The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era--A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos

Physicist Swimme ( The Universe is a Green Dragon ) and historian/theologian Berry ( The Dream of Earth ) fashion a cosmology with alternating chapters of popular astrophysics and a kind of sociology of science that seems, at the start, like a secular Book of Genesis. The admixture of physics and anthropology soon decays into an artificial comprehension akin to the most irresponsible New Age reasoning. In the ``Primordial Flaring Forth'' section, the authors discuss their perceived need for a new language to express a current cosmology: ``Thus to articulate anew the story of our relationships in the world means to use the words of one of the modern languages that implicitly, and to varying degrees, obscures or even denies the reality of these emerging relationships.'' Offering evidence that, among other things, first cousins should not marry, this soft union of theology and physics reveals less about the universe than either field can by itself. The writers' tortured prose will likely offend the scientific sensibilities of most general readers. (Dec.)