A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You by Sean B. Carroll (PDF)

Description

Fascinating and exhilarating—Sean B. Carroll at his very best.—Bill Bryson, author of The Body: A Guide for OccupantsFrom acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the worldWhy is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things—any of which might never have occurred—had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible accidents in our parents’ gonads, we are all here through an astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life and death.This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by one of today’s most accomplished science storytellers, A Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Interesting information about chance occurrences and trivia about rare and unusually events. I found it entertaining and contained some good information to think about. The information about how fast genetic replication in cells occurs and the likely reason why genetic errors get created in some cells was a take I hadn’t heard before.I think the book is definitely worth a read.

⭐I highly recommend this book – my first Sean Carroll book – but some parts left me wanting more such as his parts about religion, timber rattlesnake stories, and the relative risks of causes of death. I feel Carroll should have and easily (given his experience and qualifications) could have delved more into the psychology, dogma, and media saturation which affects our perception of his topics. But perhaps that’s another book. And in some parts – especially within the last ~30% of the book – I wanted less when he got into the weeds with biology and genetics. However I still recommend reading the “weeds”, because he planted some tasty morsels amongst the weeds and his overall points are still understandable.

⭐This effectively short book (relatively few words per page) is based around a handful of long vignettes. An “evolution” theme: the dinosaur extinction via chance asteroid collision allowed mammals to expand; random mutations as starting ingredients for long-term evolution by natural selection; and the claim that the ice age climate fluctuations (claimed in turn as an incidental consequence of continental drift) was a driver of the evolution of human intelligence (both those claims are in fact scientifically debatable). And a “medical” theme: the immune system production of antibodies is driven by its own rapid process of random mutation; the role of different types of mutations, over a lifetime, driving cancer incidence. Finally a cleverly creative imaginary “conversation about chance” between interesting real individuals (from Eric Idle to Kurt Vonnegut).The stated theme of the book is:”It is almost trivial to claim that the world is the way it is or that we are here because of a long chainof chance, albeit fortunate, events. The explanatory power I seek comes from specificity.It is essential to unpack some of those events to appreciate how they shape the direction of life.”These specifics are explained in clear and engaging style — around the middle of the spectrum (gee-whiz to ponderous academic) of popular science writing. And are loosely matched with little stories about individuals.However I’m unsure of the target audience. Those who have read considerable popular science will have seen several of these 5 main topics before. For others, maybe brief discussions of 50 such events would be more convincing about the extent of chance in the Making of the Planet, Life, and You.The topic of this book relates to one of the greatest unsolved questions in science, the Fermi Paradox — why don’t we see evidence of extraterrestrial technological civilizations? (see

⭐for a popular account). One common suggestion is that in fact the initial probability of such civilization emerging on Earth was very very small. But this Big Picture question isn’t addressed — to me a curious omission.

⭐The author puts together stories and science in a way that I found informative and entertaining. The book covers an exceptionally wide historical range, from past events and significant discoveries, to newer science I found fascinating and clearly explained.I am puzzled, though, by his main theme – that life is ‘accidental’. He claims what we’ve learned about nature shows it operates using ‘chance’, in contrast to being guided by design or purposeful creation.Although he claims to be against anthropomorphizing, his point of view seems just the opposite. It seems to me that the notions of ‘accidental’ and ‘chance’ only have meaning in reference to human expectations and knowledge. The universe just ‘is’, and it doesn’t give a whit about what humans know or expect.

⭐I enjoyed the easy and steady pace it took to read the book. Honestly, I couldn’t put it down until I’d read it to the index. It was a very good introduction to some ideas that are pretty novel to me. I do intend to read more of his work.

⭐Understanding risk and probability could alleviate fear of many human endeavors. In this Sean Carroll description of the rise and continued existence of Home sapiens such insight is attainable. In places, difficult for non-scientific minds, but still compelling and useful. As with the editions of both Sean Carroll’s, a stretch into unknown territory.

⭐Excellent, easy to understand explanation of how the universe and the life in it came to existence. Carroll makes it clear that only because of very “unlikely” and seemingly minor changes in a specific process then the outcome changed. He calls these changes “accidents” but I call them the results of a plan made by an all powerful, intelligent creator.I give five stars because the information is interesting.

⭐As other books by the author, good presentation of a crucial feature of reality. But implications for mental time traveling into alternative futures are lacking, including the fateful nature of all human choices as bounded fuzzy gambles; comments on moral values are culturally narrow and philosophically shallow; and discussions on God are childish, ignoring (as in other books by the author) all of negative theology.Professor Yehezkel Dror

⭐The book is well written and teaches you some interesting things about the history of earth and life, as well as some biology especially genetics. However, there was actually nothing really new for me to learn. And to be honest, I don’t see what’s the message of the book except for “Look, randomness is everywhere”. But that’s barely something shocking to learn. It’s maybe not the author’s fault, maybe I was just not target audience. But if you expect some new lessons not found in already published books or you look for deep new insights on randomness and on why everything is random, you will be probably disappointed.

⭐Author is a learned one. However if the reader wants to have a good and deep explanation on the way in which evolution and randomness work this is not the book. I was left with the question on how the evolution evolves.

⭐Liked this book.

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