Everything Has a History by J
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EVERYTHING HAS A HISTORY BY J. B. S. HALDANE Heredity and Politics The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences New Paths in Genetics A .R .P . Possible Worlds The Inequality o f Man The Causes of Evolution Enzymes Daedalus or Science of the Future Callinkus A Defence of Chemical Warfare Fact and Faith My Friend Mr. Leaky Animal Biology (with J. S. Hrodey) Keeping Cool Science in Everyday Life Science in Peace and War EVERYTHING HAS A HISTORY BY J. B. S. HALDANE LONDON GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD RUSKIN HOUSE FORTY MUSEUM STREET FIRST PUBLISHED IN Ipjl This book is copyright under The Berne Convention. N o portion may be produced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN in 12 point Bembo type BY a TINTING AND CO. LTD., LIVERPOOL, LONDON, AND PRESCOT PREFACE I should have liked to call this book The History o f England, and other essays. Had I done so I should merely have deceived my readers. A history o f England generally turns out to be the history of a few of the better known people o f England in each century o f the last two thousand years. I think it should mean the history o f our Land, and should include what we know o f the history o f its people before any written records were made. Most o f these essays appeared in the Daily Worker, others in the Modern Quarterly, the Rationalist Annual, Coal and British Ally. I have to thank the King in Parliament for permission to republish them, though I have no doubt that permission would have been granted me even had I no legal right to republish. The last essay in the book was delivered, as an evening discourse, at a Conference on Genetics, Paleontology, and Evolution held at Princeton University as part of the commemoration of its bicentenary. I should have preferred to have spoken on a more specialized and less speculative topic. But I am sensible o f the honour done to me in asking me to speak to a wider audience than that o f our more strictly scientific meetings. In this case I certainly have to thank Princeton University for permission to republish. The essay in question has appeared in Genetics, Pale ontology and Evolution. But owing to the economic situation, this book will probably not have wide sales in Britain, though I cordially recommend it. I therefore asked, and obtained, leave to publish my contribution on this side o f the Atlantic. It will be seen that the central idea running through the book is that everything has a history, often a very strange one, and that most things have a future, often a very strange one too. M y ideas as to this future clearly colour m y account o f the present, and of course they may be wrong. But the notion fhat the future will be like the present, or the past which we remember in our own lives, is certainly wrong. I have tried to give this book a certain unity by confining, it PREFACE to astronomy, geology, and biology. So I have not included a number o f articles on medicine, hygiene, politics, and so on, published in recent years. I have then proceeded to destroy this unity by adding two articles attacking Mr. C. S. Lewis. Some people will regard these articles as in bad taste. They are at least in the central tradition o f English literature, and in much better taste than, for example, some o f Milton’s polemics. Besides which, Mr. Lewis, if he chooses to reply, has two considerable advantages over me. He is, as befits a student o f literature, a better stylist than I. And he will be able to show, without serious difficulty, that I have contradicted myself repeatedly. I certainly have, because m y thought (or if he prefers that expression, my prejudice) has developed, and I think some statements are false which I formerly thought were true. I shall be criticized for trying to compress geology into five thousand words, and classificatory zoology into eight thousand. The answer is that some people may read these sketches who would not read a textbook o f these subjects, and that if I have not failed completely in m y intention, some who have read what I have written will go on to read textbooks. If they do they might do worse than remember that even textbooks leave a great deal out. There is a need to present the results o f science