The Science of Discworld IV Judgement Da - By Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart Page 0,77

home – although Rincewind took both of them to Australia, just because he liked the place.

As they sat addressing a bucket of Oysters Kilpatrick, the Dean said, ‘You know, I’m getting annoyed. People: they think it’s all about them!’

‘Well,’ said Rincewind, ‘one of their most important holy books tells them that this is so; indeed, there are some people who seriously believe that their job is to use up everything on the planet so that their god will make them another one. When I read that, I thought, Oh dear me, aren’t we going to be surprised!’

‘It sounds to me like toxic advice,’ said the Dean, ‘but surely they have brains? I mean, we know they do; though there is politics of course, and mercantile greed – monkey stuff. And surely there will be a lot of wise men, as opposed to wise guys, even though wise guys have money behind them. No wise man could sell that kind of bad news, though, even if it is important; it would take a fairly brave person to stand up and say that no matter what is in their particular holy book there are certainly some parts that need re-evaluation.’ He sighed. ‘Alas, apparently belief in a god gives a believer the right to have their views taken seriously. It’s superstition – you don’t want to upset a god.’

‘Well, I’ve managed to upset several,’ Rincewind said. ‘I think it keeps them on their toes. You know how it is; you can get quite stale unless you are occasionally tested.’ He added, rather gloomily, ‘It happens to me quite a lot.’

But the Dean wasn’t listening. ‘It’s not all bad, though, or for that matter all that stupid,’ he continued. ‘Science works and is seen to work – we made sure of that – even though there are still those who believe, for example, in a holy book written in the Iron Age by a committee of old men. Admittedly, it was right in some parts.’

Rincewind butted in. ‘The tiny little swimming things did come first, and after that the fish, which wasn’t a bad guess. I know! I was there!’

The Dean helped himself to the last oyster and said, ‘Do you think I should materialise in one of their important places and very carefully tell one of them what they are doing wrong? I can’t help but feeling some responsibility, silly though it sounds.’

‘Don’t,’ said Rincewind emphatically. ‘You will only get nailed to something; although from what I can find out, the nails nowadays have become a lot more subtle – they’d give you a very big prize and a hearty handshake, and subsequently tell one another that as an academic you are out of touch with reality, despite wading through the wretched stuff for your whole long career.’

‘Nothing can be done, then?’ said the Dean.

‘No, not really. Small things in the sea and underground will survive, but at the rate the resources of the planet are being destroyed, I can’t see any room for civilisation again. Maybe it would be a good idea to come back in a million years’ time. There may be something left.’

The Dean was not one to take no for an answer, and tried again. ‘Or, of course, innocence will prevail!’

‘Yes,’ said Rincewind gloomily. ‘It might. And I might prefer horses, but I suspect the automobiles are breeding faster …’

FOURTEEN

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A BETTER MOUSETRAP

Rincewind has a soft spot for horses – which unfortunately leave soft spots for everyone else. Even so, he prefers horses to automobiles. You don’t have to make a horse – they make themselves from previous horses.

Cars are made individually, by people. They are designed to serve a purpose, which was present in the designer’s mind before the cars were made, and indeed caused it to be made. Without people, you could leave the Earth on its own for a billion years and it wouldn’t produce a car. But it did produce a horse, without human intervention, in a rather shorter period.

Scientists believe that horses evolved. The proof includes an iconic series of fossils, showing exactly how they evolved, between 54 million and a million years ago. The sequence begins with a horse-like mammal a mere 0.4 metres long. This genus was originally given the poetic name Eohippus (‘dawn horse’), but has now been renamed Hyracotherium because of the rules of taxonomy, which in this case managed to deliver a silly result.fn1 It moves on to Mesohippus, 35 million years old and 0.6 metres long;