Aussies are hilarious. Every Australian author I ever read lived up to this stereotype: witty, quirky, saucy, fresh, original, full of the unexpected. But not full of themselves. That would rob their humor of its self-effacing charm and humility. So... Chris Ferrie! Handsome author photo. Dude. Father of adorable little kids. Physicist! I love people with math brains. (I married one!) Therefore, I'm gonna love this book. Right?

Wrong.
Humor in the right doses, in the right places, for relevant reasons: is this something they can teach comedians? Is this guy even trained in the art of comedy?

To be fair, many readers will love the version of the Creation story as narrated by the Instagram cat: "At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? an lite wuz."

Sorry, I'm not one of those readers.

First of all let me say this book contains a lot of science, and that's good. Trouble is, most of it is science I've read before in other books, minus the distraction of endless jokes that intrude into the narrative and make me back up, re-read the sentence, and imagine this guy is a blast, a bona fide barrel of fun at the end of the work day with a pitcher of beer during Happy Hour, but in print, not so much.

Astrology, alien abductions, time travel, climate change, the meaning of life (which is "to perpetuate information"): all these, and more, get space in this book. Finding "life hacks" to help us live long and prosper while avoiding the pitfalls of delusional beliefs: not so much.

If one line captures the mood and tone of this book, I'd choose this one:

"We may be but dust, but dammit, we tried. So, take a quiet moment before the curtain falls and raise a glass, not to forgotten gods of hollow hopes, but to the fierce, flickering flame of being itself, burning a path to oblivion."

Cheers!
(Raising my gluten-free beer to the gods and all the authors who've invented them)

P.S. No need to take my word for it: check out his website and Goodreads profile. This Aussie physicist is ALL THAT and then some! Sorry for such a snarky review, Mr. Ferrie. You look like a really awesome guy. And you're obviously lightyears smarter than I am, especially at math and science.

I finally found humor along with a pearl of wisdom in a humor book. For decades, I have agreed to review supposed humor books believing they would at least be funny, if not intelligent. Until now, I have consistently struck out in three pitches straight. But Chris Ferrie’s Cosmic Bullsh*t hits lots of laughs, while getting more and more serious all the way through. An accomplishment. A worthwhile read in humor!

As a scientist, Ferrie is rightly appalled by all the crap that circulates as fact, when science has proven and provable answers. “My task is to hype up scientific inquiry because, sadly, it needs it. Though you’d think revealing a universe far more intricate and stunning than any ancient script could conjure would be appealing enough.” Because, we have actually learned a thing or two in the past 50,000 years that differs from the accepted knowledge of that time, though some days you wouldn’t know it from the headlines. That he does it with humor, mostly sarcasm, makes the medicine go down even more readily.

He criticizes the trivialization of science, referencing things like Star Trek: “the adventures of the USS Enterprise as its crew explore new worlds and meet diverse alien species, all in the service of the copyright theft of memorable catchphrases like ‘live long and prosper,’ ‘resistance is futile,’ and ‘That’s not where that goes, Captain Kirk.’”

Ferrie takes a quick trip through all the nonsense Man has built around himself, from early religion to space ignorance, and ends with the real existential threats we face today: disease, nuclear war, and climate, with a side trip to artificial intelligence.

He got my vote early on, with a fill-in-the-blank description of pretty much any religion you know or would like to make up:
Once upon a time, in the vast expanse of ________ (noun), there existed a Primordial ________ (noun). Driven by a cosmic ________ (noun), it began to weave the fabric of ________ (noun). From its essence emerged divine ________ (plural noun), each embodying a unique aspect of ________ (noun). They danced to the tune of ________ (plural noun), shaping ________ (noun), ________ (noun), and ________ (noun).
Among the realms they forged was ________ (noun), a realm destined to harbor ________ (plural noun). The first beings were molded from the ________ (plural noun), gifted with the spark of ________ (noun). They were entrusted with the legacy of the ________ (noun), a reflection of the divine in a ________ (adjective) coil. As time ________ (verb (past tense)), civilizations ________ (verb (past tense)) and ________ (verb (past tense)), each striving to unravel the mysteries of their ________ (noun), reaching for the ________ (plural noun) from whence they came. Yet, amid the quest for ________ (noun), the whimsy of ________ (noun) entwined their destinies, an eternal dance of ________ (noun) and ________ (noun).
…and he then gives an example by filling in the blanks with words like toaster, accordion, cheese, crayons and spaghetti. Works.

Christianity has changed over the years: “Nowadays, Christianity seems more concerned with church attendance, tithing schedules, and gendered toilets. It’s like heaven got its own homeowners’ association with gates guarded by a clipboard-wielding angel named Karen.”

Of Taoism he says: “Writing referencing Taoism is often nuanced and poetic (read that as ‘vague and convoluted’).”

