What do you think?
Rate this book
The Origin of Life
From award-winning science writer Paul Davies, The Origin of Life reveals the remarkable new theories set to transform the understanding of our place in the universe.
Is life written into the laws of nature, or just a bizarre accident, unique in the universe? How can a mix of non-living chemicals be transformed into something as complex as the living cell?
Acclaimed physicist, astrobiologist and writer Paul Davies presents evidence that life began billions of years ago kilometres underground, arguing that it may well have started on Mars and spread to Earth in rocks blasted off the Red Planet by asteroid impacts. This solution to the riddle of life's origin has sweeping implications for the nature of the universe and our place within it, and opens the way to a radical rethinking of where we came from.
'One of a handful of first-rate scientists who are popular writers. If you are going to read only one book on the origin of life, seriously consider this one'
The New York Times
'The best science writer on either side of the Atlantic'
Washington Times
'Davies succeeds not only in being provocative and controversial, but in maintaining the rigorous scientific approach of the physicist... a classic example of how to present a scientific case, and an insight into the way good scientists work'
John Gribbin, Independent
Paul Davies has achieved an international reputation for his ability to explain the significance of advanced scientific ideas in simple language. He is the author of some twenty books, including Superforce , God and the New Physics , The Mind of God , The Last Three Minutes , Are We Alone? and How to Build a Time Machine .
Is life written into the laws of nature, or just a bizarre accident, unique in the universe? How can a mix of non-living chemicals be transformed into something as complex as the living cell?
Acclaimed physicist, astrobiologist and writer Paul Davies presents evidence that life began billions of years ago kilometres underground, arguing that it may well have started on Mars and spread to Earth in rocks blasted off the Red Planet by asteroid impacts. This solution to the riddle of life's origin has sweeping implications for the nature of the universe and our place within it, and opens the way to a radical rethinking of where we came from.
'One of a handful of first-rate scientists who are popular writers. If you are going to read only one book on the origin of life, seriously consider this one'
The New York Times
'The best science writer on either side of the Atlantic'
Washington Times
'Davies succeeds not only in being provocative and controversial, but in maintaining the rigorous scientific approach of the physicist... a classic example of how to present a scientific case, and an insight into the way good scientists work'
John Gribbin, Independent
Paul Davies has achieved an international reputation for his ability to explain the significance of advanced scientific ideas in simple language. He is the author of some twenty books, including Superforce , God and the New Physics , The Mind of God , The Last Three Minutes , Are We Alone? and How to Build a Time Machine .
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
12 people are currently reading
340 people want to read
About the author
Paul C.W. Davies
75 books572 followersPaul Charles William Davies AM is a British-born physicist, writer and broadcaster, currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He has held previous academic appointments at the University of Cambridge, University of London, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, University of Adelaide and Macquarie University. His research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology. He has proposed that a one-way trip to Mars could be a viable option.
In 2005, he took up the chair of the SETI: Post-Detection Science and Technology Taskgroup of the International Academy of Astronautics.
In 2005, he took up the chair of the SETI: Post-Detection Science and Technology Taskgroup of the International Academy of Astronautics.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 14, 2023
This a top-class survey of the subject—including some of its profounder aspects because this isn’t just a scientific problem, it’s a philosophical and even religious one too.
Scientifically, it hinges on the role which chance may, or may not, have played. Is life an inevitable expression of the various laws of nature: “run” the universe a thousand times over and would you always get life (and perhaps mind)? Or is it a flukey outcome of those laws, a falling of the cosmic dice so improbable it would likely never be repeated? The first possibility not only sounds like foresight, a Plan, but since the laws of nature work the same way everywhere then life will prove to be common throughout the universe. The second, by contrast, leaves us alone and, perhaps, meaningless as well.
To explore such ideas, though, you need the relevant background information, and Davies guides us through it in exceptionally plain language. For a start, there’s the whole business of what “life” actually is, and what it is not. Creationists, for instance, often argue that its mere existence contradicts the laws of physics—entropy and all that, the thermodynamic running down of the universe—and Chapter 2 includes a wonderfully clear explanation of how that is a misunderstanding both of living things and the universe itself. Then there’s DNA and the mind-numbing complexity of cell and genetic code alike. And there’s the whole subject of where life may have begun (if indeed it ever did): on the Earth’s surface, or perhaps miles beneath it inside rocks then spreading up to the surface? This latter, the world of subterranean “extremophile” microbes, is a fascinating and relatively new subject which questions the assumption “…that surface life is ‘normal’, and subterranean life is an off-beat adaptation… Could it be that the reasoning is literally upside down, and that the truth is just the opposite?” Then again though, did life begin on Earth at all, or did it arrive here from elsewhere (from Mars for instance, which early in its own history was very Earthlike)? Or did life never have a beginning and has always existed? This last one is just part of the whole question of whether the universe itself had a beginning or not, or is infinitely old.
There’s a lot more here besides and, although it was last updated in 2003, this book is still not only a clear-headed guide through its subject, but an unusually deep one too. Absolutely excellent.
