Product Description
Always a controversial and compelling topic, the origin of life on Earth was considered taboo as an area of inquiry for science as recently as the 1950s. Since then, however, scientists working in this area have made remarkable progress, and an overall picture of how life emerged is coming more clearly into focus. We now know, for example, that the story of life's origin begins not on Earth, but in the interiors of distant stars. This book brings a summary of current research and ideas on life's origin to a wide audience. The contributors, all of whom received the Oparin/Urey Gold Medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, are luminaries in the fields of chemistry, paleobiology, and astrobiology, and in these chapters they discuss their life's work: understanding the what, when, and how of the early evolution of life on Earth. Presented in nontechnical language and including a useful glossary of scientific terms, Life's Origin gives a state-of-the-art encapsulation of the fascinating work now being done by scientists as they begin to characterize life as a natural outcome of the evolution of cosmic matter.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 2 reviews)

A Great Tool!

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of five is simply because it is a little rough around the edges as far as a "page turner." I suppose it's all in the way you look at it but none the less, this book is packed with facts about research. It's the presentation of the research, I suppose, that I found to be a little anticlimactic.

Onto the book. Wow! Page after page of research and facts! For a guy like me, I couldn't appreciate it more. One thing I loved about this book is how honest it is. First, it will lay down all of the research done in a certain area, then, only to go back and raise the issues with its plausibiliby regarding the present theory on the actual process it must undergo.

I believe that we were created. I really enjoy reading books of this caliber due to the fact that it only further strengthens my belief. On the chapter pertaining to the origin of biological information, this book is completely silent. Only giving current theories on how it is possible that information could have begun to be "stored," not the origin of information. The section regarding The RNA World, it reads "The idea that there was once a protein-independent biological world, the so-called RNA World, has now come to be widely excepted (although it remains unproven)." (Life's Origin pg142)

In regards to natural affinities that molecules have for one another. This is quite true. But to examine this issue further one must look at its role on the origin and/or expanding of information. In digital information, like we see in RNA and DNA, natural affinities of molecules would be completely detrimental to its production. When a programmer writes a program, if he/she were restrained to only writing code in a certain order using only predetermined texts, there is no way that they could produce new information via evolution.

Racemic mixtures. This book hints at a few ways to get around it but again, the odds are insurmountable.

Actually, this book shows many techniques and procedures that have contrived many organic molecules independently. The astronomical task is having all of these perfect conditions present at one period in time to bring them all together. It's not that I'm pessimistic. I know my biochemistry.

This book is a great tool to have if you want to further your knowledge in using biochemistry to try and explain the origin of life through natural, undirected processes.

Of course I HAVE to promote "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Dr. Michael Behe. To all you biochemists, read this book, it will change your lives, promise.
August 24, 2007

Breathtaking

This book just slayed me. A series of beautifully-written and well-supported essays covers, very quickly, the turn-of-the-millennium status of research on the subject of how life got started at the very, very beginning. How did 'pre-biotic' molecules ever get started replicating themselves, eventually turning into 'biotic' molecules? The answers aren't all in, but there's some really exciting work going on; scientists are relentlessly chipping away at the problem and they have made a surprising amoutn of progress. You know, these days the creationists are getting a lot of press. And they keeep hammering on the idea that the pre-biotic genesis of life is simply impossible; it had to require some sort of divine intervention. This is a lie. Take astronomer Fred Hoyle's famous simile -- that the accidental genesis of life would be like a tornado ripping through a junkyard and assembling a 747. While I read 'Life's Origin', I thought often of Hoyle and how much I'd like to throttle him. The origin of life requires NOTHING like the accidental assembly of a jet aircraft. It requires something much more like the lifting of two magnets into the air, so they can snap together, each magnet's noth pole snapping to the other's south. Molecules have natural affinities. They were 'born' to snap together. 99.9% of all the matter in the universe is either carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, or nitrogen: the stuff of life. Once the Earth had cooled down from its fiery birth, life couldn't wait to get started. And once it got started, it was by its very nature almost unstoppable. This is not an easy book. It's written for a lay audience (and there's a helpful glossary at the back), but there's a ton of orgo in it, so if you're not a chemist you had best be a quick study: the kind of layperson who, having once heard (for example) the word 'racemic' defined, can use it in a coherent sentence the following day. If you're that kind of smart, you will get a real kick out of this book. This crazy world is more beautiful -- life is more strange and fantastic and marvelous, than we ever suspected. Read and enjoy.
April 18, 2004

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth (Princeton Science Library)
by Andrew H. Knoll

Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins
by Robert Hazen

The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview
by Iris Fry

Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World (Popular Science)
by Nick Lane

Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils
by J. William Schopf