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Just when you've stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb, along comes Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, with teeming armies of deadly viruses, nanobots, and armed fanatics. Beyond the hazards most of us know about--smallpox, terrorists, global warming--Rees introduces the new threats of the 21st century and the unholy political and scientific alliances that have made them possible. Our Final Hour spells out doomsday scenarios for cosmic collisions, high-energy experiments gone wrong, and self-replicating machines that steadily devour the biosphere. If we can avoid driving ourselves to extinction, he writes, a glorious future awaits; if not, our devices may very well destroy the universe.
What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.
For many technological debacles, Rees places much of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the scientists who participate in perfecting environmental destruction, biological menaces, and ever-more powerful weapons. So is there any hope for humanity? Rees is vaguely optimistic on this point, offering solutions that would require a level of worldwide cooperation humans have yet to exhibit. If the daily news isn't enough to make you want to crawl under a rock, this book will do the trick. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
A world-renowned astrophysicist advances an astonishing and alarming thesis: the odds are no better than 50/50 that our species will survive to the end of the twenty-first century.
A scientist known for unraveling the complexities of the universe over millions of years, Sir Martin Rees now warns that humankind is potentially the maker of its own demise--and that of the cosmos. Though the twenty-first century could be the critical era in which life on Earth spreads beyond our solar system, it is just as likely that we have endangered the future of the entire universe. With clarity and precision, Rees maps out the ways technology could destroy our species and thereby foreclose the potential of a living universe whose evolution has just begun.
Rees boldly forecasts the startling risks that stem from our accelerating rate of technological advances. We could be wiped out by lethal "engineered" airborne viruses, or by rogue nano-machines that replicate catastrophically. Experiments that crash together atomic nuclei could start a chain reaction that erodes all atoms of Earth, or could even tear the fabric of space itself. Through malign intent or by mistake, a single event could trigger global disaster. Though we can never completely safeguard our future, increased regulation and inspection can help us to prevent catastrophe.
Rees's vision of the infinite future that we have put at risk--a cosmos more vast and diverse than any of us has ever imagined--is both a work of stunning scientific originality and a humanistic clarion call on behalf of the future of life.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating look at threats to our future...........2006-06-25
I'm frankly interested in natural disasters such as tornados, floods, and hurricanes. I find it fascinating how the human spirit can remain strong despite an environment which might at any time become deadly. "Our Final Hour" contains a scientists warnings about spectacular disasters we as human beings might one day have to face, and what if anything can be done to prevent/overcome these unforseen disasters. From flooding, to terrorist threat, this book plays out many scenarios with stunning and interesting outcomes.
This book is not light reading and might take a while to plow through, but I enjoyed every minute. Its interesting stuff, and while I'm not particularly worried about these sort of cataclysmic events included in this book, its nice to be prepared- and it makes good fodder for science fiction writing.
5 stars.
Things we all need to think about.......2004-11-18
A short but very thought-provoking book, this is not a 'doom and gloom' pessimistic view of the future, but an invitation to the reader to seriously think about humanity's long-term survival prospects. A good selection of both natural and human-caused dangers are considered here, though not in a great deal of depth.
There is a focus on space related dangers (and other space topics like interplanetary colonisation as a safeguard against disaster on Earth), which is not at all surprising given the author, and while I would have preferred to have had more coverage on other topics, it was probably a good decision by Rees to focus on those areas he knows best.
One particularly thought-provoking topic is the idea that technology is rapidly reaching a point where individuals (or very small groups) can cause catastrophic global damage, a very new phenomenon. While we generally find the idea of a society with no privacy distasteful, monitoring every individual may become necessary as the only real way to combat this danger. We all may have to seriously start considering how much privacy and freedom we wish to retain, versus how much danger we are willing to accept for the human race.
A sobering assessment.......2004-11-16
An important thing to realize when reading this book is that we will indeed have a "final hour." Whether it comes through extinction or self destruction or through our becoming "posthuman" is entirely uncertain, but come it will.
I have read several other doomsday books, including A Guide to the End of the World: Everything You Never Wanted to Know (2002) by Bill McGuire, and Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man (2002) by Michael Boulter. I have also read some books by futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Pierre Baldi (The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence [1999] and The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution [2001], respectively); additionally I have read some of the books that Rees relied upon while writing this book, including, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002) by Francis Fukuyama, and so most of the things that Martin Rees is worried about are familiar to me.
