COSMIC ECOLOGY: The View from the Outside In

by George A. Seielstad ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1983

The cosmology/evolution/culture crisis from an astronomer's perspective. Seielstad, Assistant Director of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory and Caltech Senior Research Associate, adorns his sweep of sky and earth with majestic photographs and a prose that emphasizes the puniness of the planet and its human habitants. HIS point is that however one views the arrival of man and culture--as unique and special creations, as one of galactic multitudes that may yet be in contact, or as a peculiar accident of time, mass, and temperature--we are now poised on the brink: we must either cooperate to save the world and ourselves, or face annihilation. This message reflects the author's humanistic philosophy and beliefs, tied to the Gaia hypothesis. According to that concept, life on earth is a collectivity that ""actively regulates and modulates the environment in just such ways as to optimize the very conditions under which that life can flourish."" By those standards, mankind exists through the grace of algae, zooplankton, and bacteria, whose interactions keep oxygen and nitrogen in balance in the atmosphere. In arriving at these notions, Seielstad journeys through time and space tracing the first seconds, minutes, and years after the primal Big Bang. These chapters are well-done--with just enough graphs and astrophysics to elucidate which atoms and molecules came when and why, how stars develop and age, and what evidence exists for the idea that the universe is infinite and unbounded. The evolution of earthly life similarly follows a chronology that uses the popular metaphor of compressing 4 to 5 billion years into a single year; Man appears late on December 31. On the whole, a competent presentation of material covered in many popularizations, with an ecological message attached.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Univ. of California Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION