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Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things
A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life.
Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't.
For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded us. But in Every Life is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems.
But how life began isn't just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe.
In the tradition of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Every Life is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing.
Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't.
For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded us. But in Every Life is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems.
But how life began isn't just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe.
In the tradition of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Every Life is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2020
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940 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
December 2, 2020
You might be serious about science and might be asking yourself, should I actually read this book? That is a very difficult question to answer. From the first page to the last, I felt as if I was being punked or had somehow ended up in the twilight zone. It was impossible for me to believe that such a celebrated scientist would write a book that is half brilliance and half total garbage. I have read every scientific paper England has written. More than that, I have read so many articles about England's work. I guess if I ever came across a an article that mentioned his religion, I would have thought, 'It doesn't matter to me what religion he is." That was shortsighted of me because religion apparently informs his actual research. That is to say, England conducts brilliant research and then cherrypicks extremely (let me say that again-- extremely) loosely connected ideas in his research and tries desperately and wildly to apply those ideas to very (let me say that agin --very) general stories from the Hebrew Bible. For example, The Nile Turned to blood --> blood flows like water --> water can do work. I think we can all agree that water can do work. I think we can all agree that the waterwheel itself is a perfect representation of what goes on inside the mitchondria of the cell as it pumps protons to one side of the membrane and then sends them down a special channel that makes ATP out of ADP. It did work. It did the work that allows all of your cells to function. But, we didn't need the bible for any of that. The bible is irrelavant for teaching these scientific concepts.
Another crazy and farfetched example was that Moses had a sword in a bible story. England went on to explain that swords are sharp and can cut things just like enzymes can cut. The splicing of molecules inside the body is indeed interesting. The cleaving of one part of the molecule is often referred to, by just about every textbook, in terms of being cut by scissors or a knife/sword. If you don't know about cleaving, I recommend looking up the arachidonic acid pathway and how your brain signals to your body that you have a cut on your skin and the process by which your body cleaves molecules to try to help you with that injury. It's "miraculous" how the body goes about this and other processes. But we certainly do not need the bible to explain one tiny bit of any of it. Moreover, the bible -- the Hebrew and any other bible -- cannot even begin to explain these biochemical processes. But, an intermediate, 400 level, biochem course could. England tried to help the reader follow his thought process by emphasizing that the *way* in which the metal in the sword was forged was an even better focus. He was right about that, to be sure. This line of thinking had real promise. However, he went on to make the loosest possible connections and the bible, which was at the center of his explanation, was in no way necessary to explain the important concepts. In fact, using the bible to explain it merely detracted from what could have been a lesson about shape determining function and how forces, such as heat, can change the shape of a sword and how any form of matter subjected to pressure, heat, gravity, and so on could be changed from one form into another form, and how those forms can do work or give off heat, conserving overall original energy input. These are important things to understand if you are to understand the world you live in and the universe that surrounds you. Unfortunately, England's illogical, nonsensical, rantings won't help you learn any of this. Unfortunately, these rantings diminished the science he worked so hard to bring into this world. His ties to his religion ended up stopping him from actually drawing important conclusions about his own work. No matter, lots of other folks can take his work and run with it. But what a shame.
When England was not drawing wild fantasy driven conclusions, he actually inserted his solid scientific ideas of dissipative adaptation into many sections. However, they were no easier to understand than his scientific papers. Your best bet is to wade through those papers because they are not clogged with illogical ties to the bible.
I did wonder if England is possibly struggling with some type of over imagination. If that is the case, which I think might be the case for many innovative and brilliant thinkers, then I would actually suggest that he accomplished so much in spite of his challenges. Think about Einstein's imaginative ride on a light beam, Francis Crick's LSD driven vivid imaginings of aliens putting DNA into cells, or Isaac Newton's feverish obsession with turning urine into gold. Where is the line between genius and madness? If the concept someone is working on requires a very active and vivid imagination, as does England's dissipative adaptation, it is no wonder that kind of mind will sometimes overshoot. In reading this book, especially after reading his papers, I can clearly see his thought process. He, rightfully, sees these scientific processes happening in everyday life. When he reads the bible, he fills in the blanks while his mind's eye watches the water turn to blood, the sword of Moses being forged or livestock herded, blacksmithing iron into shapes, and the invention of music. He sees all of the playing out exactly how it plays out in living forms. I see those connections. But, he failed to draw any strong connections, even when they were there for the taking and used the vaguest possible examples from the bible, to do it. For example, herding was a great focus. When I started reading that section, I thought, finally, he will at least tie herding to the process of concentrating various substances to the outcome of work, as in the example in the mitochondria concentrating (herding) protons to one side of the membrane (a gate) that results in the work of making ATP. He failed to draw this or any real connection. His brain seems to work faster than his ability to explain. You as a reader will have to fill in the blanks if you want to follow England's line of thinking. Unfortunately, the blanks need to make huge leaps of logic, which is no problem for the most devout who are routinely able to ignore facts in favor of belief. Considering this, I think devout will enjoy this book but will come away with no real understanding of the science of dissipative adaptation. I would really, really, really like to quiz those readers about the most basic concepts from his theory. From the reviews I have read, I doubt they could explain it. So I am left wondering what the purpose of this book was, if not to relate, in understandable terms, his hugely important scientific work to an audience who does not typically understand science.