Scientifically, it hinges on the role which chance may, or may not, have played. Is life an inevitable expression of the various laws of nature: “run” the universe a thousand times over and would you always get life (and perhaps mind)? Or is it a flukey outcome of those laws, a falling of the cosmic dice so improbable it would likely never be repeated? The first possibility not only sounds like foresight, a Plan, but since the laws of nature work the same way everywhere then life will prove to be common throughout the universe. The second, by contrast, leaves us alone and, perhaps, meaningless as well.
To explore such ideas, though, you need the relevant background information, and Davies guides us through it in exceptionally plain language. For a start, there’s the whole business of what “life” actually is, and what it is not. Creationists, for instance, often argue that its mere existence contradicts the laws of physics—entropy and all that, the thermodynamic running down of the universe—and Chapter 2 includes a wonderfully clear explanation of how that is a misunderstanding both of living things and the universe itself. Then there’s DNA and the mind-numbing complexity of cell and genetic code alike. And there’s the whole subject of where life may have begun (if indeed it ever did): on the Earth’s surface, or perhaps miles beneath it inside rocks then spreading up to the surface? This latter, the world of subterranean “extremophile” microbes, is a fascinating and relatively new subject which questions the assumption “…that surface life is ‘normal’, and subterranean life is an off-beat adaptation… Could it be that the reasoning is literally upside down, and that the truth is just the opposite?” Then again though, did life begin on Earth at all, or did it arrive here from elsewhere (from Mars for instance, which early in its own history was very Earthlike)? Or did life never have a beginning and has always existed? This last one is just part of the whole question of whether the universe itself had a beginning or not, or is infinitely old.
There’s a lot more here besides and, although it was last updated in 2003, this book is still not only a clear-headed guide through its subject, but an unusually deep one too. Absolutely excellent.
March 19, 2018
Every chapter of this book is an information overload for my brain and I like it when my brains explode! If you want to know the why, how, when and where of life : this is the book to go.
Much of the book is devoted to the where and when of life and with so many interesting theories ranging from where on earth can we find living fossils to did life originate on Mars to the concept of 'panspermia'.
But the more interesting part of why and how is mind boggling. I have read articles on origins of life from a chemist, a physicist and a biologist point of view but the concept of information complexity in life is something which still I cannot grasp. More riddles than answers in this part!
This book can also cause a minor existential dread when you try to comprehend your position in the universe and its time scale. And the book ends with the reader to decide if life is luck by chance or deeply embedded in some fabric of universe.
Much of the book is devoted to the where and when of life and with so many interesting theories ranging from where on earth can we find living fossils to did life originate on Mars to the concept of 'panspermia'.
But the more interesting part of why and how is mind boggling. I have read articles on origins of life from a chemist, a physicist and a biologist point of view but the concept of information complexity in life is something which still I cannot grasp. More riddles than answers in this part!
This book can also cause a minor existential dread when you try to comprehend your position in the universe and its time scale. And the book ends with the reader to decide if life is luck by chance or deeply embedded in some fabric of universe.
August 12, 2022
Para aquellos que estan interesados en descubrir el mundo que nos rodea en términos científicos, este es un excelente libro. ¿Cómo se originó la vida en la tierra? Es un clásico en el área. Es muy bueno ya que está hecho tanto para el publico general, como para también el público científico. Es un libro que nos lleva por todas las posibilidades, expone las preguntas en esta área y deja la sensación que realmente no conocemos nada como ser originó la vida. ¿O es que fué realmente un milagro?
Uds deciden
R.
Uds deciden
R.
June 17, 2024
AN UPDATING OF HIS BOOK, “THE FIFTH MIRACLE”
Paul Charles William Davies (born 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, who is currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2003 revision, “This book focuses on the origin of life. The problem of ‘biogenesis’ divides up into the when, the where and the how. We shall see that scientists have a pretty good idea of when life first established itself on Earth. As far as the where part… the evidence points increasingly to a hot, subsurface setting… but whether the transformation from non-life to life took place on Earth, or Mars, or both, remains an open question. The how part of the puzzle is undoubtedly the toughest to solve…” (Pg. xvii-xviii)
He continues, “When I set out to write this book I was convinced that science was close to wrapping up the mystery of life’s origin. The dramatic evidence for microbes living deep underground… promised to provide the ‘missing link’ between the prebiotic world of biochemical soups and the first primitive cells… Several recent books convey the confident message that life’s origin is not really so mysterious after al. However, I think they are wrong… I am now of the opinion that there remains a huge gulf in our understanding… we are a long way from understanding the how.” (Pg. xxiii-xxiv)
He explains, “Taking my cue from Francis Crick, and his reference to biogenesis being ‘almost a miracle,’ I called this book ‘The Fifth Miracle’ for its initial 1998 printing. The current revised edition is retitled ‘The Origin of Life’ to reflect more clearly its content. The work remains substantially unchanged, however; indeed, it proved to be remarkably prescient… I have updated the text here and there, and inserted notes to cover the recent developments.” (Pg. xxv)
He observes, “How does one go about assembling a scientific account of the genesis of life? At first sight the task appears hopeless… If we had to rely on rock fossils along, the task… would indeed be formidable. Fortunately there is another line of evidence altogether… By studying how the modern cell operates, we can glimpse remnants of ancestral life at work… Even with such biochemical clues, the task of reconstruction would still be largely guesswork were it not for the recent discovery of… microbes that inhabit weird and extreme environments.” (Pg. 7-8)
