The Magic of Reality Read Online Free Page A

fairy godmother’s wand.
    As for pumpkins turning into coaches, magic spells are just as certainly ruled out for them as they are for frogs and princes. Coaches don’t evolve – or at least, not naturally, in the same way that frogs and princes do. But coaches – along with airliners and pickaxes, computers and flint arrowheads – are made by humans who
did
evolve. Human brains and human hands evolved by natural selection, just as surely as newts’ tails and frogs’ legs did. And human brains, once they had evolved, were able to design and create coaches and cars, scissors and symphonies, washing machines and watches. Once again, no magic. Once again, no trickery. Once again, everything beautifully and simply explained.
    In the rest of this book I want to show you that the real world, as understood scientifically, has magic of its own – the kind I call poetic magic: an inspiring beauty which is all the more magical because it is real and because we can understand how it works. Next to the true beauty and magic of the real world, supernatural spells and stage tricks seem cheap and tawdry by comparison. The magic of reality is neither supernatural nor a trick, but – quite simply – wonderful. Wonderful, and real. Wonderful
because
real.

2
    W HO WAS THE
FIRST PERSON?

 
    MOST CHAPTERS IN this book are headed by a question. My purpose is to answer the question, or at least give the best possible answer, which is the answer of science. But I shall usually begin with some mythical answers because they are colourful and interesting, and real people have believed them. Some people still do.
    All peoples around the world have origin myths, to account for where they came from. Many tribal origin myths talk only about that one particular tribe – as though other tribes don’t count! In the same way, many tribes have a rule that they mustn’t kill people – but ‘people’ turns out to mean only others of your own tribe. Killing members of other tribes is just fine!
    Here’s a typical origin myth, from a group of Tasmanian aborigines. A god called Moinee was defeated by a rival god called Dromerdeener in a terrible battle up in the stars. Moinee fell out of the stars down to Tasmania to die. Before he died, he wanted to give a last blessing to his final resting place, so he decided to create humans. But he was in such a hurry, knowing he was dying, that he forgot to give them knees; and (no doubt distracted by his plight) he absent-mindedly gave them big tails like kangaroos, which meant they couldn’t sit down. Then he died. The people hated having kangaroo tails and no knees, and they cried out to the heavens for help.
    The mighty Dromerdeener, who was still roaring around the sky on his victory parade, heard their cry and came down to Tasmania to see what the matter was. He took pity on the people, gave them bendable knees and cut off their inconvenient kangaroo tails so they could all sit down at last; and they lived happily ever after.
    Quite often we meet different versions of the same myth. That’s not surprising, because people often change details while telling tales around the camp fire, so local versions of the stories drift apart. In a different telling of this Tasmanian myth, Moinee created the first man, called Parlevar, up in the sky. Parlevar couldn’t sit down because he had a tail like a kangaroo and unbendable knees. As before, the rival star god Dromerdeener came to the rescue. He gave Parlevar proper knees and cut off his tail, healing the wound with grease. Parlevar then came down to Tasmania, walking along the sky road (the Milky Way).
    The Hebrew tribes of the Middle East had only a single god, whom they regarded as superior to the gods of rival tribes. He had various names, none of which they were allowed to say. He made the first man out of dust and called him Adam (which just means ‘man’). He deliberately made Adam like himself. Indeed, most of the gods of history were portrayed as men