Astrology is always a fat target. It was originally weather forecasting, based on phases of the moon and seasons of the year, giving leaders a clue as to plantings, crop yields, and pitched battles. Somewhere along the line, it morphed into personal forecasts, with no basis whatsoever. These, of necessity, had to be as vague and generalized as possible. Yet after millennia of debunking, astrology still thrives. Doesn’t matter that new planets have been discovered, and some, like Pluto, have been demoted. The science of astrology can take anything in its stride, because it is entirely made up. It has become a religion to billions. Ferrie gives the example of President Ronald Reagan, who would not make a move unless his astrologist back in San Francisco blessed it. And you wonder why the USA is the way it is today?

He then begins the arduous task of tackling the universe and all the lies and nonsense it has attracted. We’ve come a very long way in a very short time. Just in my lifetime, we’ve come from “knowing” the Milky Way was the entire extent of the universe, to understanding the Milky Way doesn’t even register as significant in our local, gigantic cluster of galaxies, that itself is only a fraction of the known universe. Insignificance doesn’t even begin to describe planet Earth.

Ferrie explains the impossibility of space travel, and how other life forms hearing from us would face the same impossibility of traveling here as we would finding them. It would take us hundreds of thousands of years traveling as near the speed of light as we could, just to reach a star where we think a planet might harbor life. For aliens, they would have had to evolve so much farther that they could launch a mission 50,000 years ago, which would be nowhere near reaching us by now. So no, we are not being scouted by aliens, and it is doubtful we (in person) will ever visit them at home, either. In fact, despite all our careful listening, we have yet to hear the slightest indication there is anything out there at all capable of making noise like we do. And that includes visual noise.

He goes on to explain black holes, the expansion of the universe, and how it will likely end. He explains the second law of thermodynamics in terms of everything tending toward the same dull temperature, foreshadowing the end of everything as everything falls apart. Gravity fails, planets fly out of their orbits, and activity ceases. Maybe everything collapses back into a compressed spec again, and the whole process repeats. We won’t be around to find out.

The Earth has several endings to choose from, from that collapse, to being consumed by the enlarged sun on its way to flameout, to collision with the Andromeda galaxy, or to a hit by an outsized asteroid. On a local level, a disease plague, or a supervolcano explosion could take down all life on Earth by poisoning the air for all life that survived the fires, earthquakes and floods.

About the only scenario he does not consider is my own favorite, wherein the nuclear powerplant at the center of the Earth consumes the last of the uranium it can find, and dies out. That’s when the Earth’s magnetic shield shuts down and the sun bakes the Earth, sterilizing it with solar radiation for good measure. With nothing protecting the biosphere, the Earth turns into another Mars, just a lot of stones and dust, but hotter. With no furnace, volcanic activity ceases, water disappears, and Earth becomes a zombie planet.

I did not like that he considers life in the universe to be only carbon-based. All the current searches for other life in the universe assume carbon-based life will leave the same trail of evidence that Earth does. But there is nothing to indicate some other form of life, one that say, does not need a breathing mechanism, or needs to processes our kind of sunlight, or that employs a regulated blood stream - is absolutely required for any kind of life to exist at all. That is pure, arrogant chauvinism, and there is no science to back it. Oxygen is an unnatural freak happenstance on Earth, and maybe on Earth alone.

These quibbles aside, Cosmic Bullsh*t is quite extraordinarily entertaining while providing clarity and insight that only systematic science can.

This is hardly Chris Ferrie’s first attempt. He has published books like Quantum Bullsh*t as well as children’s books (with fewer f-bombs, he promises), all while teaching physics at the University of Technology Sydney.

While the bottom line must ultimately be worrisome, he manages to twist the knife one last time at the very end: “(So) raise a glass, not to forgotten gods or hollow hopes, but to the fierce, flickering flame of being itself, burning a path to oblivion.” Cheers.

David Wineberg

I enjoyed this book. As an effort to explain the cosmos, it is among the best I’ve read. Underneath the swearing, there is some great, clear information and explanations. Interestingly, Chris Ferrie doesn’t pull any punches on pseudoscience; he is merciless. And funny. Very funny. Some of the passages are so clever and well-written that I would re-read them. Occasionally Ferrie strays into a literary and philosophical tone, which he did very well. This is a great way to teach science and to communicate a message. This book is well worth reading even for people who already have a background in science. Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the advance reader copy.

A sequel to Australian physicist and popular science author Chris Ferrie’s 2022 Quantum Bullsh*t, Cosmic Bullsh*t is a survey of the “deceptively profound nontruth[s]” about the universe that all-too-often distort our understanding of science and let the unscrupulous scam us.

It all comes down to stories, Ferrie argues. Humans love stories, and those stories are how we try to understand the world. But a good story isn’t necessarily a true story. The traditional mythologies and modern pop culture from which so many derive so much of our "knowledge" are compelling stories, even as they are simply wrong --- even dangerously so --- scientifically. The origins of much of bullsh*t lies in the fact that stories make us feel, and science tells us facts, and facts don’t always make us feel good.

Thus, the book begins, appropriately enough, with the “stories [that] seek to explain the origins of life, Earth, and the universe, aiming to address fundamental human questions about where we come from and how the world around us came to be.” Ferrie moves from creation myths to the theory of evolution to the current understandings of the origin of the Earth and solar system and universe at large, showing how science gives us a well-founded picture of our origins without need for the mythic and the divine.