He suggests that “we will not be able to trace the origin of biological information to the operation of local physical forces and laws. In particular, the oft-repeated claim that life is written into the laws of physics cannot be true if those laws are restricted to the normal sort… we must seek the origin of biological information in some sort of global context. This… may involve some non-local type of physical law as yet unrecognized by science, that explicitly entangles the dynamics of information with the dynamics of matter.” (Pg. 44-45)
He acknowledges, “Though it is very unlikely that we will ever find out exactly what happened, we might be able to deduce a plausible chemical pathway leading from simple chemicals to life… However, in our present state of ignorance, all we can hope for are a few pointers to the key chemical steps that may have been involved.” (Pg. 59)
He points out, “Alas, the euphoria over the Miller-Urey experiment turned out to be somewhat premature, for a variety of reasons. First, geologists no longer think that the early atmosphere resembled the gas mixture in Miller’s flask… A second reason … is that amino acids are not, in fact, all that hard to make anyway. Many successful variants on the original Chicago set-up have been tried… It turns out that making amino acids is a cinch… There is also a conceptual reason why the Miller-Urey experiment is no longer accorded the status it once had. It is a serious mistake to regard the road to life as a uniform highway down which a coup of chemicals is inexorably conveyed by the passage of time… a collection of amino acids is a long, long way from the sort of large, specialized molecules such as proteins that life requires.” (Pg. 65-66)
He states, “There is a more fundamental reason why the random self-assembly of proteins seems a non-starter. This has to do with … the particular order in which the amino acids link together. Proteins… are very specific amino acid sequences that have specialized chemical properties needed for life. However, the number of alternative permutations available to a mixture of amino acids is super-astronomical… Hitting the right one by accident would be no mean feat.” (Pg. 69)
He argues, “Some people feel that something as basic as our own existence can’t be put down to a chemical quirk, and that … the word ‘accident’ is a cop-out… The Earth appears to be a typical planet around a typical star in a typical galaxy. So why should life on Earth not also be typical? Unfortunately this argument will not wash. Our own existence must be the exception to the rule that what we observe is unexceptional. If there is only one planet in the universe with life, it has to be ours! Obviously we won’t find ourselves living on a lifeless planet, by definition. So Earth will not be a randomly selected planet… because we have selected it by our very existence.” (Pg. 74)
He explains, “In recent years, attempts have been made to build small and simple replicator molecules in the lab…. However, these experiments do not demonstrate molecular evolution in nature. They have yet to show that the sort of small replicators that have been … fabricated in the laboratory will form spontaneously under plausible prebiotic conditions… In short, nobody has a clue whether naturally occurring mini-replicators are even possible, let alone whether they have got what it takes to evolve successfully.” (Pg. 113)
He asserts, “I think there almost certainly WAS life on mars 3.6 billion years ago. The reason I am so confident in this belief is not because I am sure life emerged from a primordial Martian soup (though it may have been), but because the planets are not, and never have been, quarantines from each other.” (Pg. 203)
He observes, “Of course, it isn’t necessary for the success of the panspermia process for each and every space-faring microbe to survive interstellar voyages. It demands only a single bacterium to make it alive and find a suitable planet to call home. Life might even be disseminated around the cosmos if microbes are officially dead on arrival… Entertaining though these ideas of ‘naked’ panspermia may be, I find it hard to take the theory seriously. While… [it] is theoretically possible, the odds are heavily against it. It is most unlikely to be going on systematically all across the Galaxy… However, there IS a way for microbes to journey from one planet to another in relative safety, and that is for them to hitch a ride in a meteorite.” (Pg. 207-208)
He adds, “the Murchison meteorite proves one thing at least. There are objects in space loaded with just the sort of organic compounds needed for life to get started. It doesn’t require a primordial soup on Earth to synthesize the building blocks of life. These substances can fall from the sky, ready-made.” (Pg. 210) He continues, “Not only was Mars a better place for life to start, it could also have proved a favorable location for it to evolve… If life arose independently on Earth and Mars, then a Martian microbe reaching Earth might arrive to find organisms already well ensconced… The Martians might get gobbled up by Earthly bacteria as soon as they arrived.” (Pg. 218-219)
He speculates, “There is thus a sort of hardware-software entanglement in quantum mechanics. Information … has downward causative power. So here is a mainstream physical theory that has information at its heart, which it tangles with matter in an intimate way. Furthermore, the interatomic forces that form biological molecules like proteins and nucleic acids are indeed quantum mechanical in nature. Could some sort of quantum organizing process be just what is needed to explain the origin of informational macromolecules?” (Pg. 243-244) He adds, “I concede that the ideas I have skimmed over in this section are highly conjectural, but the very fact that the problem of biogenesis prompts such speculation underscores just how stubborn a mystery it is.” (Pg. 245)
He states, “If evolution is nothing but a lottery… there is little reason why life should go beyond the level of microbes, and no expectation whatever that it will advance obligingly towards intelligence and consciousness, still less develop humanoid characteristics. We should then be forced to agree with [Jacques] Monod’s melancholy conclusion that ‘Man… is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he has emerged only by chance.’ Only if there is more to it than chance, only if nature has an ingeniously built-in bias towards life and mind, would we expect to see anything like the developmental thrust that has occurred on Earth repeated on other planets… On the other hand, there is an alternative view… It is the vision of a self-organizing and self-complexifying universe, governed by ingenious laws that encourage matter to evolve towards life and consciousness. A universe in which the emergence of thinking being is a fundamental and integral part of the overall scheme of things. A universe in which we are not alone.” (Pg. 255-256)
This book will interest those studying ‘origin of life’ theories.
