The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch by Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen

The first Science of Discworld book came as a bit of a shock to me. Usually “The Science of…” books are explanations of how by recalibrating phase emitters to re-write DNA at the molecular level it’s possible to create a Starship with no lavatories and no signs of discomfort in the crew. Terry Pratchett rejected this for the Science of Discworld. Magic wands work because they need to in a fantasy story. No scientific justification is necessary.

Yet Discworld books have tended to be more scientifically literate than a lot of what passes for sci-fi. Instead Science of Discworld uses the Discworld setting to tell a story. The first tells about the origins of the Earth, the evolution of life and the eventual rise of a species with an interest in sex and hitting things with sticks. This was done by interleaving ‘story’ chapters with ‘commentary’ chapters, both dealing with the science from differing angles. It was the best tie-in science book I read, and the only one where the authors had clearly thought “What can we do with the material?” rather than simply following where they thought the material led them.

If Science of Discworld was similar to Stewart and Cohen’s “Collapse of Chaos”, then Science of Discworld II: The Globe owed an even bigger debt to “Figments of Reality”, which explored a theory of the development of the mind. I expected Darwin’s Watch to be a Discworlded version of Evolving the Alien (aka What Would a Martian Look Like?). It’s not. You would expect Darwin’s Watch to be an evolution book from the title and the plot. The plot as before is that Humanity needs to develop a space elevator to escape Earth before the next cosmic catastrophe hits. However beings charged with running the universe find life untidy and so interfere with human history to ensure that humanity is still earthbound when catastrophe occurs. They do this by tweaking Darwin’s life. Instead of writing “The Origin of Species” he writes “Theology of Species”, a remarkably similar book, but one which leaves a God inside evolution. The willingness to appeal to supernatural agency in ‘science’ slows down progress enough to ensure an icy tomb for everyone. The Wizards of the Discworld therefore interfere to put Darwin back on track. It’s definitely not a re-write of Evolving the Alien. A better description would be that it’s not about Natural Selection per se at all. Rather than it’s a history of the development of the theory of Natural Selection, albeit a history which didn’t happen in our universe.

The authors describe the theological position of design making references to Paley’s Watch. That’s the one where if you found a watch while walking on a heath you’d wonder about the designer. The authors point out you’d far more likely wonder who dropped it and how you’d be able to return it to the owner. It might sound trivial, but the point is that a watch and a biological organism are very different things. You ask different questions about them.

They also show how it’s not enough to have an idea, but the idea has to fit in at the right time. The example they give is the steam engine which they sjow was invented and re-invented on a regular basis since the days of Hero of Alexandria. They argue that James Watt’s genius was not inventing the steam engine, but in seizing the time and making the steam engine relevant. Watt showed why steam engines were useful devices. Similarly Darwin’s Natural Selection did not come out of nowhere, but the reason we look to Darwin as the father of Evolution rather than Alfred Russel Wallace is the sheer work and mass of evidence Darwin compiled. Darwin was able to show his ideas fitted in beautifully with other facts which were becoming known like the immense antquity of the Earth. Good stuff, but a chapter on steam engines is not something you’d expect in a book on biological evolution.

I’ll be honest. My first reaction to the book was one of slight disappointment. The authors are all brilliant and it’s a sad fact that their writing on an off-day would still beat most other people’s work in readability and entertainment. I think I’m being a little unfair though as part of the disappointment was that I was expecting Natural Selection rather than a History of the Idea of Natural Selection. On those terms it almost works. It really only fails when the authors start talking about creating time machines with closed time loops during a segment when the wizards are travelling back and forth in time. They seem to have disregarded their own excellent advice that magic doesn’t need to be explained in scientific terms. Another factor is that some of the book is a response to the Intelligent Design debate. Sadly the Intelligent Design argument is a bit of an incoherent mess, so it’s hard to make a coherent response. If you get bogged down trying to do that then you miss the beauty of evolution which is a breathtakingly elegant solution to a problem, rather than merely an alternative to creationism.

Despite that it’s still amazingly well written and while I don’t think I’ve grasped everything at the first reading I at least get the impression that I will understand it after more thought. There are also some wonderful touches. Even in an alternative reality the Reverend Richard Dawkins is still an atheist.

I’ve no doubt my opinion of the book will change a little of time, but I still expect to be out at the bookshop on the day of publication for Science of Discworld IV. Please let it be one on Chaos and Complexity. —–