But this book nonetheless broadened my perspective because Sir Martin Rees (the Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, and a distinguished astrophysicist) is persuasive in his argument that there may actually be scientific experiments that should not be tried. He warns against some kinds of genetic engineering, especially those attempting to change the DNA of dangerous pathogens, and even rates some experiments in physics as of dubious value. This is a somewhat surprising stance for a reputable scientists to take since most scientists do not relish the prospect of political restraints on their work, and usually afford the same courtesy to practitioners in other disciplines.
His call for taking a close look at experiments with a chance of a "doomsday downside," however remote, is well taken. His sense that some biological experiments have such an unsavory "yuck factor" (e.g., "Brainless hominoids whose organs could be harvested as spare parts," p. 78) that scientists themselves should not be alone in deciding whether such experiments should continue, is also an excellent point.
Rees is characteristically not dogmatic about any of this. He presents the dangers and the objections typically with the proviso that a wider public than an individual scientist, or an oligarchy of scientists, should participate in the decisions made. Indeed Rees is an eminently reasonable man who tries to have as few prejudices (or "yuck factors") about things as possible.
He emphasizes the unpredictability of future developments, noting that "straightforward projections of present trends will miss the most revolutionary innovations: the qualitatively new things that really change the world." (p. 12) Nobody before modern physics could have predicted the power of the atomic bomb, nor could the earliest experimenters with electricity have foreseen how electrical power would transform the world.
Like the futurists named above, Rees sees a posthuman future for our kind, a future in which cultural evolution transforms humans into something beyond human. He recalls Darwin, who wrote, "not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity" and notes that "Earth itself may endure, but it will not be humans who cope with the scorching of our planet by the dying sun..." (p. 186) What both Darwin and Rees are acknowledging is that all species eventually become extinct, and so too will humans.
The central point of this book I believe however is to be found further down the page where Rees writes, "Nuclear weapons give an attacking nation a devastating advantage over any feasible defense. New sciences will soon empower small groups, even individuals, with similar leverage over society. Our increasingly interconnected world is vulnerable to new risks; 'bio' or 'cyber,' terror or error. These risks cannot be eliminated: indeed it will be hard to stop them from growing without encroaching on some cherished personal freedoms."
Indeed, this is perhaps the central conundrum of our time made emphatic by the events of September 11th.
One of the most interesting ideas in this book is this from page 154: "Perhaps complex aggregates of atoms, whether brains or machine, can never understand everything about themselves." I am reminded here of Godel's incompleteness theorem in which he demonstrated that mathematics cannot have a truly rigorous logical foundation. I am also reminded of Russell's discovery that the logic of self-referential systems can lead to paradox. Rees's point here is that we may never really know ourselves.
Rees also makes the point on the same page that our machines will accelerate science, perhaps to the point where only machines can understand the new discoveries.
Clearly we are finite creatures in a world that we can never hope to fully understand. Furthermore there will always be dangers that we cannot predict or avoid. These are sobering thoughts for humans to think.
Rees closes by asking if the future will "be filled with life, or as empty as the Earth's first sterile seas" and he opines that "The choice may depend on us, this century."
Here I think he is waxing perhaps a bit melodramatic since, while we may have the ability to destroy civilization here on earth, life will indeed go on since it is highly unlikely that we will develop any time soon the ability to destroy all life. Furthermore, I agree with those who believe that life in some form exists beyond our solar system. Surely we will not be able to destroy them.
Doom gloom and death .......2004-09-21
This is a very clearly written exposition of the major threats facing mankind in the present and near future. It provides sensible discussions of incredible dangers that most of us do not think about most of the time. It is also reasonable in understanding that the nuclear threat has not vanished with the fall of the Soviet Union but has rather transformed. It too presents a picture of possible survival through colonization of other worlds. And it proposes a whole set of possibilities of transformation of humanity into some other form of being which would make our cosmic survival more likely. Its focus however is in discussing the kinds of dangers human tampering with nature and environment bring to the future.