So should you read this book? If you do want to hear about dissipative adaptation, then yes. You can just skip the crazy parts and read the science. Unfortunately, it's not that different from reading his papers. He doesn't write for the non scientist but when it comes to writing about religion, he writes for those who are very devout but probably do not understand science well enough to understand just how absurd it is to try to tie this science to the ancient teachings of the Hebrew Bible.
Another crazy and farfetched example was that Moses had a sword in a bible story. England went on to explain that swords are sharp and can cut things just like enzymes can cut. The splicing of molecules inside the body is indeed interesting. The cleaving of one part of the molecule is often referred to, by just about every textbook, in terms of being cut by scissors or a knife/sword. If you don't know about cleaving, I recommend looking up the arachidonic acid pathway and how your brain signals to your body that you have a cut on your skin and the process by which your body cleaves molecules to try to help you with that injury. It's "miraculous" how the body goes about this and other processes. But we certainly do not need the bible to explain one tiny bit of any of it. Moreover, the bible -- the Hebrew and any other bible -- cannot even begin to explain these biochemical processes. But, an intermediate, 400 level, biochem course could. England tried to help the reader follow his thought process by emphasizing that the *way* in which the metal in the sword was forged was an even better focus. He was right about that, to be sure. This line of thinking had real promise. However, he went on to make the loosest possible connections and the bible, which was at the center of his explanation, was in no way necessary to explain the important concepts. In fact, using the bible to explain it merely detracted from what could have been a lesson about shape determining function and how forces, such as heat, can change the shape of a sword and how any form of matter subjected to pressure, heat, gravity, and so on could be changed from one form into another form, and how those forms can do work or give off heat, conserving overall original energy input. These are important things to understand if you are to understand the world you live in and the universe that surrounds you. Unfortunately, England's illogical, nonsensical, rantings won't help you learn any of this. Unfortunately, these rantings diminished the science he worked so hard to bring into this world. His ties to his religion ended up stopping him from actually drawing important conclusions about his own work. No matter, lots of other folks can take his work and run with it. But what a shame.
When England was not drawing wild fantasy driven conclusions, he actually inserted his solid scientific ideas of dissipative adaptation into many sections. However, they were no easier to understand than his scientific papers. Your best bet is to wade through those papers because they are not clogged with illogical ties to the bible.
I did wonder if England is possibly struggling with some type of over imagination. If that is the case, which I think might be the case for many innovative and brilliant thinkers, then I would actually suggest that he accomplished so much in spite of his challenges. Think about Einstein's imaginative ride on a light beam, Francis Crick's LSD driven vivid imaginings of aliens putting DNA into cells, or Isaac Newton's feverish obsession with turning urine into gold. Where is the line between genius and madness? If the concept someone is working on requires a very active and vivid imagination, as does England's dissipative adaptation, it is no wonder that kind of mind will sometimes overshoot. In reading this book, especially after reading his papers, I can clearly see his thought process. He, rightfully, sees these scientific processes happening in everyday life. When he reads the bible, he fills in the blanks while his mind's eye watches the water turn to blood, the sword of Moses being forged or livestock herded, blacksmithing iron into shapes, and the invention of music. He sees all of the playing out exactly how it plays out in living forms. I see those connections. But, he failed to draw any strong connections, even when they were there for the taking and used the vaguest possible examples from the bible, to do it. For example, herding was a great focus. When I started reading that section, I thought, finally, he will at least tie herding to the process of concentrating various substances to the outcome of work, as in the example in the mitochondria concentrating (herding) protons to one side of the membrane (a gate) that results in the work of making ATP. He failed to draw this or any real connection. His brain seems to work faster than his ability to explain. You as a reader will have to fill in the blanks if you want to follow England's line of thinking. Unfortunately, the blanks need to make huge leaps of logic, which is no problem for the most devout who are routinely able to ignore facts in favor of belief. Considering this, I think devout will enjoy this book but will come away with no real understanding of the science of dissipative adaptation. I would really, really, really like to quiz those readers about the most basic concepts from his theory. From the reviews I have read, I doubt they could explain it. So I am left wondering what the purpose of this book was, if not to relate, in understandable terms, his hugely important scientific work to an audience who does not typically understand science.