Paul Charles William Davies (born 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, who is currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2003 revision, “This book focuses on the origin of life. The problem of ‘biogenesis’ divides up into the when, the where and the how. We shall see that scientists have a pretty good idea of when life first established itself on Earth. As far as the where part… the evidence points increasingly to a hot, subsurface setting… but whether the transformation from non-life to life took place on Earth, or Mars, or both, remains an open question. The how part of the puzzle is undoubtedly the toughest to solve…” (Pg. xvii-xviii)
He continues, “When I set out to write this book I was convinced that science was close to wrapping up the mystery of life’s origin. The dramatic evidence for microbes living deep underground… promised to provide the ‘missing link’ between the prebiotic world of biochemical soups and the first primitive cells… Several recent books convey the confident message that life’s origin is not really so mysterious after al. However, I think they are wrong… I am now of the opinion that there remains a huge gulf in our understanding… we are a long way from understanding the how.” (Pg. xxiii-xxiv)
He explains, “Taking my cue from Francis Crick, and his reference to biogenesis being ‘almost a miracle,’ I called this book ‘The Fifth Miracle’ for its initial 1998 printing. The current revised edition is retitled ‘The Origin of Life’ to reflect more clearly its content. The work remains substantially unchanged, however; indeed, it proved to be remarkably prescient… I have updated the text here and there, and inserted notes to cover the recent developments.” (Pg. xxv)
He observes, “How does one go about assembling a scientific account of the genesis of life? At first sight the task appears hopeless… If we had to rely on rock fossils along, the task… would indeed be formidable. Fortunately there is another line of evidence altogether… By studying how the modern cell operates, we can glimpse remnants of ancestral life at work… Even with such biochemical clues, the task of reconstruction would still be largely guesswork were it not for the recent discovery of… microbes that inhabit weird and extreme environments.” (Pg. 7-8)
He suggests that “we will not be able to trace the origin of biological information to the operation of local physical forces and laws. In particular, the oft-repeated claim that life is written into the laws of physics cannot be true if those laws are restricted to the normal sort… we must seek the origin of biological information in some sort of global context. This… may involve some non-local type of physical law as yet unrecognized by science, that explicitly entangles the dynamics of information with the dynamics of matter.” (Pg. 44-45)
He acknowledges, “Though it is very unlikely that we will ever find out exactly what happened, we might be able to deduce a plausible chemical pathway leading from simple chemicals to life… However, in our present state of ignorance, all we can hope for are a few pointers to the key chemical steps that may have been involved.” (Pg. 59)
He points out, “Alas, the euphoria over the Miller-Urey experiment turned out to be somewhat premature, for a variety of reasons. First, geologists no longer think that the early atmosphere resembled the gas mixture in Miller’s flask… A second reason … is that amino acids are not, in fact, all that hard to make anyway. Many successful variants on the original Chicago set-up have been tried… It turns out that making amino acids is a cinch… There is also a conceptual reason why the Miller-Urey experiment is no longer accorded the status it once had. It is a serious mistake to regard the road to life as a uniform highway down which a coup of chemicals is inexorably conveyed by the passage of time… a collection of amino acids is a long, long way from the sort of large, specialized molecules such as proteins that life requires.” (Pg. 65-66)
He states, “There is a more fundamental reason why the random self-assembly of proteins seems a non-starter. This has to do with … the particular order in which the amino acids link together. Proteins… are very specific amino acid sequences that have specialized chemical properties needed for life. However, the number of alternative permutations available to a mixture of amino acids is super-astronomical… Hitting the right one by accident would be no mean feat.” (Pg. 69)
He argues, “Some people feel that something as basic as our own existence can’t be put down to a chemical quirk, and that … the word ‘accident’ is a cop-out… The Earth appears to be a typical planet around a typical star in a typical galaxy. So why should life on Earth not also be typical? Unfortunately this argument will not wash. Our own existence must be the exception to the rule that what we observe is unexceptional. If there is only one planet in the universe with life, it has to be ours! Obviously we won’t find ourselves living on a lifeless planet, by definition. So Earth will not be a randomly selected planet… because we have selected it by our very existence.” (Pg. 74)
He explains, “In recent years, attempts have been made to build small and simple replicator molecules in the lab…. However, these experiments do not demonstrate molecular evolution in nature. They have yet to show that the sort of small replicators that have been … fabricated in the laboratory will form spontaneously under plausible prebiotic conditions… In short, nobody has a clue whether naturally occurring mini-replicators are even possible, let alone whether they have got what it takes to evolve successfully.” (Pg. 113)
He asserts, “I think there almost certainly WAS life on mars 3.6 billion years ago. The reason I am so confident in this belief is not because I am sure life emerged from a primordial Martian soup (though it may have been), but because the planets are not, and never have been, quarantines from each other.” (Pg. 203)
