Calculating God
Tor, New York, 2000
ISBN 0-312-86713-1
Monika says:
God doesn’t play dice, said Albert Einstein, but perhaps He is
calculating in some way? Does He exist at all? The question whether there
is a scientific way to prove the existence of God is the basic theme of
CALCULATING GOD.
Tom Jericho, curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, is an
ardent agnostic. Even the fact that he has terminal cancer and only one
more year to live can’t shake his conviction. He sees science and
religion as two separate and totally incompatible fields. But then he has
his own "close encounter of the third kind" when one day a space
ship lands near the former planetarium at his museum and a strange being
climbs up the steps to the front door. The guard in the entrance hall
hardly believes his eyes and ears when the creature asks in plain English
to speak to a paleontologist.
The story Hollus has to tell is more than fantastic. On his way to
Earth he visited seven solar systems and found intelligent life on two
planets. Those two planets and Hollus’ home world experienced
simultaneous mass extinctions. Jericho confirms that on Earth, too, there
were five major extinction events, the latest one 65 million years ago.
The dates he gives Hollus coincide with those of the other inhabited
worlds. Could it be that a "higher power" controls the course of
evolution? The alien Hollus and Tom Jericho form a close friendship in the
weeks to come and their contrary opinions on fundamental questions are an
inexhaustible source for all kinds of discussions.
In the USA creationism is taught in schools along with the evolution
theory . In Germany many people have never heard the word much less know
what it means. The term creationism dates back to Bishop Ussher who a
couple of hundred years ago calculated that the world was created in the
year 4004 BC and therefore is only six thousand years old. In 1999 the
debate between creationists and evolutionary biologists reached a sad
climax when the evolution theory was officially banned from schools in the
state of Kansas because it supposedly was too confusing for the kids to
hear in their religious instruction lessons that God created the world in
six days and in their biology lessons about an evolution that took place
during billions of years. A sad example how even in our so enlightened
world religion is put above science.
CALCULATING GOD is no plea for creationism but an attempt to show that
science and religion can be compatible. Hollus doesn’t deny that
evolution took place over a long span of time, however, he tries to
convince his friend that God exists and that He controls evolution as He
sees fit. Intellectual discussions between the two scientists with very
different opinions drive the story. Except for a subplot that only gains
importance at the end of the book there isn’t much action. This doesn’t
mean the author is boring the readers, on the contrary. CALCULATING GOD is
one of those books that stay with you long after you put them down. |
