{"id":4947,"date":"2019-05-13T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4947"},"modified":"2019-05-12T07:27:33","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T14:27:33","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-12-part-ii-chapter-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/05\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-12-part-ii-chapter-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld III&#8217;: Chapter 12, Part II \/ Chapter 13"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the second half of the twelfth chapter <i>and<\/i> the thirteenth chapter of <i>Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch<\/i>, I learn about Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s path to natural selection, and Ponder tires of the arguing, but I DO NOT. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>The Science of Discworld<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Oh, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, a succinct, six-point summary of Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theory of natural selection! RIGHT THERE. I know this might not seem exciting to you, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe how much I needed something like this when I was younger. Over the course of these <i>Science of Discworld<\/i> books, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten the chance to talk openly about the difficulties of growing up in an anti-science community\/household, so I hope by now it <i>does<\/i> make sense that this has a personal meaning to me. This <i>is<\/i> much more straightforward than how it was explained to me or even taught to me once we got to it in school. But, as I said on video, there are so many other details that were left out of my education on the subject. I had <i>no<\/i> idea that Darwin put his doubts and limitations into the book itself. (Granted, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even think my schools <i>had<\/i> a copy of the book to even check out, and I must admit that I never read it. 150,00 words??? Why did I think it was way shorter than that?)<\/p>\n<p>That was an interesting point, though, because <i>I<\/i> was taught that Darwin was <i>arrogant<\/i>, that his ideas were haughty and considered condescending. I KNOW THIS IS ABSURD. And look, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like <i>Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch<\/i> has ignored that there were detractors. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll hear about more of them or what sort of things Darwin got wrong that we now understand better. But that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why the whole anti-science, pro-God mentality can be so damaging. I was basically lied to by people who claimed to know better, who claimed to be authorities on this sort of thing. But no one told me about how much Darwin doubted his work, how long he studied and researched and thought about his ideas (twenty-five years!!!) before committing them to a book, or how much he deeply cared about presenting an argument that held up to scrutiny.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And this context matters. I think that absolutely informs the Discworld chapter, too, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that in a second. The authors briefly touch on the absurd notion of Christian fundamentalists and their decision to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fight their corner on the weakest of grounds, completely needlessly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thankful that this book isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t taking to task the idea of believe in a Creator; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a completely separate point, and you can absolutely still believe in evolution and an intelligent god, even if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what these authors believe. But there was no possibility for that growing up in the world I lived in. It seemed unfathomable. Evolution and natural selection was the work of Satan. TRULY. THAT IS AN ACTUAL THING SOMEONE TRIED TO TEACH ME.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s go back to that idea of Darwin wanting his argument to hold up to scrutiny. I really do believe it matters that he tried so hard, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stretch to state that Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideas survived as long as they did <i>because<\/i> of all the work he did prior to publishing them. So: I absolutely enjoy when the wizards bicker and go in circles. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably my favorite thing about them. And Ponder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s painful conversation with Archchancellor Ridcully is definitely another example of that. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also an exhibition: Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideas are brought forth and challenged. Here, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a different context. The work of <i>The Ology<\/i> is much more in line with Disc experiences, so Ridcully struggles to understand why any of this is important or meaningful. But that means we get stuff like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcDarwin\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI mean <i>our<\/i> Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthought that no god would make so many kinds of barnacle. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so wasteful. A perfect being wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it, he thought. But the other Darwins, the religious ones, said that was the whole point. They said that just as mankind had to strive for perfection, so must the whole animal kingdom.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Which might seem ludicrous, but Pratchett isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually far from a train of thought that exists on the Roundworld, you know? Some of the more fundamentalist religions <i>do<\/i> preach a move towards perfection, that we humans are born broken and flawed and must always strive towards perfection in order to get into heaven. Perfection! Actual perfection! An unattainable ideal!!! And yet it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that some people believe not only exists, but that they HAVE achieved. It might seem laughable now, but when I was younger, this was a terrifying prospect to me.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anyway: onwards to some science! Or maybe some more history??? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know!<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/TkKyAai3s0U<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2019\/5\/7\/the-anger-is-a-gift-trade-paperback-is-out-today\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\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 second half of the twelfth chapter and the thirteenth chapter of Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch, I learn about Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s path to natural selection, and Ponder tires of the arguing, but I DO NOT. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/05\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-12-part-ii-chapter-13\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/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-4947","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\/4947","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=4947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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