He observes, “Of course, it isn’t necessary for the success of the panspermia process for each and every space-faring microbe to survive interstellar voyages. It demands only a single bacterium to make it alive and find a suitable planet to call home. Life might even be disseminated around the cosmos if microbes are officially dead on arrival… Entertaining though these ideas of ‘naked’ panspermia may be, I find it hard to take the theory seriously. While… [it] is theoretically possible, the odds are heavily against it. It is most unlikely to be going on systematically all across the Galaxy… However, there IS a way for microbes to journey from one planet to another in relative safety, and that is for them to hitch a ride in a meteorite.” (Pg. 207-208)
He adds, “the Murchison meteorite proves one thing at least. There are objects in space loaded with just the sort of organic compounds needed for life to get started. It doesn’t require a primordial soup on Earth to synthesize the building blocks of life. These substances can fall from the sky, ready-made.” (Pg. 210) He continues, “Not only was Mars a better place for life to start, it could also have proved a favorable location for it to evolve… If life arose independently on Earth and Mars, then a Martian microbe reaching Earth might arrive to find organisms already well ensconced… The Martians might get gobbled up by Earthly bacteria as soon as they arrived.” (Pg. 218-219)
He speculates, “There is thus a sort of hardware-software entanglement in quantum mechanics. Information … has downward causative power. So here is a mainstream physical theory that has information at its heart, which it tangles with matter in an intimate way. Furthermore, the interatomic forces that form biological molecules like proteins and nucleic acids are indeed quantum mechanical in nature. Could some sort of quantum organizing process be just what is needed to explain the origin of informational macromolecules?” (Pg. 243-244) He adds, “I concede that the ideas I have skimmed over in this section are highly conjectural, but the very fact that the problem of biogenesis prompts such speculation underscores just how stubborn a mystery it is.” (Pg. 245)
He states, “If evolution is nothing but a lottery… there is little reason why life should go beyond the level of microbes, and no expectation whatever that it will advance obligingly towards intelligence and consciousness, still less develop humanoid characteristics. We should then be forced to agree with [Jacques] Monod’s melancholy conclusion that ‘Man… is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he has emerged only by chance.’ Only if there is more to it than chance, only if nature has an ingeniously built-in bias towards life and mind, would we expect to see anything like the developmental thrust that has occurred on Earth repeated on other planets… On the other hand, there is an alternative view… It is the vision of a self-organizing and self-complexifying universe, governed by ingenious laws that encourage matter to evolve towards life and consciousness. A universe in which the emergence of thinking being is a fundamental and integral part of the overall scheme of things. A universe in which we are not alone.” (Pg. 255-256)
This book will interest those studying ‘origin of life’ theories.
July 31, 2023
An absorbing analysis of where life came from, in Paul Davies’ customary unpretentious and clear manner. “Where life came from”, meaning both its physical development, one cell at a time; and its cosmic origin, meaning did we come from Mars.
I rate one or two of his books as amongst the best popular science books I have ever read, especially those on the origins of the cosmos. This is on a slightly lesser scale, firstly because it’s about how cells and proteins (both tiny) drifted into existence, and secondly because no one knows yet how it happened. Still, his account is wonderfully lucid, and I felt one or two preconceptions of mine fading away along the way. Take, for example, the tendency to view DNA as a hugely sophisticated, complex structure that required aeons to evolve. He gives that short shrift: “DNA is incredibly, unimaginably, ancient. .. it makes a nonsense of the phrase “as old as the hills”: DNA was here long before any surviving hills on earth”. In essence, life popped up remarkably quickly after the earth was formed.
I was under the impression too that we still reckon life probably sprang up in some Darwinian “soup” warmed by the sun in some primordial swamp: I didn’t realise this has long since been dismissed, to be replaced by the probability (no one yet knows for certain) that the first cell popped up in super-heated conditions, possibly under the sea as magma-heated rocks cooked the water around them.
And while he doesn’t particularly push the idea, he hints gently that we probably did all spring from a single, first cell: everything, every cucumber, human, tree, bacterium, has a single common ancestor. Imagine! But it does neatly deal with a common creationist argument (how can sophisticated devices like eyes (or cells) have sprung into existence in many different locations? ). Answer: they probably didn’t.
Dedicated empirical scientist that he is, he goes into minute detail on occasion. At one point he even apologises for the complexity and remarks that, yes, you’re going to have to go back and study page 85 again! And even if you do go back, the end result of his piling detail upon detail is quite intimidating. For example:
It’s unfair to extract a couple of sentences from a much longer sequence because they do make more sense on the page; but the intimidation is obvious. In point of fact I found it curiously comforting. In the same way as I have never read my 400-page car manual from end to end but am glad it’s all there, I am happy to have derived the general gist and to leave it at that.
