Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: 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.