So should you read this book? If you do want to hear about dissipative adaptation, then yes. You can just skip the crazy parts and read the science. Unfortunately, it's not that different from reading his papers. He doesn't write for the non scientist but when it comes to writing about religion, he writes for those who are very devout but probably do not understand science well enough to understand just how absurd it is to try to tie this science to the ancient teachings of the Hebrew Bible.
November 22, 2020
Unfortunately a big disappointment. Previously, I watched a short online-lecture from Jeremy England about the topic of this book. It sparked my interest and motivated me to buy this book. However, after reading it, I do not have the impression that I understand more than before. The explanations were too simplistic and blurry, and overall the read was very dry. Furthermore, England feels the need of stating how certain parts of the bible can be interpreted such that they align with his theory, which in my point of view is completely irrelevant, and doesn't help to understand the matter at hand at all.
September 12, 2025
Jeremy England has written a book that does not explain how thermodynamics explains the origins of living things to my satisfaction and uses passages from the Hebrew Bible that have nothing to do with science. If he had empirical evidence of a synthetic lifeform created with thermodynamic principles that he would have proven his case. The man is an associate professor of Physics at MIT but is not a celluar biologist who has studied organic life. The author is well versed in thermodynamics as I could see in the text but inorganic and the organic are two different things.
May 26, 2020
Remember the title of the book as you read it as it provides a strong clue to England's theory. Make no mistake about it. This is a book about physics, but written so that non-psychics majors whose only exposure might be something said on Star Trek fifty years ago can wade through it. Part science, part philosophy, part Bible study, Every Life is on Fire 🔥 begins with the scientific question of what separates living matter from inanimate matter. What properties make a rock inanimate but make a coral reef or a tiger or plankton living beings? England uses simple examples such as a ball rolling downhill to explain his concepts, the root of which is that living matter processes energy in one direction and dissipates it. Thus, a rock can't control its internal temperature, but an animal can pant or sweat or move to a different area to dissipate the heat energy. This is a book meant to be read slowly and more than once. Non-scientists like myself, decades removed from science class, may struggle with some parts of the book, but the intent is clearly to make this accessible to all. Science didn't end with Sir Newton and Al Einstein, but is alive and well and some really interesting ideas are being explored.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
October 8, 2020
The ouvre is basically two books melted into one. The first one is interesting, describing some physics, mainly thermodynamics, and how we can think about life in those terms. It guide us through the ideas of Boltzmann and others, while describing quite nicely energy landscapes. The second part is just religious jiberish, with no real connection to science, life, or, to that matter, logic. I do not understand the relevance of it in a science communication book.
October 15, 2020
After following Prof England’s research, my expectations were a bit too lofty. Didn’t deliver. Short on substance. Found myself skimming chapters. The biblical connections were a distraction. It would better sit in the philosophy or religion section of the bookstore.
March 6, 2021
Uma viagem curta e interessante, narrada pelo famoso Jeremy England e a sua controversa teoria da Adaptação Dissipativa, que conjuga a macroscópica seleção natural de Darwin com recentes descobertas na área da Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics. O que define a vida, quais as suas fronteiras e o que a distingue da matéria não viva? Neste livro a biologia e a termodinâmica andam de braço dado para tentar correlacionar aspetos inerentes à vida que a definem como uma propriedade emergente de algo muito mais básico.
April 3, 2021
TLDR
+ You can safely ignore the complaints regarding the religious connection. The author does try to illustrate some philosophical, rather than religious, points with the references, but that doesn't distract or detract from the key concepts.
+ If you have a good grasp of the abstract concept of configuration space or phase space, you will be able to follow the key concepts and will see the world in an entirely new way.
