAD, THERE ARE OVER TWO HUNDRED PAGES LEFT, WHAT IS HAPPENING. And all of this was done so that Darwin could get on the <i>Beagle<\/i>, and it could successfully head out to sea. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m realizing now that maybe repairing the <i>Beagle<\/i> was just one whole tasks with nine tasks in it, given what chapter ten states.) Even then, it seems apparent that the wizards were ready to head out to make sure that Darwin stayed on the path, and then\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well.<\/p>\n<p>Well.<\/p>\n<p>Things had been fine! Rincewind was about to spend time on an island that probably had no creatures that would eat him! But the derailment happens, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so absurd and such a dramatic escalation that I can only laugh at it:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I am unable to explain why this is the case, but there are now 1457 reasons why Darwin did not write <i>The Origin of Species<\/i>. The book has never been written in this history. The voyage has never taken place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>OH. OKAY. And let me guess: if they start \u00e2\u20ac\u0153repairing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d any of those 1,457 deviations, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just exponentially create more, right? But at least I <i>was<\/i> onto something when I said that the book hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t addressed the weird thing we saw in the first chapter. So, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153intelligent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d force that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actively intervening here? And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not lost on me that this is a representation of divine intervention, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Some outside force is sticking their hand in Roundworld, pushing it in a specific direction. But <i>why<\/i>?<\/p>\n<p><b>Roundworld<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Oh my gods, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I loved chapter ten so, so much. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not a video person, a bit of a summary: much of this was new to me because my science education over the years left out practically <i>all<\/i> of the contextual history. I had no idea about Erasmus Darwin; I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what else Charles was reading and reacting to at the time; I DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW IT TOOK HIM YEARS TO ACTUALLY DEVELOP HIS IDEAS. Sometimes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m surprised that I ever learned any science at all at the various schools I went to??? So, all of this was an utter delight, and the authors clearly had a lot of fun talking about the sheer improbability that Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey happened at <i>all<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But given what I suspect is going to unfold\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe wizards are going to have to delve deeper into Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI appreciated that this chapter spent so much time getting the reader familiar with Darwin. We need to know to know this stuff!!! Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s passion for geology is KEY to understanding what drew him to get on the <i>Beagle<\/i>. I needed to know about his time in the Anglican Church and how the culture of that religion also influenced his interest in things like beetles. What if some of this stuff comes up later as the wizards attempt to repair Roundworld history?<\/p>\n<p>I also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny that despite that this is a heavily history-based chapter\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith some necessary science to explain how Darwin eventually came to write <i>The Origin of Species<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit reads like a damn good story. Props to the authors for giving this history a narrative that <i>moved<\/i>. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not an easy thing to do, though maybe it was for someone with such an interesting succession of events in his life. Seriously, look how many times Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life could have EASILY gone down a different path! It makes even more sense now that these three authors would focus on Darwin for a story about wizardly intervention, you know? The history itself is ripe for a fictionalized exploration of how he came to propose new theories that would change the world forever. But I also loved it for one final reason: this shit took <i>time<\/i>. Darwin did not craft his theories of natural selection while on the <i>Beagle<\/i>, and it took him years of sifting through his notes and interacting with past work and his contemporaries for him to change the narrative. I appreciated that, especially since I did not learn about Darwin with this scope of time in mind. Again, I always thought the book came out right after his <i>Beagle<\/i> journey ended.<\/p>\n<p>That simply isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case. Darwin had to do work\u00e2\u20ac\u201da whole <i>lot<\/i> of work. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have instant epiphanies, none of this was handed to him, and he spent years slowly arriving to the most important transition in his entire life. Even then, the chapter cuts off before <i>The Origin of Species<\/i> is written! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m interested to see if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be addressed, too. Basically: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M VERY EXCITED.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/TuXEX0gAGIE<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/19\/the-anger-is-a-gift-paperback-edition-is-out-may-7-2019\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the ninth and tenth chapters of Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch, the wizards face a setback, and Darwin faces a million setbacks but somehow DOES IT. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Science of Discworld III.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,559],"class_list":["post-4941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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