Customer Reviews

Destiny or Chance: Our Solar System and its Place in the Cosmos

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having just finished the book, and enjoying it immensely, I was curious what the general consensus was on this work. I was a bit surprised at the negativity aimed at the book.

The negative reviews appear to come from students dismayed with the writing style. They should have read the Introduction. For more scholarly purposes, Taylor refers the reader to his more properly cited and thorough work, Solar System Evolution (1992). This volume's style is more akin to a museum tour, with meandering asides and conjectures. Taylor's references to subjects past and further-on are no trouble, if one reads to book front-to-back. I can see how students picking through the book "salad-bar" style would become frustrated.

For a book intended for the layman, the style is very effective. As a casual read, it was intruiging and entertaining. Taylor brought me to a more comprehensive view of our Solar System, and its strange members. He goes to great efforts to keep his writing accessible, and scientific jargon to a manageable level.

As a nit-picky student of English, I'll confess to not seeing all the "typos" mentioned in prior reviews. Either I missed them, or the other readers are in error. One glaring error I did notice was a picture and caption reference to a "Brontosaurus." This term has been out of favor for decades, and is only seen in books for children. The correct word is "Apatosaurus."

For a good view of the present state of knowledge of the origins of the Solar System, I'd recommend this book.

This book is really very well written. I understand the planets MUCH better than many books I've read. I would give it 6 stars if I could. I couldn't stop reading it -it's really different from the other books. Take it out of the library first and read it - you'll want to buy it! I couldn't wait to get it!

Taylor has written one of the worst science books I have ever read. If I didn't have to finish it for class, I would have put (nay, THREW) it down before the first chapter was over. I'm not criticizing the science in the book, which I believe is quite good, since Taylor is a well-respected planetary geologist. The problems with this book, rather, are primarily grammatical and stylistic. First, and most ingratiating, Taylor keeps telling us that he will explain things "later". I lost count of the number of times the sentence "More on that later." ends a paragraph. Secondly, there are a number of typographical errors in the book, mainly the kind discovered only by human proofreaders (like using "from" instead of "form"). It seems as if Taylor just did a spell check on his final draft and then sent it off to the printers. Thirdly, there is no flow to the book. Sentences are, for the most part, simple. Paragraphs and sections follow one another with apparently no connection, like a laundry list of information. Unlike a novel, the reader of this kind of book should have some idea where it is going and what grand statement is being proved. This doesn't happen. Fourthly, Taylor spends too much time explaining simple concepts but not enough time on difficult concepts. He also thinks that annoying pop culture references will clarify things. Finally, otherwise this list would be much to long, Taylor doesn't show any interest in his subject. I know he IS interested, since he spent his entire life studying our solar system, but you wouldn't get that idea from the book. This must be due to bad writing. Sorry Taylor, but you ... at it.

The main point of this book is the chaotic way in which our solar system came into being. It cannot be described in a systematic scientific way, but is rather a hotchpotch of elements thrown together through a series of bewilderingly complex and random processes.

A bit like Mr Taylor's book in fact.

Perhaps in order to empathise with his content, Mr Taylor has adopted a style of writing and presentation that is every bit as chaotic and unstructured as our solar system.

Muddled, repetitive, incohesive and full of irritating references to what was said earlier or what is about to be said, the book reads like a series of draft lecture notes thrown together with all the abandon that distinguishes the creation of our solar system.

Above all, the poor quality of description makes the reading a frustrating experience:

"When a meteorite or comet hits the surface, debris is thrown out by the explosion and surrounds the crater like a blanket. Unlike craters on other planets, those on Venus often have a missing sector. This gap is caused when the rubble thrown-out (sic) by the explosion runs into turbulence in the atmosphere caused by the incoming meteorite or asteroid. The flung-out rock just gets tossed aside."

As did this book.

Destiny or Chance is an interesting look at the question of how we got here. Whether or not we are here by accident is an important question as it deeply influences how we view ourselves and other people. Taylor takes us through many (what he sees as) amazing coincidences that got us here in an interesting journey. The order in which he presents the material is a bit different, but it is logical in retrospect.

As for the conclusions he offers, I must respectfully disagree with him. He shows clearly that our presence here is either the most amazing of coincidences or a clear miracle, but he chooses the coincidence. He then spends a little time complaining that we don't spend our limited time here better. I find that inconsistent, though -- if we are here by accident, there is no higher calling to direct our lives. It is only if we were put here by a higher being (read, God) that anyone has a right to say that better should be expected of us.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting read full of sometimes startling facts.

Mr. Taylor has presented an excellent analysis of the possible sequence of events that resulted in the creation of Earth and subsequent life. He has brought together many of the concepts I had been wondering about for the past several years. It seems very unlikely that "little green men" will be visiting us soon, but we will still pour a lot of money into the search. Taylor's writing style is not as good as I would have liked; he has too many cases of "talking about this later". Overall, though, this is well worth your time.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the information related in this book, I found the way in which the author presented it frequently annoying. His use of, what I perceived as, irrelevant and distracting metaphors (etheral rings of Saturn compared to Tinkerbell, Peter Pan and Wendy's fairy friend) did little to elucidate the matter at hand. There were sections in the book that seemed curiously anomalous - why did he spend so much time debating the Gaia principle in an otherwise scientific-based analysis? I was also shocked at the degree of type-errors associated with a book published by Cambridge university press. While I would advocate the subject matter I would not reccomend this particular one, or this particular author.

I enjoyed this book very much for its ease of understanding of the science behind the creation of our solar system as we know it. That being said, the book is also intended to convince the reader that its creation is random and meaningless, and to come to that conclusion the author not only leaps to unsubstantiated conclusions but hypocritical ones.

For the entire book the author continuously repeats that life evolved quickly in comparison to the duration of the existence of the universe and has existed for such a short period of time comparably to defend his position. But to dispute the possibility of a creator he then asks if there is in fact a creator, why would the creator utilize a process that took so long to get to this point? Sorry, you already established life's existence on earth is but a brief moment and happened quickly, you can't have it both ways. Try to keep up with your own arguments, it happened quickly by his own words.

Next, he claims that if life wasn't random, why would a creator utilize such an inefficient process to get it to this current point? Last I checked, life exists, the process worked whether it was random or not, and by his own analysis it happened rather quickly. That is hardly the criteria of a process that is inefficient. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say success plus the rapid speed of success reveals an extremely efficient system.

Lastly, he ridicules the epicycle rationalization that was needed to support retrograde motion in the Ptolemaic system as a refusal to accept the visible and scientific evidence that the earth was not the center if the universe, but he then commits the same type of rationalization at the end of the book when the science of planet formation doesn't hold true elsewhere and needs an "epicycle" rationalization to continue to appear accurate. The author states that planets orbiting other stars should not form as we observe them in accordance to the science that is known based on our own solar system -- the science that he believes proves that all events are random. But the fact that the science does not hold true reveals it is potentially incorrect and thus our conclusions based on it do not reflect reality because they are based on our inaccurate knowledge and limited understanding -- not unlike believing the earth is the center of the universe. But he can't state that the science is flawed or that his understanding of it may be incomplete or else it would reduce his conclusion meaningless, so he in turn commits the same type of "epicycle" rationalization that he previously ridicules and makes up new rules that only apply to those specific instances to justify the science. It is an astounding and laughably hypocritical exercise.

Not to mention the most basic reality -- simply because it appears random to us does not mean it is, it only reveals our limited ability to grasp the existence of a universe that we are not only such a small part of but nearly practically non-existent to in comparison.