The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth

by Cherry Lewis

How old is the Earth? At the end of the nineteenth century, scientists were all looking for a clock that would provide an answer to this, the greatest Time question of all. The Dating Game tells the story of one man's vision of developing a geological timescale, a great vision which lasted fifty years despite scientific opposition, financial hardship and personal tragedy. Arthur Holmes fought to convince The Establishment of an Earth of great antiquity: a fight which eventually transformed the moribund 'art' of geology into a dynamic science.

Genres: History, Science, History Of Science, Geology

216 pages, Hardcover

First published September 7, 2000

About the author

Cherry Lewis is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol with an academic background in geology and geochemistry. And worked in the oil industry. She has said her interests 'now lie in the history of geology'

Reviews

[Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still have no idea how or why I ended up with this book on my shelf – clearly one of those happy accidents that you find yourself reading about in The Dating Game.
Pitched as a biography of Arthur Holmes (no, me neither), the man whose pioneering work has helped us age the Earth.
And that part of the book is fascinating, covering as it does both his personal life and his professional endeavours.
But it's also about more than that.
Through Holmes, Cherry Lewis shows us how science works – something needed now more than ever – as ideas, theory, technology and reality all slowly combined over many years to give us the answer one man spent his life chasing.
But it's also an important look at societal changes. There are views expressed in letters between learned individuals that would get people sacked today, but were quite the norm at the turn of the last century.
And here is, I think, another valuable lesson.
It is important to see that such views were held, to allow us to move forward, to learn from the past, and in so doing make a better future.
And if all of this sounds rather dry and heavy – we are, after all, talking about rocks at the end of the day – then you would be kind of right.
But also very wrong.
Because in taking us on the long and winding road of scientific discovery, Lewis could have left us with the feeling of being smacked over the head by a meteorite.
Instead, with a bright, light, engaging writing style, we are entertained while being educated and a dusty old geologist is brought back to life in vivid, literary, colour.

[Bill Groves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur Holmes was an outstanding geologist

[Yaseen Hashim · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a month I had traveled back in time to live with Holmes and follow him as he change geology forever ! I had enjoyed reading this book a lot , It is very beautiful book and I love it .

[ranjit gadgil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction but light on science

The life of Arthur Holmes, who was a pioneer in the field is very nicely told. However, at times the details are too much and not very relevant. On the other hand more space should have been dedicated to the fascinating science of determining the age of the earth.

[Jaap Hoogenboezem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmm. While the book is very interesting, it left me vaguely dissatisfied, perhaps because it's neither a biography nor a history of geological dating but wants to be both. Sometimes telling someone's life through a central issue works fine, but in this case I would have preferred the book to be either about Holmes or about dating. The reason is that there's more to dating than just Holmes and more to Holmes than just dating. Others seem to have played important roles in the question of the age of the earth, but they and their work are given too little attention. The dating method that was eventually de delopped is called the Holmes-Houterman model for a reason I presume, but we get to know very little of Frits Houterman while his role must have been substantial. Holmes' role in finding the mechanism behind continental drift on the other hand is treated too briefly to satisfy the reader. The book is well written (although the lament that science proceeds with very small steps occurs too frequently - I think most readers get that after one mention if they had not alteady understood that by themselves), the sometimes technical issues concerning uranium dating are explained with much clarity, but after reading this book I now want to read both a full biography of Arthur Holmes (which does not exist) and a complete history of the dating issue (which also doesn't exist).

[Mikael Cerbing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great little book. One part biography of Arthur Holmes, a man that spent his life trying to date the Earth. And one part the history of dating the Earth. The blurb on this book oversells Holmes importance in this history, as it was a thought that was about to happend (Im sceptical to the idea of the Great Man (or for that matter Woman) that change the landscape of science). But blurp aside, it is still a great book about a fascinating subject. Spoiler alert! The answer is more then 10 000 years...

[David Medcalf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book which poses, and tries to answer, a lot of questions about the thoughts, ideas and processes involved in a highly technical field. It held my attention, but I wouldn't like to sit a test on who, what and how the various theories were deduced, followed up and proved/disproved. Recommended to anybody with an interest in geology or the history of the world [as an entity].