The Map That Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of a Science: Complete & Unabridged (Hörkassette)

The Map That Changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and the Birth of a Science: Complete & Unabridged (Hörkassette)
von Simon Winchester

Divided Earths Layers and Beliefs
• • • • • (bewertet mit 4 von 5 Punkten)

When William Smith was born and even well in to his journey of discovery, the age of the Earth was well documented. A person had only to turn to a Bible to find the exact year, day and hour that "time began". That date today would fall within the area of Creationism, a topic that is still held to be true by many who do not believe the Bible is open to interpretation, and believe that the Theory of Evolution is little more than a fiction. If your beliefs fall in to the former group this book will be of no interest to you, and lest you think Creationists are an insignificant group, the author quotes one study that shows up to 100 million people in The USA are inclined to the Bible's explanation of the Earth's beginnings as opposed to those of science.

"The Map That Changed The World", is a great addition to books on a variety of scientific disciplines that bring a subject to a wide range of readers and not just those devoted to the topic. The author Simon Winchester describes this book as a hors d'oeuvre in comparison to the work of Professor Torrens who is writing what Mr. Winchester believes will be the definitive book on William Smith and his life's work. Far from using Professor's Torrens' work, the Professor was an active participant and advisor for Mr. Winchester in producing this much smaller volume for those of us that are not students of geology.

William Smith paved the way for men like Darwin and Wallace who would build upon what Smith had created, and then greatly expand the concept that there have been great changes to living creatures over nearly unimaginable periods of time, and that by knowing where a fossil could and would be found could begin to create a History of our planet that was exponentially older than believed at the time.

While this book is firmly on the side of evolution the author does explain the theories that accounted for fossils and their apparently random location throughout the Earth's crust. There locale was compared to the stars, if God could randomly place stars wherever He chose why could He not also place these remnants of long dead animals where He chose as well? For those who take the Bible literally such an explanation is not a great leap. This was a time of "Phlogiston, Ether", a time when it was held by many that mountains were as organic as trees and grew upward and outward just as their branched counterparts.

This book did slow down a bit when the author retraced some of William's Smith's travels. The writer is clearly enamored of William Smith and geology for his writing, at times, appears to cross the line from descriptive to a celebratory type of prose.

William Smith had a wild ride of a life, and the end is comparable to what Hollywood would have conjured to make the audience feel good. It may not read as well and be accepted in a book as it would in a theater, but this is a fine piece of writing on a man that most know little or nothing about. And for bringing William Smith to us we can thank Simon Winchester.

Eine Rezension von Francis J. Mcinerney Commonwealth
vom 15. März 2003

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1.	Divided Earths Layers and Beliefs (die aktuell angezeigte Rezension)

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