And the general gist seems to be that organic life as we know it, the beginning of the Darwinian process, cannot possibly have sprung up spontaneously, it may (must?) have been preceded by a process of patterns and self-organising in inorganic matter (examples of which being snowflakes, tide patterns on the sand, crystal growth, and so on), which happened to blunder onto a pattern that facilitated organic processes. It only needed to happen once.
Never mind the detailed content of his arguments (well, almost never mind), the care with which he assembles those arguments, detail upon detail, is a pleasure to dig into, a bit like standing up close to a pointilliste painting, say, analysing it dot by dot; and then standing back to admire the astonishing overall effect. Certainly, his careful theorising of how a life-bearing microbe might have been bounced off the surface of Mars by meteor impacts and transported, intact, to earth: is perfectly convincing (as, equally interesting but not so often raised, is the notion that such a microbe might equally easily have made the journey in reverse, drifting away from earth and seeding Mars).
He closes with a discussion about the apparent ease with which the basic building blocks of life can form, but the great difficulty faced by biologists in concluding whether this is a matter of random chance, or of some deeper and as yet undisclosed law of biogenesis: purpose. For me, it’s enough to know those building blocks do just coalesce in a life-generating fashion from time to time.
In one, dogmatic, sense, the book is a cop-out. He analyses the biological question up to the point where a single non-organic construction first twitched, the first spasm of life: but without being all that clear on how this is physically conceivable. And he argues convincingly that spores might equally easily have hitched a ride from Mars to earth on the back of (or more exactly, inside) a meteorite – or in the reverse direction: but without offering any clues on which alternative seems more likely.
But science keeps marching on – even as I read this excellent book, scientists confirmed that a worm which had died 46,000 years ago and been frozen in Siberia’s permafrost has been brought back to life. Come on Paul, a postscript to your book is urgently needed!
I rate one or two of his books as amongst the best popular science books I have ever read, especially those on the origins of the cosmos. This is on a slightly lesser scale, firstly because it’s about how cells and proteins (both tiny) drifted into existence, and secondly because no one knows yet how it happened. Still, his account is wonderfully lucid, and I felt one or two preconceptions of mine fading away along the way. Take, for example, the tendency to view DNA as a hugely sophisticated, complex structure that required aeons to evolve. He gives that short shrift: “DNA is incredibly, unimaginably, ancient. .. it makes a nonsense of the phrase “as old as the hills”: DNA was here long before any surviving hills on earth”. In essence, life popped up remarkably quickly after the earth was formed.
I was under the impression too that we still reckon life probably sprang up in some Darwinian “soup” warmed by the sun in some primordial swamp: I didn’t realise this has long since been dismissed, to be replaced by the probability (no one yet knows for certain) that the first cell popped up in super-heated conditions, possibly under the sea as magma-heated rocks cooked the water around them.
And while he doesn’t particularly push the idea, he hints gently that we probably did all spring from a single, first cell: everything, every cucumber, human, tree, bacterium, has a single common ancestor. Imagine! But it does neatly deal with a common creationist argument (how can sophisticated devices like eyes (or cells) have sprung into existence in many different locations? ). Answer: they probably didn’t.
Dedicated empirical scientist that he is, he goes into minute detail on occasion. At one point he even apologises for the complexity and remarks that, yes, you’re going to have to go back and study page 85 again! And even if you do go back, the end result of his piling detail upon detail is quite intimidating. For example:
”Kauffman predicts an abrupt leap into a gigantic autocatalytic cycle, a process of self-organisation akin to the sudden transition from a featureless fluid to convection cells. This elevated and much more complex cycle will be a crude form of metabolism, the type of organised chemical processes that Oparin and Dyson envisioned for the contents of their chemical vesicles.”Sure Paul, sure.
It’s unfair to extract a couple of sentences from a much longer sequence because they do make more sense on the page; but the intimidation is obvious. In point of fact I found it curiously comforting. In the same way as I have never read my 400-page car manual from end to end but am glad it’s all there, I am happy to have derived the general gist and to leave it at that.
And the general gist seems to be that organic life as we know it, the beginning of the Darwinian process, cannot possibly have sprung up spontaneously, it may (must?) have been preceded by a process of patterns and self-organising in inorganic matter (examples of which being snowflakes, tide patterns on the sand, crystal growth, and so on), which happened to blunder onto a pattern that facilitated organic processes. It only needed to happen once.
Never mind the detailed content of his arguments (well, almost never mind), the care with which he assembles those arguments, detail upon detail, is a pleasure to dig into, a bit like standing up close to a pointilliste painting, say, analysing it dot by dot; and then standing back to admire the astonishing overall effect. Certainly, his careful theorising of how a life-bearing microbe might have been bounced off the surface of Mars by meteor impacts and transported, intact, to earth: is perfectly convincing (as, equally interesting but not so often raised, is the notion that such a microbe might equally easily have made the journey in reverse, drifting away from earth and seeding Mars).
He closes with a discussion about the apparent ease with which the basic building blocks of life can form, but the great difficulty faced by biologists in concluding whether this is a matter of random chance, or of some deeper and as yet undisclosed law of biogenesis: purpose. For me, it’s enough to know those building blocks do just coalesce in a life-generating fashion from time to time.