to every possible audience, at every level o f education. I hope that I have done so in a way which will interest one o f the many possible audiences. CONTENTS I. THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND i. The Beginnings xx 2. Life Reaches the Land 15 3. The Age of Reptiles 19 4 . The Chalk and After 22 5. The Battle of the Rivers 26 IL GEOLOGICAL ESSAYS 1. Dating the Past 31 2. Geological Revolutions 3 5 3. Earthquakes 38 4. O il Under England 41 5. Exploring Subterranean England 44 6. I ask fo r Fossils 47 7. I get Fossils 53 8. W e are still suffering from the Ice A ge 56 9. Pollen and History 60 10. Science and Prehistory 64 11. Was England a Yugoslav Colony? 67 12. Cave Diving 70 IE. THE W E A TH E R 1. Frost 75 2. PFe Prevent Cold Spells? 78 3. Weather Forecasts 82 4. W History 86 5. Autumn 89 6. Freezing and Thawing 93 IV. THE EVIDENCE FOR ASTRONOMICAL THEORY 1. The Earth Spins 99 2. The Earth goes round the Sun 103 3. The Nearer Stars 107 4. Seeing the Past 111 V. ASTRONOMICAL ESSAYS 1. Common sense about the Planets x x j ' 2: Looking fo r Blue Stars 120 3. Radio from the Sun 123 4. Cosmic Rays 126 5. W hy the Earth is a Magnet 130 CONTENTS VI. AN OUTLINE OF ZOOLOGY I. The Classification and Origin o f Animals 135 2. The Simplest Animals 138 3* Jellyfish and Polyps 141 4. Worms 144 5. Living in One's Skeleton 148 6. Shelled Animals 15 x 7. Fish 154 8. Beasts and Birds 157 VII. ZO O LO G IC A L ESSAYS 1. Why Steal Beetles? 163 2. Cage Birds 166 3. Some Queer Beasts 169 4. Counting Wild Animals 172 5. Why I Admire Frogs 175 6. T/ie Hungarian Invasion 179 7. A Great Event 182 VIII. H O W ANIM ALS BEH AVE 1. T/ze Ro&m 187 2. T/ze Starling 190 3. Clever Birds 193 4. Hoit> Bees Communicate 196 5. How Bees find their Way 200 6. M ovies fo r Toads 203 IX. EVOLUTION I. The Struggle for Life 209 2. M ans Ancestry 212 3. Darwinism and its Perversions 216 4. The Mathematics o f Evolution 219 •: X. GREAT MEN 1. Langevin 225 2. Hopkins 229 3. Lea 233 4. J&zfw 236 5. Hardy 240 6. Einstein 243 XI. CONTROVERSIAL 1. Az/W Hornie, F.R.S. 249 2. More Anti-Lewisite 259 XII. HUMAN EVOLUTION, PAST AND FUTURE page 271 I THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND I The Beginnings In this series o f articles I intend to give a brief sketch of the history o f England and Wales. B y this I mean, not the history o f the peoples who have lived in these countries, but o f the lands themselves. Scots readers w ill doubtless complain that I have left Scotland out. There is a good reason for this. The rocks o f northern Scotland are much older than most o f those o f England and Wales. And they have been much more violently disturbed, so that we do not know their history in anything like the detail with which we know those o f England. Probably the best popular account of English geology is Pro fessor Stamp’s Britain’s Structure and Scenery.* However, its author completely ignores the theory, which is now gaining more and more adherents, that the continents have shifted their position in geological time. Many geologists think that Britain and Ireland were once close to Newfoundland, and that the Adantic was only formed in the last two hundred million years. T o understand the geological history o f England we must know a little o f world geology. The earth consists o f a series o f con centric layers, getting denser as we go down. The ocean floors are formed o f a group o f rocks o f which basalt is a representative in which magnesium silicate predominates. The same layer is found under the continents, but at a depth o f about 25 miles. Above it is a thick layer largely o f granite, and above the granite usually sedimentary rocks, formed by the wearing down either o f granite or o f older sedimentary rocks. This lighter layer, in which aluminium silicate predominates, covers the continents and the shallow seas round them, for example the North Sea and English Channel, but not the deeper Bay o f Biscay. England has sometimes been above the sea and sometimes below it, but probably never either very far from land, or very deep * Collins, 1946, 16/-. 11 12 THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND under the sea. It is the result o f a struggle between two processes, erosion, mainly by water, which wears down mountains, and folding, which builds them up.