A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us : The Evolution of Life on Earth

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Summary: The interconnected web of existence
Review: A Walk Through Time - From Stardust to Us - The evolution of Life on Earth.

A Walk Through Time (AWTT) is an incredibly well done book, from all aspects. The artwork and printing make it suitable for display and the content challenges us to re-think our position in the world and the decisions we are making.

The explanation of evolution is both plausible and understandable to the lay person. Yet the mystery of life is not diminished or hidden, so there is more than enough room for those who understand our existence through their love of God.

Beginning more than 5,000 MYA (5,000 Million Years Ago, or 5 Billion Years Ago) we are told, the "universe did indeed begin in an explosion of energy powerful enough to send all matter flying apart for billions of years into the future." From that starting point, AWTT traces with considerable detail the evolution of our living earth of which we are a part. And everywhere the mystery of "the life force" is to be found.

One can read the prose or follow the exhibition text along the bottom of the pages, or take in both to re-enforce what is being explained. Sidney Liebes managed to convince HP of the merits of creating a 1mile "walk through time." That project is staffed by volunteers and has been presented in a dozen venues in three countries. The "exhibition text" mentioned above is from that project.

The final paragraph of the book summarizes the challenge for our existence in this totally interconnected web of life. "Is it possible that a sense of awe, wonder and humility, of origins, place, possibilities, and recovery of a belief in the sacredness of nature, can, and perhaps must, become operational imperatives in guiding humanity into the future? Rather than pondering the illusive purpose of life, can we not accept and appreciate the gift, live the life we are given, respect all life, and preserve options for the future. Though none of us has the power to control the future, each of us is free to determine how we will contribute to the circumstance out of which the future will evolve."

Perhaps the purpose of life is simply to ensure that life continues. Then there is much in this book to set us on the right path.

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Summary: An exciting dance through time.
Review: I never had the opportunity to see the "Walk Through Time" exhibition, initiated by Sidney Liebes and supported by Hewlett-Packard, but it must have been a marvelous experience. What rivets my attention in this book, however, even more than the beautiful pictures of the exhibit, is the text written by Elisabet Sahtouris, who expresses her own "cosmovision" with an incomparable eloquence and vitality. While her words are grounded solidly in the most advanced theoretical and empirical evolutionary science, she takes the reader not on a walk but an exciting dance through time. If I were asked to recommend just one book that best told the story of how the universe conspired to bring us into being this would be it. It's a real "roots" story but the roots are not merely those of a particular individual or family or species but of all life, reaching back to the point where time itself loses meaning.

Keith Chandler, author of Beyond Civilization

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Summary: A global view which necessary means a lack of details
Review: I've just terminated to read this book and it was very interesting in many respects: - The text is well written and a pleasure to read; - Sometimes you have a fact per line, which shows the incredible work done by the author to synthesize a huge amount of knowledge on the subject; - Essential things are said and you'll have doors open for further readings; - The fact that timescale is respected as the text goes on gives a striking perspective of life's evolution over the millions and millions of years; - The first stage of evolution (unicelled creatures) is longly explained; - The incredible role of living creatures (especially bacteria) in shaping our planet is highlighted; - Emphasis is put on the unity of life in it's diversity.

But there are some shortages : - Pictures are of poor print quality; - There is a lack of details, especially after the microbial stage.

Globally speaking, if you want the life's story before animals and plants, it's a good book, but otherwise, the Book of Life by S. J. Gould is better. However, in my opinion, it's a good buy and one can learn many many things by reading this book.

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Summary: most interesting book i've read in years!
Review: this is the most interesting book i've read in years; prof. liebes presents the history of evolution from stardust to us, at the end of the book one relizes that all of us humans are actually single cells of a larger life form, the planet earth. In an informative and easy to read way, "a walk through time" presents a holistic theory of evolution that emphasises symbiotic co-evolution of geo-bio-matter admidst the theme that while life starts out in a state of competition, all life forms even on a cellular level learn to cooperate, develop symbiotic relationships that enable life to first develop and then evolve billions of years to present day. the glory of the sheer will of all life,(particularly at the cellular level) reminds me very much of shoupenhauer,nieztche,spinoza, henri bergson and hegal. i would recomend this book to all people,especially those who enjoy philosophy and those theologians seeking a more meaning cosmology.