In one, dogmatic, sense, the book is a cop-out. He analyses the biological question up to the point where a single non-organic construction first twitched, the first spasm of life: but without being all that clear on how this is physically conceivable. And he argues convincingly that spores might equally easily have hitched a ride from Mars to earth on the back of (or more exactly, inside) a meteorite – or in the reverse direction: but without offering any clues on which alternative seems more likely.
But science keeps marching on – even as I read this excellent book, scientists confirmed that a worm which had died 46,000 years ago and been frozen in Siberia’s permafrost has been brought back to life. Come on Paul, a postscript to your book is urgently needed!
August 4, 2022
jobbit fö hjärnan men lärde mig ändå en hel del
July 2, 2022
Jaren geleden had ik "The Goldilock's Enigma" gelezen. Nu begon ik "Life on the edge" van McFadden en Al-Kahlili te lezen, een werk over kwantumbiologie. Nu blijkt Paul Davies deel uit te maken van het team dat werkte aan dit boek en dus besloot ik eerst "The Origin of Life" te lezen. In feite zou de logische gang van zaken dus "The Origin of Life", "The Goldilock's Enigma" en "Life on the edge" geweest zijn.
Maar goed, Paul Davies geeft hier een mooi beeld van de historische ontwikkeling en van de huidige stand van zaken in onze kennis over het ontstaan van het leven. Alle visies worden onder de loep genomen en kritisch besproken... en wat we al enige tijd vermoedden wordt hier als meest plausibele theorie naar voor geschoven, namelijk dat het leven niet ontstaan is uit het leven, maar wel uit verbindingen van anorganisch materiaal, bijvoorbeeld door toenemende complexiteit.
In het laatste hoofdstuk verwijst Davies expliciet naar de kwantummechanica en het chaotische gedrag van de elementaire deeltjes. Niet te verwonderen dus dat hij deel ging uitmaken van het team dat werkte aan "Life on the edge". Kwantumbiologie zou dus de beslissende stap kunnen zijn in ons begrip van het ontstaan van leven.
Maar goed, Paul Davies geeft hier een mooi beeld van de historische ontwikkeling en van de huidige stand van zaken in onze kennis over het ontstaan van het leven. Alle visies worden onder de loep genomen en kritisch besproken... en wat we al enige tijd vermoedden wordt hier als meest plausibele theorie naar voor geschoven, namelijk dat het leven niet ontstaan is uit het leven, maar wel uit verbindingen van anorganisch materiaal, bijvoorbeeld door toenemende complexiteit.
In het laatste hoofdstuk verwijst Davies expliciet naar de kwantummechanica en het chaotische gedrag van de elementaire deeltjes. Niet te verwonderen dus dat hij deel ging uitmaken van het team dat werkte aan "Life on the edge". Kwantumbiologie zou dus de beslissende stap kunnen zijn in ons begrip van het ontstaan van leven.
August 18, 2019
Super interesting things that proposes various theories about how life originated on earth. One disappointing part was me expecting some part about what makes something “alive” in this book. Still a good read from a purely scientific point of view.
August 5, 2021
The concept that gravity can encode information is quite intriguing
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 5, 2018
This book deserves more readership. Although the cover may suggest a very light and non-technical rendition of the arguments supporting information theory coupled with the second law of thermodynamics as a possible explanation of how life may have evolved and be able to sustain itself, the information here is highly recommended as an easy source to review your previous knowledge on the subject. A far more in-depth treatment of the machinations of genes and microbes for the lay reader is available in 'Life's Engines: How Microbes made the Earth Habitable' by Paul G. Falkowski.
This book touches upon some very good arguments in some very thought provoking sections such as this one where the author discusses the pseudo-anthropic principle proposed by other researchers stating that the Universe may be designed to provide preferential chemical affinities to molecules such that they achieve self replication i.e. the laws of physics may have a built-in bias favoring life-
No simple law can generate, alone, a random information-rich macromolecule to order. A law of nature of the sort that we know and love will not create biological information, or indeed any information at all. Ordinary laws just transform input data into output data. They can shuffle information about but they can't create it. The laws of Physics, which determine what atoms react with what, and how, are algorithmically very simple, they themselves contain relatively little information. Consequently they cannot on their own be responsible for creating informational macromolecules. Contrary to the oft-repeated claim, then, life cannot be 'written into' the laws of Physics - at least, not into anything like the laws of physics that we know at present.
If we accept that the genome is random and information-rich, then appealing to non-random chemistry to make life is a clear contradiction. Non-randomness is the exact opposite of what is needed to produce a random macromolecule. The whole point of the genetic code, for example, is to free life from the shackles of non-random chemical bonding. A genome can choose whichever amino acid sequence it wants, oblivious of the chemical preference of molecules. It achieves this by deploying special enzymes designed precisely to override the non-random tendencies of Chemistry. ...Life works its magic not by bowing to the directionality of Chemistry, but by circumventing what is chemically and thermodynamically 'natural'.