In more detail:
The author tries to make some philosophical points about key topics like the fuzzy boundary between living things and inanimate matter as well as morality and the meaning of life. He ties some examples to phrases from the Hebrew bible to illustrate that these questions been discussed in religious texts without having to rely on detailed scientific knowledge. It's an interesting perspective: I didn't find it very compelling but I didn't mind reading it. In any event, the author doesn't promote creationism, intelligent design, or any similar religious perspective. This book is, after all, a discussion of how life-like behavior can appear spontaneously in physical systems obeying physical laws.
The book is among those that will leave you seeing the world differently (my list of such books includes The Unfolding of Language and Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches, to name a couple). Fascinating topic, novel perspective, and compelling (and appropriately tentative) speculation about the meaning of the finding.
You need to be comfortable with the concept of configuration space or phase space in order to really grok the book. Basic knowledge of physics, chemistry, etc. wouldn't hurt, but you don't need a strong mathematical foundation to follow the discussion. Listening to the author's conversation with Sean Carrol on the Mindscape podcast will give you even more accessible background before reading the book.
+ You can safely ignore the complaints regarding the religious connection. The author does try to illustrate some philosophical, rather than religious, points with the references, but that doesn't distract or detract from the key concepts.
+ If you have a good grasp of the abstract concept of configuration space or phase space, you will be able to follow the key concepts and will see the world in an entirely new way.
In more detail:
The author tries to make some philosophical points about key topics like the fuzzy boundary between living things and inanimate matter as well as morality and the meaning of life. He ties some examples to phrases from the Hebrew bible to illustrate that these questions been discussed in religious texts without having to rely on detailed scientific knowledge. It's an interesting perspective: I didn't find it very compelling but I didn't mind reading it. In any event, the author doesn't promote creationism, intelligent design, or any similar religious perspective. This book is, after all, a discussion of how life-like behavior can appear spontaneously in physical systems obeying physical laws.
The book is among those that will leave you seeing the world differently (my list of such books includes The Unfolding of Language and Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches, to name a couple). Fascinating topic, novel perspective, and compelling (and appropriately tentative) speculation about the meaning of the finding.
You need to be comfortable with the concept of configuration space or phase space in order to really grok the book. Basic knowledge of physics, chemistry, etc. wouldn't hurt, but you don't need a strong mathematical foundation to follow the discussion. Listening to the author's conversation with Sean Carrol on the Mindscape podcast will give you even more accessible background before reading the book.
March 24, 2022
Whenever I choose a book from the library or the bookstore, the title is the first thing I check. "Every Life is on Fire" is no exception to that rule. Sometimes, I check out a book or buy it without checking the contents. I mean, the subtitle indicates that it's about thermodynamics, right?
I will be blunt here. Jeremy England discusses the formation of life from the framework of the Hebrew Bible. It isn't to say that he straight-up supports the whole Adam made from clay and breath of life idea, but he mentions the Hebrew Bible, and that is all I can think about while I read the book.
Even with the author mentioning the phenomenal successes of Statistical Thermodynamics and science in general, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where does he start talking about the Bible? England gingerly treads around the subject. I assume he is trying to maintain some glimmer of respectability as a scientist.
Jeremy England's central thesis is that biology is different from physics. The reductionist philosophy embraced by many scientists doesn't work well on biology. Living tissue is made from the same materials as everything else, but something about its organization allows it to live.
I couldn't enjoy or finish the book. It isn't terrible, so I don't think it deserves a one-star rating, but I can't rate it higher than a two-star rating. Moreover, the subtitle is disingenuous. I couldn't get to the point where it discusses thermodynamics.
Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
I will be blunt here. Jeremy England discusses the formation of life from the framework of the Hebrew Bible. It isn't to say that he straight-up supports the whole Adam made from clay and breath of life idea, but he mentions the Hebrew Bible, and that is all I can think about while I read the book.
Even with the author mentioning the phenomenal successes of Statistical Thermodynamics and science in general, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where does he start talking about the Bible? England gingerly treads around the subject. I assume he is trying to maintain some glimmer of respectability as a scientist.
Jeremy England's central thesis is that biology is different from physics. The reductionist philosophy embraced by many scientists doesn't work well on biology. Living tissue is made from the same materials as everything else, but something about its organization allows it to live.
