{"id":689,"date":"2014-05-02T17:02:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T05:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=689"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:11:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:11:52","slug":"the-ant-and-the-ferrari-kerry-spackman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2014\/05\/02\/the-ant-and-the-ferrari-kerry-spackman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ant and the Ferrari &#8212; Kerry Spackman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/antandferrari.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/the-ant-and-the-ferrari.jpeg\" alt=\"The Ant and the Ferrari\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-691\" \/><\/a>This is a readable, impassioned book about the big questions in life. Spackman explains the big bang and evolution in a very accessible way, probably the best such explanations I have ever seen. He explains how science conflicts with religion on these and other topics, but he does so in a much nicer way than the likes of Richard Dawkins or especially Christopher Hitchens. I could imagine that a religious fundamentalist could read this book and actually understand why so many people are convinced that Genesis is all just made up. It&#8217;s hard to imagine any such person getting much out of, say, Hitchens&#8217;s <a href=\"\/bennett\/2008\/04\/08\/god-is-not-great-christopher-hitchens\/\"><cite>God Is Not Great<\/cite><\/a> other than the impulse to burn it.<\/p>\n<p>Spackman meditates thoughtfully on the meaning of life before offering a few suggestions on improving our individual lives, and society in general. I really like his ideas &#8212; they could plant the seeds for big changes for the better. I could imagine some of them being implemented by enlightened governments in a few decades. The chances of these kinds of policy change may seem remote, but books like this will definitely help. It&#8217;s clear and easy to understand, and if enough people read it it could change the world.<\/p>\n<!-- wpsso rrssb get buttons: buttons on archive option not enabled -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a readable, impassioned book about the big questions in life. Spackman explains the big bang and evolution in a very accessible way, probably the best such explanations I have ever seen. He explains how science conflicts with religion &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2014\/05\/02\/the-ant-and-the-ferrari-kerry-spackman\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,53,268,26,16,62],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-books","tag-ethics","tag-kerry-spackman","tag-life","tag-science","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4616,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/4616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}