This book, Fluke, was brought to my attention because I listened to an interview on NPR with the author, Brian Klaas. The interview was really good, and the author’s story was compelling. The subtitle of the book is, Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters.
In a personal example of flukes providing world-changing outcomes, the author relates the story of his great-grandfather. His great-grandfather’s wife, in 1905, killed her four children, put them in their beds, and then killed herself. The husband and father, and the author’s great-grandfather, came home from work to this scene. The great-grandfather got remarried and had another family, which included the grandfather of the author of this book. His point is that, if not for this awful event, he, the author, would never have existed.
In the early part of the book, there is the story of the visit of Mr. and Mrs. H.L Stimson to Kyoto, Japan in 1926. They spent a week in Kyoto and loved the place. Nineteen years later, three days after the Nazis had surrendered, a group of scientists and government officials in New Mexico were planning the first targets for the atomic bomb. Stimson vetoed using the bomb on Kyoto and Hiroshima was the new target. Three days later, Nagasaki was also bombed. About 220,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed between the two cities but the people of Kyoto were spared.
Stimson had become the Secretary of War and had fond memories of Kyoto and its history. He had to argue with the generals and then with President Truman to spare Kyoto. Over 100,000 people were killed in one city while that many were spared in another.
To set up for the rest of the book, the author proposes six big questions:
- Does everything happen for a reason, or does stuff…just happen?
- Why do tiny changes sometimes produce huge impacts?
- Why do we cling to a storybook version of reality even if it’s not true?
- Can’t we just tame flukes with better data and more sophisticated probability models?
- Where do flukes come from—and why do they blindside us?
- Can we live better, happier lives if we embrace the chaos of our world?
The book unfolds with the author tackling a broad scope of topics to try and answer these questions. This starts with the beginning of life on Earth, from single cell life to multiple cell and billions of years of evolutionary change. With evolution, there are two schools of thought. Some think that evolution is slow and steady. They are known as evolution by creeps. Others think that evolution is stable and then there are periodic sudden shifts. These are known as evolution by jerks.
The middle part of the book deals with most of the social sciences, different topics such as how geography affects history, how humans organize themselves, and how no one understands consciousness. There are a lot of interesting anecdotes and a lot of discussion that is rarely heard outside of university campuses. It’s mostly interesting and thought provoking.
Are our lives scripted from the start or do we have the freedom to choose our futures? The author says that small, contingent flukes shape our lives. The author first goes after Determinism, that’s everything is determined by prior causes. Taken to the extreme, then the Big Bang determines everything that follows, down to what brand of soap you buy. Determinism means, probably, no free will.
The author’s premise is that the concept of free will violates everything science knows about the universe and how it works. A world without free will has some unsettling consequences. Can we hold people accountable for their actions if there is no free will? Should we celebrate achievements if it is outside the control of the high achievers? Why do we have winners and losers?
The author loves Determinism because he sees himself as part of the web of life with threads that stretch back billions of years. Tweak one strand and we don’t exist, or have a different partner, or different offspring. The happiest and saddest experiences in life are all intertwined.
That means that from the Big Bang to me reading this book to you reading this review are all a result of a series of trillions of prior events. It was all preordained and free will played no part. The author starts the final chapter by saying that we are glimpsing a world entirely unlike what our intuitions and perceptions tell us. The new world order may bewilder us, but the author says it is closer to the truth. That new world is Determinism. Reality is entirely connected and everything we do matters. Except that everything we do is outside our control and predetermined by what has gone on before.
So, over the course of this book I went from being really intrigued, to being a bit mystified by what the author was driving towards, to being just pissed off. The author says Determinism is the truth and there is no free will. Then he starts offering a bunch of advice on how we should change the way we live our lives. What the hell?
If there is no free will, why should I make any effort to change? It’s all preordained, just not obvious to me. Meanwhile the author says that everything we do matters. Maybe, but we can’t see why any of it would matter if it were all just contingent on what came before.
The author’s closing argument for making his point completely misses the mark. He not only is unconvincing but undercuts and contradicts his own thesis.
This is the rare book where I really enjoyed it and found it thought-provoking at first, then found it to be meandering in the middle, then irritating and annoying by the end. I finished it and put it directly in the Goodwill box in the garage.
From the moment of The Big Bang, it was inevitable that I would save you from reading this book.
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