I couldn't enjoy or finish the book. It isn't terrible, so I don't think it deserves a one-star rating, but I can't rate it higher than a two-star rating. Moreover, the subtitle is disingenuous. I couldn't get to the point where it discusses thermodynamics.
Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
November 12, 2020
This was simultaneously fascinating and a bit of a slog. The premise is fantastic. There are little moments of very well-crafted humor that really brighten the whole thing up. And I'm a big fan of entropy.
But for some reason, this just didn't... move.
Perhaps because the first 40-ish percent of it really is just a primer on thermodynamics, which, while fascinating, isn't the most face-paced topic, it felt like this entirely reasonably-sized volume seemed to drag on. But the prose was charming and conversational, or at least so much so as a huge hunk of facts can be, and I think that this might be a text that improves with time, or with a second read.
But for some reason, this just didn't... move.
Perhaps because the first 40-ish percent of it really is just a primer on thermodynamics, which, while fascinating, isn't the most face-paced topic, it felt like this entirely reasonably-sized volume seemed to drag on. But the prose was charming and conversational, or at least so much so as a huge hunk of facts can be, and I think that this might be a text that improves with time, or with a second read.
July 18, 2020
Had potential, but didn’t work for me
Although I stopped reading this book about a third of the way through, I still rated it three stars. The book wasn’t bad and was not irritating to read, but at no point in the book was I motivated to read on. There was no “what happens next?” moment for me. I also found the writing style stilted with little effort in engaging me and each page turn left me asking how much is left. On the plus side the book used clever analogies to explain physics phenomena. I am sure that many people who are interested in science will like this book, but it didn’t work for me.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
Although I stopped reading this book about a third of the way through, I still rated it three stars. The book wasn’t bad and was not irritating to read, but at no point in the book was I motivated to read on. There was no “what happens next?” moment for me. I also found the writing style stilted with little effort in engaging me and each page turn left me asking how much is left. On the plus side the book used clever analogies to explain physics phenomena. I am sure that many people who are interested in science will like this book, but it didn’t work for me.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
January 6, 2023
I must say this book had me fooled. I read it all the way up to the last chapter thinking it was advocating naturalistic evolution, only to (and surprisingly) find the creator God of the Jews/Christ had some role, albeit because of my misreading I can't say what the role was. I did find the physical/thermodynamics aspect interesting to think about.
November 26, 2021
Es un buen libro en que explica de forma muy básica la entropía y su papel en el origen de la vida. Propone un hipótesis interesante. Para mí, como estoy en las ciencias, quizás fue demasiado básico.
December 23, 2025
Are flames and tornadoes just your run-of-the-mill chunks of inanimate world, or do they know something more about what it’s like to be alive?
December 27, 2020
This is an intriguing book (I feel like a 4.5 out of 5 star rating would be more accurate, but I'll round up) that covers non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and what it can say about both the origins and current status of life. This is a "popular" as opposed to "technical" book, and so do not expect the mathematical equations to show up (though some do, at least in end notes). The book also sometimes chooses to use some of the Hebrew Bible's stories to help make its points in non-technical language. This choice (and the discussion of science and religion) certainly gives the book a unique perspective that I appreciate, but at the same time I personally didn't find the biblical accounts to be any more satisfying as explanations than the non-religious language [I would be deeply curious if the biblical accounts make the concepts more memorable, or if others find these accounts to resonate more]. I did not find the language distracting, though, so if you don't like that sort of thing, I think you can easily just ignore these portions of the book.
In any case, the book wants to argue that physics and biology speak different languages, but that these two languages can mutually reinforce each other and provide different levels of explanation that are consistent with each other. England seems to argue against reductionism [the behavior of many things can be determined from the behavior of individual things (I think it is crucial to include how individual things interact with each other)], but I think his version of reductionism is not in its strongest form [to be fair, what counts as interactions that are due to individuals and due to groups is not always simple]. It doesn't really matter, though, because I think almost everyone agrees that even if reductionism is entirely true, it would not be practical to answer many interesting questions about the physical world by listing quadrillions upon quadrillions of particle location and velocities, which is what England wants to say. England then explains how we can view life's beginnings with physics constraints. This includes helping answer "what is life?" and looking at systems that have life-like properties. The explanations help us to understand how life may have began, (self-organizing processes allowed by thermodynamics) and how even simple systems can produce surprisingly complex behavior.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, though I found that I had to actually go look at the math in some of the cited material to better understand what England was saying. It sometimes felt as if certain assumptions were not as well laid out in plain English than in the literature he cited, but this is always a problem with popularizations. One [maybe minor?] criticism I must make is that he cites a paper on computations using octopus-like tentacles [Nakajima, Information Processing via physical soft body] and says they use the system to solve non-linear differential equations. In fact, the paper says they solve non-linear dynamical equations (and indeed, they are non-linear equations, not non-linear differential equations). This may seem like a nitpick, but it actually very strongly weakens the position England takes on the experiment (which is not overall important to the book's message, but makes me wonder how closely he read this particular paper).
