Excerpt from “Anaximander and the Birth of Science” by Carlo Rovelli

There is another area in which Anaximander’s naturalism appears to be of nearly miraculous success: his reflections on the origins of life and human beings. According to Anaximander, life begins in the sea. He refers unequivocally to an evolution of living species connected with the evolution of climate conditions. First come marine species, which, as the earth dries up, migrate and adapt to dry land. He wonders which living beings might have brought forth the first humans. These issues would return only in recent centuries, with Darwin, with the momentous results we all know. With all their limits, the fact that these ideas are already present in the sixth century before the Common Era is breathtaking.

– Carlo Rovelli, “Anaximander and the Birth of Science”, chapter titled “Atmospheric Phenomena”

What must it have been like for Anaximander? Imagine being able to conceive of the evolution of species at a time when everyone only believed in the law of cause in a superficial way. Stub your toe and it hurts, no one at any time would fail to understand cause and effect in that way. But unexplainable phenomenon… It’s more like there was no unexplainable phenomenon because any unexplainable event was attributed to the will of The Gods.

The other books I’ve read by Carlo Rovelli are about exactly this border between the explainable and the unexplainable. The point where modern science reaches it’s limits. I’m enjoying Anaximander but it will be pretty difficult to oust Helgoland from the top position on my favorite Carlo Rovelli list.

One more thought about Anaximander, what if it was the other way around? Imagine trying to convince people that lightning was actually Zeus smiting the earth when in a bad mood. Imagine how people would respond if you told them that’s what you believed.

But it was probably worse for Anaximander because at least today we know that the majority of our ancestors believed just about everything was the will of The Gods, so the idea that someone would believe that again is not foreign to us. But Anaximander… he must have been even more of an outcast.

But he wrote and worked and his ideas were read and considered. (Carlo makes a point of noting that his ideas were considered but were never fully adopted as truth.) So maybe it wasn’t so bad for Anaximander.

It seems he was smart enough to speak and write heretical ideas and not get himself executed. Perhaps not his greatest achievement but I’m sure that was important to him.