Then astrology finds itself in the crosshairs, explaining how and why it is not science. Astrology once was science, of course, and its study laid the foundations for actual science, but at this point it’s just bunk. Yet it has been stubbornly resistant to debunking, because its vague generalities are uniquely immune to falsification and easy to find “truth” in.

From the “canals” of a dying Mars to Area 51, aliens are a modern obsession, the modern inheritors of tales of the Greek gods, flying saucers abduct hapless humans for anal probing supplanting Zeus coming to earth to impregnate hapless mortals. But much like Greek gods and their amorous adventures aren’t real, neither are Gray Men and their invasive medical devices. Alien life, if it does exist, will probably never come a-calling due to the distances and physical constraints.

Time travel is a seductive and persistent idea. Who isn’t curious to know "true" history, or, more poignantly, longs to fix the mistakes and disappointments of the past? But, as commonly conceived (with DeLoreans and wormholes and such), it just isn’t a thing. It’s just full of too many paradoxes and hypothetical, and probably impossible, components to ever work. We’ll have to content ourselves with boring old “time travel” into the future.

Then we come to The End. Of Everything, not just the book. There are many options! Eventually, the Sun expands and cooks the oceans, then takes out whatever is left of Earth in its death throes. In the even more distant future, we have the still-uncertain fate of the universe (will it rip apart, cool down to nothing, or contract back to a point?) to “look forward” to. But the far and away most likely avenue for human extinction: we do it to ourselves via AI, nuclear war, climate change, or pandemics.

The general tone of humor is mostly welcome, in contrast to the drier tone traditional to popular science, but the constant deluge of quips can occasionally grow tiring. A little editing and joke punch-up, to make them flow more with the main content instead of seeming, as they occasionally do, shoehorned in to keep up the foul-mouthed, irreverent style would have been welcome. Ten percent, maybe, edited out would make for a tighter and more flowing work.

Also, I detected an edge of meanness at times, barbs of contempt for the public. Now, far be it from me to insist on the wisdom and sense of humanity writ-large in these ludicrous times, but contempt leaves a bitter taste. Yet at other times, Ferrie is quite understanding and generous. We all contain multitudes, I suppose.

An amusing, succinct --- and at times surprisingly poetic --- account of what we misunderstand about the universe and our relationship with it, Cosmic Bullsh*t is ultimately a celebration of humanity and our fragile moment of life, a call to cherish simple existence “before the curtain falls, [raising] a glass not to forgotten gods or hollow hopes, but to the fierce, flickering flame of being itself, burning a path to oblivion.” Highly recommended.

You ever want to do K and watch NTD? I sure do not. But if you do, read this book!

Cosmic Bullsh*t, as a sequel to Quantum Bullsh*t, surveys different psudo-, anit-, and unscientific thinking aiming to put it into scientific context. This includes creation myths, astrology, aliens and alien abductions, time travel, and doomsday scenarios. The parity of creation to destruction is good structural conceit. The other choices feel somewhat arbitrary. The theme is for universe-y stuff, but the forms, and the problems with the forms, are different in nature.

The author aims for the breezy irreverence of the sweary-self help book. It lands more at undiagnosed, undermedicated neurodivergent, who is savvy enough to realize that comedy is the key to social acceptance, but lacks either the self-regulation to know when enough is enough or the self-assurance to trust the pause before launching into another joke. I worry about this being too mean, but I am describing myself here. Or at least who I was a few years ago, to the point this book fuels a crisis of faith in my writing and self-actualization.

Anyway, there are a lot of jokes. Most of them are not funny, but there are so many that you will find some of them funny. The flaw is that they are jokes, not humour. Imagine the difference between reading Northanger Abbey, Jane Austin's comedic masterpiece, and an e-reader version of Fahrenheit 451 where at the end of each page a seven-second clip from a Dave Chappelle's corpus would play. There is someone, I suppose, for whom that would make Bradbury, or in this instance, science writing, tolerable.

Nothing is sourced or cited, but most of it is mainstream scientific thought. This problem, arguably, is much worse with the book's targets. This review is not a defense of astrology. It is wrong and moderately silly. But the book makes no attempt at an intellectual history there. It is wrong, but there is a lack of exploration on how we got to wrong, and so both hubris and of circumspect informativeness.

It is ugliest in the creation chapter. Outside of only treating myth as proto-science, the book swings from what reads as New Atheist and into a compliant about "scientism" that goes into radical centrism. Except that this is the only move like this in the whole book, leaving the scientism concept orphaned and unclear other than suggesting that rigid thinking can come from everywhere.

Overall, it is a fine brief read if you are in the mood for this sort of thing, but that last point is key. I do not know who that would be. It seems like the kind of book that well-meaning jerks buy for their relatives to try and shake them from preconceived notions (again, if too harsh, I am criticizing myself here) but that never makes it to first down.

My thanks to the author, Chris Ferrie, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Sourcebooks, for making the ARC available to me.

This is absolutely a fun and wacky book with a ton of information! This book is a deep dive on creation myths and why we are so enraptured by them!

If you want to laugh and learn this book is for you!

4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️