This book touches upon some very good arguments in some very thought provoking sections such as this one where the author discusses the pseudo-anthropic principle proposed by other researchers stating that the Universe may be designed to provide preferential chemical affinities to molecules such that they achieve self replication i.e. the laws of physics may have a built-in bias favoring life-
No simple law can generate, alone, a random information-rich macromolecule to order. A law of nature of the sort that we know and love will not create biological information, or indeed any information at all. Ordinary laws just transform input data into output data. They can shuffle information about but they can't create it. The laws of Physics, which determine what atoms react with what, and how, are algorithmically very simple, they themselves contain relatively little information. Consequently they cannot on their own be responsible for creating informational macromolecules. Contrary to the oft-repeated claim, then, life cannot be 'written into' the laws of Physics - at least, not into anything like the laws of physics that we know at present.
If we accept that the genome is random and information-rich, then appealing to non-random chemistry to make life is a clear contradiction. Non-randomness is the exact opposite of what is needed to produce a random macromolecule. The whole point of the genetic code, for example, is to free life from the shackles of non-random chemical bonding. A genome can choose whichever amino acid sequence it wants, oblivious of the chemical preference of molecules. It achieves this by deploying special enzymes designed precisely to override the non-random tendencies of Chemistry. ...Life works its magic not by bowing to the directionality of Chemistry, but by circumventing what is chemically and thermodynamically 'natural'.
January 28, 2020
Brilliant and spilling with hypotheses to some of the most complex questions of our time including: How did nonliving chemicals transform into replicating organic life? As one can imagine, this book has no definitive answers yet, that fact is among the highest of reasons to consume the information inside. Highly recommend.
My one takeaway quote:
“In claiming that water means life, NASA scientists are ot merely being upbeat about their project. They are making tacitly- a huge (emphasis in original) and profound assumption about the nature of nature. They are saying, in effect, that the laws of the universe are cunningly contrived to coax life into being against the raw odds; that the mathematical principles of physics, in their elegant simplicity, somehow know in advance about life and its cast complexity. If life follows from soup with casual dependability then the laws of nature encode a hidden subtext, a cosmic imperative, which tells them: ‘Make life!’ And, through life, its by-products: mind, knowledge, understanding. It means that the laws of the universe have engineered their own comprehension. This is a breathtaking vision of nature, magnificent and uplifting in its majestic sweep. I hope it is correct. It would be wonderful if it were correct. But if it is, it represents a shift in the scientific world view as profound as that initiated by Copernicus and Darwin put together. It should not be glossed over with glib statements that water plus organics equals life, obviously, fit it is far from obvious.”
My one takeaway quote:
“In claiming that water means life, NASA scientists are ot merely being upbeat about their project. They are making tacitly- a huge (emphasis in original) and profound assumption about the nature of nature. They are saying, in effect, that the laws of the universe are cunningly contrived to coax life into being against the raw odds; that the mathematical principles of physics, in their elegant simplicity, somehow know in advance about life and its cast complexity. If life follows from soup with casual dependability then the laws of nature encode a hidden subtext, a cosmic imperative, which tells them: ‘Make life!’ And, through life, its by-products: mind, knowledge, understanding. It means that the laws of the universe have engineered their own comprehension. This is a breathtaking vision of nature, magnificent and uplifting in its majestic sweep. I hope it is correct. It would be wonderful if it were correct. But if it is, it represents a shift in the scientific world view as profound as that initiated by Copernicus and Darwin put together. It should not be glossed over with glib statements that water plus organics equals life, obviously, fit it is far from obvious.”
November 11, 2010
A highly compelling book on an issue that remains an intriguing mystery. As Paul Davies explains, "the origin of life is key to the meaning of life". Attempting to understand the origins of life is undoubtedly an important issue within scientific thought and the author’s contribution is certainly a worthy addition to the field. It seems as though the answer to how life arose on earth may ultimately lie on, or rather within, other planets that we have yet to fully explore.
March 25, 2015
This is one of the best books i have read till now. paul davies explains the complexities involved in the origin of life in such a simple and way that anyone can understand them. It will blow your mind for sure. All the theories that are presented and the explanation behind each theory is enticing and well written that it'll be felt hard to put the book away. Recommended for anyone willing to know, how life might have originated and the possibilities of alien life forms.
May 4, 2016
الكاتب بول ديفيس هو أشبه بالساحر من حيث قدرته على تقديم العلوم للقارئ غير المتخصص بطريقة سهلة و مشوقة. أما المترجم المصري منير شريف فهو أشبه بالساحر من حيث قدرته على تقديم الكتاب للقارئ العربي و كأنه مكتوب أساسا بالعربية.
كتاب مهم في مضمونه و رائع في طريقة عرضه.
شكرا لصديقي الأستاذ عبد الرحمن مرشود الذي دلني عليه.
كتاب مهم في مضمونه و رائع في طريقة عرضه.
شكرا لصديقي الأستاذ عبد الرحمن مرشود الذي دلني عليه.
August 25, 2013
The overall message of this book is that the origin of life is completely baffling, and there's nothing particularly compelling to suggest that it's happened more than once. But there sure are a lot of conjectures, hunches and possibilities, and Davies is prepared to explore the bulk of them.
June 22, 2014
If you have ever wondered how life came to be and if we are alone in the Universe or not, this book is for you! I was amazed by the huge amount of info, woven together masterfully to create an almost detective-story like plot. Paul Davies at his best!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews