Are we, yes? Where are we here? Why are we here not entirely clear? We are misfits thrust into existence by random chance with no hints at all as to how we're supposed to make sense of it all. It's immensely bizarre. Here we are.

Hello everybody and welcome to the here we are podcast today I'm excited you guys are going to love this you know we talk about evolution a bunch on the show and and it's just endless you know if I've done

we're we're over 350 episodes now and we we regularly discuss evolution and they're still constantly I'm coming across books and and guests and research where I'm like I've totally dropped the ball how have we not covered say all of the last the origins of life on this planet and we've barely touched on that in the past and so

this is another one of those exciting episodes where we'll get to fill in a lot of gaps of really important stuff that I'm shocked that I haven't covered in more depth before but my guest today is Henry G who is the author of the new book a very short history of life on earth 4.6 billion years in 12 pithy chapters. I very much enjoy that and there's the book there.

If you're watching on YouTube and what's that I'm I don't look like that so why don't you tell me a little bit about your background because you do you do quite a bit and this is your third or fourth book.

Oh loads lots of books back into a real history I've always been writing books. I'm sorry ever since I mean after I I am after I finished my doctorate thesis I I was going around like a lost dog so I immediately started writing books.

I'm a recovering paleontologist and while I was still in graduate school studying bones I buy a sequence of totally unlikely circumstances I ended up as a junior news reporter on nature the illustrious science journal to which all scientists and their best work although I should say that other science journals are available.

I was a junior news reporter from nothing you know I knew nothing it was just the editor I applied for a different job there didn't get it and the editor liked me and we got on famously and I was a junior news reporter so I learned how to write pretty quickly.

You know what it is as a news reporter they give you a story you have to own about which you know nothing and you have to write about it and authoritatively and they say I say when do you want the copy they say lunchtime no pressure so so I learn how to I learn how to write about all aspects of science pretty quickly.

Do you want to join the I'll let you continue I have questions about that yeah yeah well I was I was hired on a three month contract it's the longest three month contract anyone's ever had I coming up for 34 years but not long after I joined I wanted to be part of the elite group of editors who actually select the tiny amount of manuscripts from the fire hose of research that gets worked at us.

And they were keen to have a paleontologist on board because none of them like bones very much so I said please throw me a bone so I've been doing that and and some other things ever since then and I've been writing books on the site because you know you've talked to writers you know you don't want to write you addicted to it you have to do it and so for my whole for my whole life I seem to be writing a book and the latest one is just the latest.

One and I'm already beginning to think of the next one which is quite worrying because after I finish a book I say to my wife I'm not going to write another book never again.

She's a smile sweetly and says yes dear of course not now yes don't have a lie down.

What's that that's what I've been doing.

What's the what's what are some of the major differences in in the approach to say getting an assignment to write write for nature and then taking in the.

As someone who would love to write a book eventually it seems like a massive undertaking.

What is kind of the difference in your process must be around you know as a writer you always write and you know people ask me for advice on how to be a writer and I say well unless you're already writing

things you're probably not a writer but the trick is to write something every day has doesn't have to be a chapter of the great novel it could be a social media post or a shopping list or something.

Yeah well what we'll be in the background nature I'm not a writer I'm an editor or rather select right science I read the original science and I try and work out whether we would like to publish it not but really.

Have you come to it from a science and a writing background I tend to evaluate scientific works as works of literature you know there should be a story in here there should be characters there should be an arc.

There should be beginning a middle and end it should conform to check off the rule of dueling pistols you know if there's a you know who said check up said if there's if they're dueling pistols on the mantle piece an act one they should be fired by three otherwise don't have them so I tend to evaluate science as works of literature do they tell you something new and interesting and what is it and how convincing is it.

This came to me very starkly in my 30s when I'd already been at nature for a few years I'd always wanted to study English literature at school now in England when you're about 16 17 you study for your A levels advanced levels and these your exams you do get to university.

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