“A lot of twists and turns went into the rise of Homo sapiens. But was the die-cast at the very moment, 14 billion years ago, that the universe decided to erupt from a singularity into a space that is now 90-billion light-years in diameter? Was it from that moment on unavoidable that sentient creatures would arise with two arms and two legs and a taste for ice cream?”

University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin (author of “The Universe Within: Discovering the Common History of Rocks, Planets, and People”), presents a condensed astronomical, geological, and biological history of the world from 14 billion B.C. to the present—and to tell us what it should mean to us today. Parking is $8.