Scorched

A reflection on our molecular origins

Saturday, July 18th, 2009 | cosmology, history | No Comments

[IN AUGUST 2008, I was asked to give a talk on climate change in the Rhodes University History Department. This, the department that turned my world view upside down, over a decade ago. Some say science shows us we don't need god. I'd say history did that for me. I grew up believing that god was the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, that human beings were just a small blip on the longer timeline of god. Then I studied history, and discovered that the human timeline was a lot longer than Sunday School lead me to believe… suddenly I realised that god was just a small blip on the much longer and more impressive timeline that is the history of this universe.

Some people figure this out right from the start. I’m a late starter, I’ll admit to that. But at least I get there in the end. So this, a little reflection on why history matters, and why science and history and natural history are inseparable disciplines. An extract from my own little gospel of rational thought.]

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Earth rising (M&G)

Friday, January 30th, 2009 | climate change, cosmology | No Comments

It’s Monday, 5am. Earth is pirouetting around the tip of its axis, spinning Africa back towards the sun. Birds have finished belting out their morning song (bloody racket, sometimes, the dawn chorus, but you can’t help loving it). Soon, a crescent of flaming orange will slice across the eastern horizon, as if someone’s peeping through a curtain.

I’d rather be in bed, but astronomical phenomena wait for no one. In two hours the moon will begin to roll between us and the sun, drawing the curtain closed again in a partial solar eclipse. › Continue reading