In any case, I found that the references England provides were useful for more information and that his explanations were almost always helpful in seeing a way towards physics helping us understand biological phenomena, including the beginnings of life. His forays into science and religion are going to be "your mileage may vary". England at least makes an interesting case for his views on both science/religion and how thermodynamics influenced the origins of life . There are certainly some nice written passages, too, such as:
"Far from a randomizing, disassembling influence, the environment to which an organism is adapted is integral to it; in this sense, every life is on fire, wreathed in that familiar flame which helped coax it into being."
In any case, the book wants to argue that physics and biology speak different languages, but that these two languages can mutually reinforce each other and provide different levels of explanation that are consistent with each other. England seems to argue against reductionism [the behavior of many things can be determined from the behavior of individual things (I think it is crucial to include how individual things interact with each other)], but I think his version of reductionism is not in its strongest form [to be fair, what counts as interactions that are due to individuals and due to groups is not always simple]. It doesn't really matter, though, because I think almost everyone agrees that even if reductionism is entirely true, it would not be practical to answer many interesting questions about the physical world by listing quadrillions upon quadrillions of particle location and velocities, which is what England wants to say. England then explains how we can view life's beginnings with physics constraints. This includes helping answer "what is life?" and looking at systems that have life-like properties. The explanations help us to understand how life may have began, (self-organizing processes allowed by thermodynamics) and how even simple systems can produce surprisingly complex behavior.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, though I found that I had to actually go look at the math in some of the cited material to better understand what England was saying. It sometimes felt as if certain assumptions were not as well laid out in plain English than in the literature he cited, but this is always a problem with popularizations. One [maybe minor?] criticism I must make is that he cites a paper on computations using octopus-like tentacles [Nakajima, Information Processing via physical soft body] and says they use the system to solve non-linear differential equations. In fact, the paper says they solve non-linear dynamical equations (and indeed, they are non-linear equations, not non-linear differential equations). This may seem like a nitpick, but it actually very strongly weakens the position England takes on the experiment (which is not overall important to the book's message, but makes me wonder how closely he read this particular paper).
In any case, I found that the references England provides were useful for more information and that his explanations were almost always helpful in seeing a way towards physics helping us understand biological phenomena, including the beginnings of life. His forays into science and religion are going to be "your mileage may vary". England at least makes an interesting case for his views on both science/religion and how thermodynamics influenced the origins of life . There are certainly some nice written passages, too, such as:
"Far from a randomizing, disassembling influence, the environment to which an organism is adapted is integral to it; in this sense, every life is on fire, wreathed in that familiar flame which helped coax it into being."
November 25, 2020
What I was hoping for from this volume is a thorough examination of what nonequilibrium thermodynamics with a focus on dissipative adaptation had to say about the origins of life. As the author himself puts it much later in the work, "an argument couched in physical terms for a mechanism of emergent lifelike behavior that does not found itself on self-replication and natural selection."
However, what we get here is a desperate and disparate attempt to frame the discussion of the very origins of life and this new approach, more physics less biology, in terms of irrelevant passages from the Hebrew bible. I of course accept that many scientists are religious and that they manage the cognitive dissonance of being at the frontiers of new disciplines while still cleaving to primitive texts from warlike herdsman because of the importance attached to them from their childhood. However, the connections Jeremy England attempts to make here are so absurdly manufactured and tenuously framed while at the same time being useless to expositing his ideas that I have a heard time understanding why anyone would have encouraged him to do this...