The hopelessness which I personally felt in reading the work comes not only from the possibility that one of the ' doom scenarios' might be realized. It is rather from the strong feeling which Rees is not alone in presenting, that we human beings as we are, are only a temporary stage which will necessarily be transformed into some other more durable, more intelligent kind of ' thing.' I find that this approach undermines the central value of the 'human'as we know it. Human life,individual human beings, human relations in all their complexity, the human relation to the Divine seem to me to be more precious and holy, than our ' survival ' as another ' form of being'. This book is frightening in its negative prospects but too does not console in the picture of the non- human human future, it gives.
Important, maybe even inspiring, but lacks depth.......2004-09-03
I have the greatest respect for Martin Rees both as a leading scientist and as a scientist who believes in making science widely accessible. My sense is that in this book, he presents so much so briefly that the most important themes remain undeveloped.
The doom-and-gloom title only tells part of the story. Rees summarizes the many threats to our civilization, the biosphere, and even to the cosmos as a whole. These risks stem from natural events such as asteroids, comets, or super-massive volcanic eruptions, but even more from human activities. Rees does a good job of reminding us that science and technology are giving individuals, whatever their motivations, access to more and more power. It won't be long before a terrorist group or a Unibomber-type individual could cause enormous destruction, for example by unleashing homemade bioweapons. Other risks come from scientists heedlessly pushing the envelope of fields such as nanotechnology. The cumulative risk, Rees argures, has never been greater, not even during the depths of the cold war.
Still, Rees provides some hope. He advocates a renewed thrust into space, with the idea of establishing self-sufficient groups of humans (or our "descendants" in the form of intelligent machines) away from Earth, where even an Earth-destroying disaster would not bring human (and posthuman) history to a crashing stop.
These are important themes, which Rees backs up by brief references to those who have gone more deeply into them than he has.
I would have felt more satisfied by Our Final Hour if Rees had taken the time to go more deeply into his most important points himself.
Robert Adler, author of Scence Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation; and Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome
Book Description
"I awakened early on Friday morning, November 22, 1963. The day was gray and somber. Rain was falling....I asked John if I could ride with him to Dallas, and his reply was 'certainly.' We got in the jump seats right behind the driver and secret service man in the front. I was on the driver's side. Mrs. Kennedy was behind me. The President sat directly behind John. We were a happy foursome. I had my yellow roses; Jackie had red ones. I turned to the President as the formation of cars turned onto Elm Street and said, ' Mr. President, you certainly cannot say that Dallas does not love you.'"Nellie Connally, wife of the late governor of Texas John Connally, shares her personal diary of the JFK assassination. While a seminal document in our nation's history-the original document is to be archived at the University of Texas-From Love Field is, at heart, one woman's account of a personal tragedy. Written for her children and grandchildren forty years ago in November 1963, the diary details what it took as a wife, mother, and friend to cope with an unimaginable personal and public ordeal. With the twenty-six-page original document expertly reproduced in its entirely and an additional narrative detailing the days before and after the fatal shots, From Love Field also includes many major newsbreaking revelations that further delineate Mrs. Connally's longstanding dispute of the Warren Commission's findings. Along with Mickey Herskowitz, a longtime family friend and coauthor of John Connally's autobiography In History's Shadow, Nellie Connally has, at last, broken her silence and given the country a personal point of view of the most controversial and disturbing chapter in its history.
Customer Reviews:
Compelling insight into that horrible day.......2007-06-17
I find this book wonderfully written by Mrs Connolly and a never before seen insight into what happened that day. As the (then) only surviving member of that car, it was something that is much appreciated to hear what her opinion was.
Meeting the gracious and beautiful Nellie Connally.......2004-09-20
My husband and I had the opportunity yesterday to get our copy of "From Love Field" signed by Mrs. Nellie Connally. What a treat! She is so elegant and eloquent, and gracious to all of her fans. She spoke personably with every single person in line and made everyone feel like they were of interest to her. I started reading her book as soon as I got in the car, and read straight through til I finished it. It is a wonderful book, exactly what you would expect from someone who lived through that horrible day. I got exactly what I expected to get from reading it, and even more. I especially appreciated the speeches that President Kennedy wasn't able to give being reproduced in the book. This is a book I will always cherish, along with meeting this great Texan, Mrs. Nellie Connally.
