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Vital Dust: The Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth
Is the emergence of life on Earth the result of a single chance event or combination of lucky accidents, or is it the outcome of biochemical forces woven into the fabric of the universe? And if inevitable, what are these forces, and how do they account not only for the origin of life but also for its evolution toward increasing complexity? Vital Dust is a groundbreaking history of life on Earth, a history that only someone of Chrisitian de Duve's stature and erudition could have written.
362 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Christian de Duve
50 books8 followersChristian de Duve (1917-2013) was a Belgian scientist and author. He discovered the cellular components called lysosomes and peroxisomes and researched insulin and glucagon. He was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1974 with Albert Claude and George E. Palade "for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell".
Born outside of Belgium, de Duve and his family returned to Belgium when the First World War ended, having fled the country for this reason.
He started studying medicine in 1934 at the Catholic University of Leuven and graduated in 1941. Being a gifted student, he started working in the laboratory of professor J.P. Bouckaert who was trying to uncover the mechanism of action of insulin. Believing the answer could be found in biochemistry, de Duve started studying chemistry and graduated in 1946. He was awarded a doctorate in 1945 for his doctoral thesis "Glucose, Insuline et Diabète".
He became a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1951 and later at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL). He started working at the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller University) in 1962 dividing his time between Belgium and the United States. He also worked at the Medical Nobel Institute in Sweden and the University of Washington, USA. He founded the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology (now known as the de Duve Institute) in Brussels in 1974. He became emeritus professor in Belgium in 1985 and in New York in 1988. He wrote several books on the origin of life and biology.
Born outside of Belgium, de Duve and his family returned to Belgium when the First World War ended, having fled the country for this reason.
He started studying medicine in 1934 at the Catholic University of Leuven and graduated in 1941. Being a gifted student, he started working in the laboratory of professor J.P. Bouckaert who was trying to uncover the mechanism of action of insulin. Believing the answer could be found in biochemistry, de Duve started studying chemistry and graduated in 1946. He was awarded a doctorate in 1945 for his doctoral thesis "Glucose, Insuline et Diabète".
He became a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in 1951 and later at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL). He started working at the Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller University) in 1962 dividing his time between Belgium and the United States. He also worked at the Medical Nobel Institute in Sweden and the University of Washington, USA. He founded the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology (now known as the de Duve Institute) in Brussels in 1974. He became emeritus professor in Belgium in 1985 and in New York in 1988. He wrote several books on the origin of life and biology.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 29, 2014
A book encompassing evolution, the origin of life, consciousness, environmentalism and philosophy. If you have an interest in the biological sciences and of evolution this book considers the science in the context of human thought. It is not a reference book but more of a compendium of the science that relates to the origin and development of life and its consequences.
The conclusion is that life is an integral part of the structure and working of the universe. Life has meaning because of this and the philosophy elucidated is positive and hopeful.
The conclusion is that life is an integral part of the structure and working of the universe. Life has meaning because of this and the philosophy elucidated is positive and hopeful.
August 24, 2012
Science will be dense to readers with only a hig school understanding of biology.
September 27, 2024
A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING SCIENTIST LOOKS AT THE "BIGGER PICTURE" OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Christian René, viscount de Duve (1917 -2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist, who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1974; he wrote other books such as 'Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning,' 'A Guided Tour Of The Living Cell,' 'Singularities: Landmarks on the Pathways of Life,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, "I feel that the attempt must be made ... to understand our universe and our place in it. Life is the most complex phenomenon known to us, and we are the most complex beings so far produced by life. This book represents my attempt to look at the 'bigger picture.' ...
"All through this book, I have tried to conform to the overriding rule that life be treated as a natural process, its origin, evolution, and manifestations, up to and including the human species as governed by the same laws as nonliving processes. I exclude three 'isms': vitalism, which views living beings as made of matter animated by some vital spirit; finalism, or teleology, which assumes goal-directed causes in biological processes; and creationism, which invokes a literal acceptance of the biblical account.
"My approach demands that every step in the origin and development of life on Earth be explained in terms of its antecedent and immediate physical-chemical causes, not of any outcome known to us today but hidden in the future at the time the events took place." (Pg. xiv-xv)
He adds, "chance operates within constraints---physical, chemical, biological, environmental---that limit its free play. This notion of constrained contingency runs as a leitmotif throughout my reconstruction of the history of life on Earth." (Pg. xvi)
He rejects that argument of Fred Hoyle [The Intelligent Universe] and others that life is improbable: "I wish merely to examine the scientific validity of the probability argument. Its logic is impeccable, provided we are dealing with a SINGLE EVENT. But the emergence of life cannot possibly have happened as a single event... This consideration completely alters the probability assessment. We are being dealt thirteen spaces not once but thousands of times in succession! This is utterly impossible, unless the deck was doctored.
