Customer Reviews

The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth

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This is a fine read, well-written and researched. Holmes is a personal hero of mine and I was thrilled to see a biography about him. I learned a lot of things about him that I never knew, including where he got his fascination with E. Africa, his time with an oil company, and how he struggled to get an academic post (the vignette about his curio shop should provide inspiration to all young geologists struggling for their first academic job. Ms. Lewis does a good job of presenting Holmes, warts and all, including his somewhat unsavory dalliance with Doris Reynolds (nepotism is always with us). The author does a great job of capturing the excitement of young Holmes learning about the unfolding mysteries of radioactivity and his efforts to apply this revolution to understanding earth processes and history. There are lots of photos, I wish there were more. The only bone that I have to pick with the author is that Kelvin's true motivation for concluding the earth must be young is not presented early enough. Yes, evolution called for lots of time, but the sun screamed louder to the physicists that little time could have had elapsed. How could the sun have remained so brilliantly hot if it were as ancient as Darwin thought the earth must be? No one could imagine that the sun could produce its energy by nuclear fusion, a concept that wasn't dreamed of until well into the 20th century. Its heat must come from burning something and this combustion could not go on for long. Kelvin was right to conclude that because the sun must be young, so must the earth.

I read this book on my way from London to Edinburgh (and the return) trip. Although such a read might add to the cost of the book, I highly recommend doing the same thing since you can trace some of Holme's history as well! The book discusses the struggles of Arthur Holmes to establish geochronology as a legitimate science and to establish the age of the Earth. The scientific struggles are intertwined with a discussion of Holme's personal struggles and the reader truly gets a sense of scientific history throughout the book. It is interesting for other reasons as well. The book helps explain the source of many young earth creationist arguments against radiometric dating. These 'modern' creationists are merely recycling old arguments that Holmes and colleagues scientifically dismissed during the establishment of modern mass spectrometry. If you never understood the rigors and challenges of modern science this book will enlighten you as well. Cherry Lewis does a wonderful job explaining the rigors of peer-review and the difficulty in establishing a new paradigm.

The book is quite good, and I learned quite a lot (I don't know much anyway) about geology and planetology. But, the story of Mr. Holmes is not that interesting. Especially the 50 pages about his trip in Africa! Puh-leez! I love reading about the history of scientific discoveries, and I would have prefered more pages on the rejection of the continental drift theory.

Cherry Lewis is an excellent writer, and through this book allows the reader to "get to know" one of the most influential characters in Geological history. The level of detail is extraordinary, and science is brought to life- all the struggles as well as the triumphs. This book serves as an inspiration to all current and future scientists.