Rating:
Summary: most interesting book i've read in years!
Review: this is the most interesting book i've read in years; prof. liebes presents the history of evolution from stardust to us, at the end of the book one relizes that all of us humans are actually single cells of a larger life form, the planet earth. In an informative and easy to read way, "a walk through time" presents a holistic theory of evolution that emphasises symbiotic co-evolution of geo-bio-matter admidst the theme that while life starts out in a state of competition, all life forms even on a cellular level learn to cooperate, develop symbiotic relationships that enable life to first develop and then evolve billions of years to present day. the glory of the sheer will of all life,(particularly at the cellular level) reminds me very much of shoupenhauer,nieztche,spinoza, henri bergson and hegal. i would recomend this book to all people,especially those who enjoy philosophy and those theologians seeking a more meaning cosmology.

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Summary: A Wonderful Way to View Life's History
Review: When I first picked up the book, I feared it would be no more than a long National Geographic article on the earth; a collection of semi tired aphorisms about the wonder of nature and the virtue of diversity, ideas which as yet have not inspired action from conviction. I wondered if yet another book, another long article with pictures on the nature's wonders would really matter. After all, what approach to extolling nature's majesty is not frayed with over use? Sermons on nature temporarily draw our minds into sharp focus then loose their hold on our individual and our cultural consciousness. After brief focus we quickly return to the casual, unconcerned, blind mode of stewardship as if the message of the wonder of nature was never thought nor said. What new could this book offer? Could this book tell the earth story differtly? Was reading still another thicket of pages with worn out words a waste of time? I decided to find out.

Written by a physicist, and a mathematically trained cosmologist and an evolutionary biologist I figured it may offer a new twist. After all, this earth we are so careless with is poorly treated because we poorly understand it. We poorly understand it because it is more complex than we can understand and comprehend. We see the creation as matter when it is system. Our religions have taught that creation was in the past, and the earth as static. Yet we know now that creation is perpetual and the earth a flux. Even modern minds see the earthly creation as the materialization of only one or a few of the many processes that have brought it and us to this hour. We are blind to the broad and majestic array of material and process which we call earth and which dances before us and within us.

None of us has the intellectual capacity or the training to fully understand, comprehend, perceive or appreciate the elegant system that is us and our world. We are in effect blind to the multidimensional, multifaceted organic time brewed and painfully evolved system of which we are a part. We have no capacity for understanding or visualizing the intricate interrelationship between the various components of the system, nor to understand fully that each component is not an isolated component but yet connected to all other components in infinite degrees of intensity and import. We humans are not equipped by nature with the mental tools to see this complexity because such understanding had no survival value in our genetic history.

If then we are careless with the creation because of our inability to perceive, then could these three authors' collaboration present the earth system in such a way that we may better see and understand it? Did they collaborate on a book to bring the breadth, depth and vision of each author's discipline to our individual consciousness? I read the book to find the answer.

I brought to the book a topical knowledge of many of the ideas expressed in the book, ideas that science presents as factual history and method. I did not expect this book to take me into new depths of understanding scientific facts. It is not a book of heavy science theories. Rather it is a book which lists many science conclusions. But in certain important ways it did shed valuable new light on many of the scientific conclusions. This new insight derives from the context of the individual conclusions as explained more fully below.

What I had underestimated before reading the book was how fragmented my science knowledge was. I suspect that most of us have such fragmented knowledge. After all , most of us have read scientific theories over time in a haphazard order as determined by which magazine or book was accessible when we were in a mood to and had time to read science material. Most of us do not have a systematic and coherent body of scientific knowledge.

This book was a great help in bringing the vast array of exciting knowledge about the earth and its impressive history into a coherent and understandable format. In fact the great virtue of this book is its orderly development of increasingly complex systems and processes in a context of time and dependence on previous events and other then extant facts. This development of world within the context of time and other related development allows one to place stages of evolution into a valuable perspective. I have not seen this done in any other work. This added perspective encourages us towards a system of values because values derive from comparisons and choices from within specific context. Without the context offered by this book, scientific facts are isolated and sterile and too abstract for comparative valuing. With the ability to value developments comes enhanced ability to make wise choices. This promotes wisdom. Wisdom is what we need the most as we exercise dominion of our earthly home.

This is not to denigrate the amount of or quality of scientific fact set forth in the book. The book covers so much scientific insight over a range of expertise of three prominent authors in disparate scientific fields that anyone will surely gain much valuable insight into the natural world. It is a valuable aid to perception of that illusive miracle, our world that unfolds right before our eyes each moment.

Obviously the book does not have the whole truth. The whole truth cannot be stated. Yet it is a tremendous aid to the vision we must acquire if we are to steer this earthly ship safely and harmoniously. We are not doing that. We have not been doing that. We don't know how to do that. But we must or else. We have taken charge, so we must take responsible charge. This book can help. I hope many people read it.