"What this doctoring implies with respect to the assembly of the first cell is that most of the steps involved must have had a very high likelihood of taking place under the prevailing conditions. Make them even moderately improbable and the process must abort, however many times it is initiated, because of the very number of successive steps involved... To me, this conclusion is inescapable.. It does not, however, imply that the emergence of life followed a rigid, preordained course. Even less does it mean that that only one kind of life was or is possible." (Pg. 8-9)
He observes, "The conclusion is clear. We need a pathway, a succession of chemical steps leading from the first building blocks of life to the RNA world. Chemistry, however, has so far failed to elucidate this pathway. At first sight, the kind of chemistry needed seems to unlikely to take place spontaneously that one might be tempted to invoke, as many have done and some still do, the intervention of some supernatural agency. Scientists, however, are condemned by their calling to look for natural explanations of even the most unnatural-looking events... The pathway to life must have been DOWNHILL all the way, with at most a few rare humps that could be negotiated with a help of the acquired momentum." (Pg. 24)
He asserts, "the mechanisms that led to the encapsulation of the first protocells must have been intimately associated with the creation of appropriate passageways allowing the necessary molecular traffic between the protocells and their environment to take place. There are unfortunately no clues to the long succession of molecular events that determined this progressive tightening of barriers around increasingly sophisticate means of crossing them. We can only look at the finished product and speculate about its origin." (Pg. 93)
He states, "Some readers might be dismayed by the many blanks in the portrait I have painted. I would rather have them marvel at the details that have been gathered... about a miniscule entity of enormous complexity that existed some 50 million human lifetimes ago." (Pg. 117)
He admits, "It is noteworthy that the two most important eukaryotic structural proteins... both display complementary regions on the same molecule, so that self-assembly can take place reversibly from a single kind of building block... No reliable clue as to the origin of these two key proteins has yet been found in the prokaryotic world... Perhaps these are simply cases of lack of detection due to incomplete sampling." (Pg. 167)
He also concedes, "Nobody knows how dragonflies, butterflies, bees, mosquitoes, and other flying insects won their wings. It is not even known whether they inherited their wings from a common ancestor or achieved flying separately by convergent evolution. Unlike the wings of other flying animals, those of insects are not modified limbs... How such an amazing arrangement ever came into being is anybody's guess." (Pg. 210)
He concludes, "If the universe is not meaningless, what is its meaning? For me, this meaning is to be found in the structure of the universe, which happens to be such as to produce thought by way of life and mind. Thought, in turn, is a faculty whereby the universe can reflect upon itself, discover its own structure, and apprehend such immanent entities as truth, beauty, goodness, and love. Such is the meaning of the universe, as I see it." (Pg. 301)
Those who enjoy speculative evolutionary theories will be very interested in this book, written in an engaging style by a noteworthy scientist.
Christian René, viscount de Duve (1917 -2013) was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist, who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1974; he wrote other books such as 'Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning,' 'A Guided Tour Of The Living Cell,' 'Singularities: Landmarks on the Pathways of Life,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, "I feel that the attempt must be made ... to understand our universe and our place in it. Life is the most complex phenomenon known to us, and we are the most complex beings so far produced by life. This book represents my attempt to look at the 'bigger picture.' ...
"All through this book, I have tried to conform to the overriding rule that life be treated as a natural process, its origin, evolution, and manifestations, up to and including the human species as governed by the same laws as nonliving processes. I exclude three 'isms': vitalism, which views living beings as made of matter animated by some vital spirit; finalism, or teleology, which assumes goal-directed causes in biological processes; and creationism, which invokes a literal acceptance of the biblical account.
"My approach demands that every step in the origin and development of life on Earth be explained in terms of its antecedent and immediate physical-chemical causes, not of any outcome known to us today but hidden in the future at the time the events took place." (Pg. xiv-xv)
He adds, "chance operates within constraints---physical, chemical, biological, environmental---that limit its free play. This notion of constrained contingency runs as a leitmotif throughout my reconstruction of the history of life on Earth." (Pg. xvi)
He rejects that argument of Fred Hoyle [The Intelligent Universe] and others that life is improbable: "I wish merely to examine the scientific validity of the probability argument. Its logic is impeccable, provided we are dealing with a SINGLE EVENT. But the emergence of life cannot possibly have happened as a single event... This consideration completely alters the probability assessment. We are being dealt thirteen spaces not once but thousands of times in succession! This is utterly impossible, unless the deck was doctored.