Refreshing and Honest.......2004-08-05
Of the many volumes on the subject, I find this book to be the best. Told with charm and grace, Nellie Connally relates the events of November 22, 1963 as only an occupant of that ill-fated Presidential Lincoln could. Devoid of conjecture or theories, we are simply presented with the facts. The Connally's viewpoint from the jumpseats is sobering. Pivotal moments, from Mrs. Connally's last words to President Kennedy to Governor Connally' near fatal wounds to Oswald's emergency room visit after the Jack Ruby shooting are covered in a comfortable format; making one feel that Mrs. Connally is relating the events to you personally. Thank-You, Mrs. Connally.
Thank you, Mrs. Connally.......2004-03-07
The former First Lady of Texas takes an infamous blot on our history, an event that quite literally changed the world for generations to come, and put it in completely human terms. This is what happened to her and her family. This is how she remembers it. What's more, it's how she experienced it -- from both the front seat of the Lincoln Continental and the corridors of Parkland Hospital. This makes it an invaluable historical record, and a moving account written by a woman who had been fired upon in an open car and held her bleeding husband in her arms. Perhaps it is "slight." I would not have wanted her to embellish or alter her memories of those tragic days just to accommodate readers who measure a book's worth by the number of pages. I did not consider the photographs, the reproduction of her notes nor President Kennedy's undelivered speeches "filler." They lent texture and veracity to her story. And I do not see how anyone can say there is nothing "new" here. She is the only one of those three surviving passengers who discussed what happened at this length with the public. That in and of itself is "new." I appreciate this lady's gallantry and her generosity in contributing her family's history to our country's history. And I was also moved by her son John's recollections of the funeral. It was poignant to read a man nearing 60 recalling the awe, pagentry and pain he experienced while still a teen.
FROM LOVE FIELD-FINAL HOURS W/JFK.......2004-02-08
THIS IS A VERY DISAPPOINTING BOOK - IT COULD HAVE SERVED ITSELF BETTER AS A MAGAZINE ARTICLE - THERE IS TOO MUCH REHASHING OF OLD INFORMATION AND WHAT'S KNEW IS SLIGHT.
SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GET IT OUT OF YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Book Description
In the field of science fiction, the work of Philip K Dick is unparalleled. His novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? became the classic science-fiction film Blade Runner. His short story, "The Minority Report," was recently adapted for the screen by Stephen Spielberg and stars Tom Cruise. Dick's appeal and influence has reached the world over, creating the standard for the literary science fiction novel.
In November of 1982, six months before the author's death, journalist Gwen Lee recorded the first of several in-depth discussions with Philip K. Dick that continued over the course over the next three months. These extraordinary interviews are filled with the wit and aplomb characteristic of Dick's writing, helping make What If Our World Is Their Heaven? not only an engaging read, but a unique and compelling historical document. It will be a must read for anyone interested in the field of science fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Astoundingly little content for the price.......2007-02-15
PKD is fascinating as always, but at $17 I expect a lot more than 20 pages worth of content clumsily spread across 200 pages via narrow paper, wide margins, huge type, blank pages and double-spacing. This is a magazine article pretending to be a book! For your best bang-for-buck PKD insights, save your pennies for Sutin's excellent Divine Invasions.
PHILIP K. DICK Lives On.......2005-01-23
Was it chance or fate that led Gwen Lee to record these last words of PKD?
Whatever, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to probe the depths of the PKD spirit. Here Dick laid out the plotline and central character, Ed Firmley, for his next great novel, THE OWL IN DAYLIGHT. Who needs more of it actually written? Any reader can fill in the blanks. Dick was taking the next giant step to solving the puzzle of man's existence here on earth. By positing the existence of this Nanoman race from a planet without music or sound, Dick set up the premise for another brilliant novel.
The very notion that an other world Nanoman, could implant himself via biochip into Ed Firmley's brain is ground breaking. That this would transform this hack musician into a Beethoven like composer is a light year ahead of man's current understanding of himself. What a gas that Firmley would then make the choice to allow himself to implanted into the brain of this celestial Entity. Yes, Firmley did have to exchange this puny earthly existence for a world constructed from rainbow colors. But to him it was like dying and going to heaven.
Meetings with a remarkable man.......2003-04-25
Two things were always true with Philip K. Dick: first, that whenever you looked in the direction in which he waves his wand, nothing was as it seems. And second, that whenever you looked at the magician himself, what you saw was what you got.
In this collection of transcripts of taped interviews, made with Dick during what turned out to be his last weeks on earth, we are treated to the unedited, off-the-cuff ramblings of the master. Are they worth it? They are, on at least four counts.
The first pleasure is just hearing his voice again. The second is learning various little bits that we didn't know before: about his reactions to seeing the first rushes of _Blade Runner_, which was just going into editing (he was pleased and enthusiastic, and not at all put out that the whole Mercerism theme was excised.) And about the book he was planning to begin next, The Owl in Daylight. The third pleasure is watching his creative process unfold as he massages the material for _The Owl_, plotting it and composing it right before our eyes. And the fourth is the confirmation that he is as quirky, as compassionate, as obsessed, as unpredictable, as brilliant, when speaking ad libitum as he was in his written work. What we saw in his novels turns out to be what his friends always got.
Other major themes include his 1974 "pink light" experience, and his relationship with the characters in his last novel, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.
For the completist fan, this short book is a delightful find, and one worth snapping up quick since there's no telling how long it'll be in print. But for those with only a few PKD novels under their belts, and a curiosity about what made him tick, there's a far more indispensable volume to check out first, namely the extracts from his diaries which were published in 1991 as "In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis".
Fascinating- It's like being in a room with Philip K. Dick!.......2002-07-27
Reading this book is like sitting down to a one-on-one conversation with Philip K. Dick. His unique and surprisingly upbeat personality shines though more here than in any biography. Despite personal trials and delusions Philip K. Dick retained a sense of humor and it's fascinating to hear that come through in his own words. I appreciate the fragmented sentences and "and um's" left intact because they truly convey the atmosphere of being in a room listing to Philip K. Dick. One of the most interesting things about reading this book is seeing Philip K. Dick's momentum and thought progression as he plots out a story idea (tragically one that he never had time to finish.) His interpretation of the well-known interferences in his life from either extraterrestrial or divine sources is fascinating but somewhat brief, it seems not to overshadow his existence, but merely become another accepted aspect of it. This book brings this sci-fi legend into human terms. For those interested in Philip K. Dick's personality this book is probably the most authentic and enlightening available.
Philip K. Dick is dead, alas.......2001-09-28
...And,if you read this book you'll realize just what a crying shame it truly is...The world was cheated out of "The Owl in daylight",a book that just might have ended up being his greatest. This book,(What if our world is their Heaven?)is simply a transcription of some tape interviews PKD made shortly before his untimely death in 1982.Of course this could be seen by the cynical as an attempt by those in the late PKD's circle of friends to somehow cash in on the mystique that surrounds this enigmatic science fiction legend,Its a quick read...not terribly lengthy...but the true genius of this book is the glimpse a hardcore PKD fan can get of two things...One,"The Owl in Daylight",still in the conceptual phase at the time of his death(Oh,why oh,why'd ya have die Phil?) Two,just how quickly this man's mind worked,especially as to regards the way he wrote a novel(ABSOLUTELY mind boggling).I will say that If you haven't read the Sutin Bio,parts of PKD's exegesis and I'd say,at least 10 or so of his key works you may not get a whole lot of enjoyment out of this book,But a real delight for the hardcore fan as well as a heartbreaking reminder of all the great books we could of had in the last 20 years if Phil was still around.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Issues in Science and Technology, published by National Academy of Sciences on September 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1346 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: End of the world?(Our Final Hour: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future in this Century, On Earth and Beyond)(Book Review)
Author: Robert L. Park
Publication:
Issues in Science and Technology (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2003
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Volume: 20
Issue: 1
Page: 84(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Techniques, published by Association for Career and Technical Education on April 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1147 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The future of high school career and technical education: this is the final installment of our three-part series on Richard Lynch's New Directions for High School Career and Technical Education in the 21st Century.
Author: Susan Reese
Publication:
Techniques (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2002
Publisher: Association for Career and Technical Education
Volume: 77
Issue: 4
Page: 39(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Soccer Digest, published by Century Publishing on June 1, 2002. The length of the article is 2475 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The world was watching; we continue our silver anniversary celebration with a look at the most memorable World Cup finals moments of the past quarter-century. (The 2002 World Cup).
Author: Michael Lewis
Publication:
Soccer Digest (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2002
Publisher: Century Publishing
Volume: 25
Issue: 2
Page: 20(6)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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General
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Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe
Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others (Helix Books)
Our Cosmic Habitat
The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction
Countdown to Apocalypse: A Scientific Exploration of the End of the World
