The end of the world is nigh. Well, of course it is. Everything falls apart, sooner or later, including ourselves and the Earth we live on. We are particularly vulnerable today, with so many mortal threats to civilised existence competing for attention — war, pestilence, pollution, economic breakdown and moral collapse. Ian Rankin adds another threat, the most terrible of all. The world is going to shift off its axis, causing widespread cataclysms and the destruction of everything we know and cherish. It has often happened before and it is bound to happen again — probably quite soon, says Rankin.
This is a radical theory and it has powerful opponents. The Darwinians, with their belief in ‘gradualism’ — the uninterrupted, step-by-step evolution of species — dislike the idea of cosmic upheavals. They consider it heretical, and you can see their point of view, because studies in ‘catastrophism’ lead you to evidence that contradicts many established tenets of astronomy, archaeology and other sciences.
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