"What this doctoring implies with respect to the assembly of the first cell is that most of the steps involved must have had a very high likelihood of taking place under the prevailing conditions. Make them even moderately improbable and the process must abort, however many times it is initiated, because of the very number of successive steps involved... To me, this conclusion is inescapable.. It does not, however, imply that the emergence of life followed a rigid, preordained course. Even less does it mean that that only one kind of life was or is possible." (Pg. 8-9)
He observes, "The conclusion is clear. We need a pathway, a succession of chemical steps leading from the first building blocks of life to the RNA world. Chemistry, however, has so far failed to elucidate this pathway. At first sight, the kind of chemistry needed seems to unlikely to take place spontaneously that one might be tempted to invoke, as many have done and some still do, the intervention of some supernatural agency. Scientists, however, are condemned by their calling to look for natural explanations of even the most unnatural-looking events... The pathway to life must have been DOWNHILL all the way, with at most a few rare humps that could be negotiated with a help of the acquired momentum." (Pg. 24)
He asserts, "the mechanisms that led to the encapsulation of the first protocells must have been intimately associated with the creation of appropriate passageways allowing the necessary molecular traffic between the protocells and their environment to take place. There are unfortunately no clues to the long succession of molecular events that determined this progressive tightening of barriers around increasingly sophisticate means of crossing them. We can only look at the finished product and speculate about its origin." (Pg. 93)
He states, "Some readers might be dismayed by the many blanks in the portrait I have painted. I would rather have them marvel at the details that have been gathered... about a miniscule entity of enormous complexity that existed some 50 million human lifetimes ago." (Pg. 117)
He admits, "It is noteworthy that the two most important eukaryotic structural proteins... both display complementary regions on the same molecule, so that self-assembly can take place reversibly from a single kind of building block... No reliable clue as to the origin of these two key proteins has yet been found in the prokaryotic world... Perhaps these are simply cases of lack of detection due to incomplete sampling." (Pg. 167)
He also concedes, "Nobody knows how dragonflies, butterflies, bees, mosquitoes, and other flying insects won their wings. It is not even known whether they inherited their wings from a common ancestor or achieved flying separately by convergent evolution. Unlike the wings of other flying animals, those of insects are not modified limbs... How such an amazing arrangement ever came into being is anybody's guess." (Pg. 210)
He concludes, "If the universe is not meaningless, what is its meaning? For me, this meaning is to be found in the structure of the universe, which happens to be such as to produce thought by way of life and mind. Thought, in turn, is a faculty whereby the universe can reflect upon itself, discover its own structure, and apprehend such immanent entities as truth, beauty, goodness, and love. Such is the meaning of the universe, as I see it." (Pg. 301)
Those who enjoy speculative evolutionary theories will be very interested in this book, written in an engaging style by a noteworthy scientist.
June 11, 2017
Thorough investigation into how life began, how it has developed, and where it might be going. Good understanding of high-school level chemistry and biology is necessary to get the most out of this book that was written by a Nobel Prize winner and who has been intrigued by these problems his whole life.
August 31, 2007
After reading this one you won't look at the Sun the same. The fact is that our Sun is a 3rd generation star, which means it is made of the remains of two previous generations of stars that burned for billions of years and spent their fuel and exploded in supernovae and reformed finally to make the Sun. We know this because the sheer quantity of heavy elements in abundance in/on Earth that can only form in the inconceivably hot cauldron of supernovae. Therefore, something as essential as hemoglobin that requires iron owes itself to the supernovae explosions of previous generations of our Sun. And then it goes into the very beginnings of the origin of life. Like pre-RNA. It's a good read.
August 12, 2011
You will have to grab a biology and an organic chemistry schoolbook along with this one, unless you remember well what you learned in high school. Explanations on cellular composition, functioning and evolution are especially fresh and new, even to those graduated high school in XXIst century. Advancement in physical chemistry and biology is really amazing, it is truly a "hard" scientific field now, much more complex and interesting even compared to EE (a personal favorite) and especially in comparison to biology and organic chemistry 30 years ago.
August 10, 2012
In der 11 Klasse habe ich dieses Buch vergöttert. Ich kann nicht mehr beurteilen ob die zentralen Thesen des Buchs irgendwie überzeugend waren oder wie ich es jetzt finden würde.
Zusammen mit "Was ist Leben?" wahrscheinlich das Buch, das die tiefsten Spuren bei mir hinterlassen hat. Warum?
Ich mochte Biologie als Lehrfach, aber irgendwie fehlte dem ganzen Zusammenhalt und Bedeutung.
"WiL" und dieses Buch haben mich zum ersten Mal über Selbstorganisation nachdenken lassen... immer noch eines meiner Lieblingsthemen.
Zusammen mit "Was ist Leben?" wahrscheinlich das Buch, das die tiefsten Spuren bei mir hinterlassen hat. Warum?
Ich mochte Biologie als Lehrfach, aber irgendwie fehlte dem ganzen Zusammenhalt und Bedeutung.
"WiL" und dieses Buch haben mich zum ersten Mal über Selbstorganisation nachdenken lassen... immer noch eines meiner Lieblingsthemen.
December 8, 2011
Totally fascinating, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that most of this was over my head.
August 24, 2012
Science will be dense to most readers without more than a high school understanding of biology.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews