About Life: Concepts in Modern Biology

by Paul S. Agutter, Denys N. Wheatley

Thanks to the popular media, and to books by Dawkins, Fortey, Gould, Margulis and other writers, people are informed about many aspects of biology. Everyone seems to know a little about evolution, for example, and about DNA and the possibilities (good and bad) afforded by research in molecular genetics. Most people know some of the arguments for and against the likelihood of life on other planets. And so on. We are glad that these pieces of information have become so widely available. However, we do not assume any particular knowledge (other than the most basic) in this book. Our aim is to address general questions rather than specific issues. We want to enable our readers to join their disparate pieces of knowledge about biology together. The most basic of these general questions – and perhaps the most difficult – can be expressed in beguilingly simple “What is life”? What does modern biology tell us about the essential differences between living organisms and the inanimate world? An attempt to answer this question takes us on a journey through almost the whole of contemporary cell and molecular biology, which occupies the first half of the book. The journey is worth the effort. The provisional answer we attain provides a coherent, unifying context in which we can discuss evolution, the origin of life, extraterrestrial life, the meaning of “intelligence”, the evolution of the human brain and the nature of mind.

Genres: Biology

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Air Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main aim for the authors explained in the introduction is to build a definition of what constitutes life as clearly as they can, and on this regard they definitely deliver, building up different features of the cell and how those elements can translate into a definition of livingness, adding examples, references and putting everything in a solid and pleasant way to read.

The late part of the book however, talking about other aspects such as human intelligence and the concept of the mind feels a bit lacking in comparison, since knowledge of this areas is not developed as well, but also because trying to suit their life model into the concept of the mind seems forced and with not enough evidence to make a convincing case. It's still interesting anyway, and did enough to awake my curiosity on the topic.