What I would recommend is doing some of your own research without this book as this is, an albeit brief, case-study in muddying the waters of an already opaque discipline. Long story short:
"We started by noting that biological and physical ways of talking constitute two different languages for addressing the same phenomena, and it is important to keep track of which of these languages one is speaking. This realization allowed us to identify a number of distinct physical properties that are strongly associated with being alive, and to see that it may help to study them separately in order gain insight into the physics involved. In order to define these properties more clearly, however, we had to consider the difference between microscopic and coarse-grained behaviors in collections of particles, and how the rarity and diversity of those behaviors are determined by the interactions of microscopic pieces, which can be assembled in myriad ways. The exploration of this space of possible ways that matter can be assembled then turned out to be a process best understood in terms of the flow of energy through the matter in question - specifically, how the structure of the matter influences how energy gets absorbed, deployed, and dissipated. Ultimately, it is this relationship - between how energy flows, on the one hand, and how the medium it flows through becomes transformed by it, on the other - that explains the emergence of structures that recapitulate a number of different behaviors that we associate with the distinctive qualities of a living organism."
However, what we get here is a desperate and disparate attempt to frame the discussion of the very origins of life and this new approach, more physics less biology, in terms of irrelevant passages from the Hebrew bible. I of course accept that many scientists are religious and that they manage the cognitive dissonance of being at the frontiers of new disciplines while still cleaving to primitive texts from warlike herdsman because of the importance attached to them from their childhood. However, the connections Jeremy England attempts to make here are so absurdly manufactured and tenuously framed while at the same time being useless to expositing his ideas that I have a heard time understanding why anyone would have encouraged him to do this...
What I would recommend is doing some of your own research without this book as this is, an albeit brief, case-study in muddying the waters of an already opaque discipline. Long story short:
"We started by noting that biological and physical ways of talking constitute two different languages for addressing the same phenomena, and it is important to keep track of which of these languages one is speaking. This realization allowed us to identify a number of distinct physical properties that are strongly associated with being alive, and to see that it may help to study them separately in order gain insight into the physics involved. In order to define these properties more clearly, however, we had to consider the difference between microscopic and coarse-grained behaviors in collections of particles, and how the rarity and diversity of those behaviors are determined by the interactions of microscopic pieces, which can be assembled in myriad ways. The exploration of this space of possible ways that matter can be assembled then turned out to be a process best understood in terms of the flow of energy through the matter in question - specifically, how the structure of the matter influences how energy gets absorbed, deployed, and dissipated. Ultimately, it is this relationship - between how energy flows, on the one hand, and how the medium it flows through becomes transformed by it, on the other - that explains the emergence of structures that recapitulate a number of different behaviors that we associate with the distinctive qualities of a living organism."
August 24, 2021
An odd book that attempts to describe aspects of non-equilibrium thermodynamics for the general reader, muse on the origins of life, and comment on supposedly illuminating analogies from the Bible (really). I wanted to like this – there do need to be more and better pop-science accounts of complex systems, statistical mechanics, and other vibrant areas of cutting-edge science that are under-represented in popular media. However, it has many flaws. The science writing isn’t great – while England manages to write well most of the time, the book lapses into jargon quite often. The figures especially seem to have had little thought given to them. In one sketched graph, for example, an axis is labeled by a W with a dot on it, which physicists will know is the rate at which W is changing, but which will be opaque to everyone else. The theological writing is worse – strange and simplistic bits tacked on to each chapter that comment on analogies between Biblical events and physical principles to argue that the Old Testament provides a useful framework for thinking about life. The arguments are so vague one could have taken any book as the foundation, not just the Bible – any set of myths would work, or even your favorite young adult fantasy series. The book probably deserves two stars, but I’ll generously give it three because it’s idiosyncratic and unique.
November 12, 2020
An spiritual sequel to Schrodinger's What is life?...no small task. I wish I knew ore physics but the little I know is enough to convince me that Jeremy England might be the most important scientist alive and I am surprised he is not more of a public intellectual. At its most basic, this book is a really good primer on energy, motion and thermodynamics. If some applications of his dissipation-driven adaptation theory prove to be correct, the implications could redefine cosmology, biochemistry, complexity theory, information theory and (possibly) physics and religion. In particular: Life -in its most expansive definition- would necessarily be a feature -and not a bug- of the universe. A Cosmological Constant. If so, I can't wait to find the answer to the Fermi Paradox. The fact that Jeremy is not only a brilliant biochemist and physicist but also a and Orthodox Jew, makes him the most fascinating and in my short-list of ideal dinner guests.
October 16, 2020
Please if you are truly open mind please ignore the comments of the fanatic atheist, they are like all fanatics: close the door to anything that is not like they want.
England is Jew, and give us a very short and simple introduction of how it is possible that some molecules could form something like living beings, in parallels he goes with exodus to explore the metaphors behind the science.
The point is in the complexity: you have so much information that all you need is only some simple principles like energy conservation to understand how is it possible to have live beings.
The book tries to show us the thermodynamics principles behind this, how is that every life is every time in fire, it is, all the time sparking and continually creating itself.
The biblical references are interesting, and I’m sure that at the end of this century new scientific eyes, more open and less biased by atheism prejudices and political dogmas could validate this kind of books.
England is Jew, and give us a very short and simple introduction of how it is possible that some molecules could form something like living beings, in parallels he goes with exodus to explore the metaphors behind the science.
The point is in the complexity: you have so much information that all you need is only some simple principles like energy conservation to understand how is it possible to have live beings.
The book tries to show us the thermodynamics principles behind this, how is that every life is every time in fire, it is, all the time sparking and continually creating itself.
The biblical references are interesting, and I’m sure that at the end of this century new scientific eyes, more open and less biased by atheism prejudices and political dogmas could validate this kind of books.
May 6, 2021
In his legendary paper Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy, Professor Haym Soloveitchik observed that the topic of sefirat ha'omer is a subject that had rarely if ever, rated more than a hundred lines in the traditional literature.
In Every Life Is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things (Basic Books), author Dr. Jeremy England, a theoretical physicist, has perhaps but a hundred lines (ok, maybe a bit more) on religion. However, with his nuanced and subtle and incredibly brilliant style, England has written one of the finest and most splendid books on the topic of religion and science.
In Melachim 1 19:12, it states that God is not in a powerful earthquake or fire but instead in a gentle whisper. In the book, England does not try to overpower the reader with massive numbers or complex statistics but uses that gentle whisper to make his point. Yet, with all the whispering in the book, England proposes some fascinating and provocative ideas. With his idea of dissipative adaptation, he believes that he has found the fundamental physics that explains life's origin and how life has evolved.
So what is this thing that England calls dissipative adaptation? In his review of the book, Chad Orzel writes that dissipative adaptation is the idea that a complicated system that can be reconfigured by random motion will tend to end up in one of two kinds of states. Either it is tuned to absorb and redirect the flow of incoming energy in ways that do something useful (building or repairing pieces of the system), or it ends up tuned to be unable to absorb the energy, and thus remains in a stable configuration long after you might have expected random fluctuations to break it up.
England uses dissipative adaptation to build a conceptual framework to use physical terms for a mechanism of emergent lifelike behavior that does not root itself on self-replication and natural selection. It is the integration of creationism and natural selection.
It's worth noting that the Chumash itself is particularly interested in the question of how and why matter might cross from being lifeless to alive, and this subject is at the center of one of its most central narrative moments. While the Chumash is not a science book, England uses the biblical lexicon to provide a rich organizing framework for the different ideas in the natural sciences that can be woven together into a complete account of the origins of living things.
In the book's eight chapters, England takes a Biblical verse and expounds on it from a dissipative adaptation perspective. The book opens with the obvious verse of In the beginning. England then expands on a wide variety of verses and their scientific implications. From the snake of Moshe, blood in the Nile, the burning bush, and more.
As to the burning bush, England see in the text an emphasis on the destructive potential of the very energy flow by which life is sustained. England applies dissipative adaptation to this story to show that fire is far from a randomizing, disassembling influence. The environment to which an organism is adapted is integral to it. And in this sense, every life is on fire, like the burning bush - wreathed in that familiar flame which helped coax it into being.
Many people expect science to provide absolute certainty, which it often does. The brilliant scientist he is, England often goes to the perimeter of the mystic side of things, pondering if a rock can remember and if flames and tornadoes know something about what it means to be alive.
Rather than positing definitive answers, England notes that many scientific questions often do not yield definitive answers. Rather they remind us that life admits many imperfect translations into the language of physics, and in order to hone our skills as translators, we may want to spend some time pondering life's highly ambiguous boundary.
Many of England's writings to date have tried to demonstrate that the scientist and homo religious are often in concert, albeit with different languages and terminologies. They often have two different languages to address the same phenomena. The book, in part, is his attempt to bridge this divide, and create a common language.
This is a book about science and religion that is unlike anything I have ever read. In every chapter, England exudes extraordinary brilliance, and at times he seems to think the reader is as brilliant as he, as he throws in complex terms and ideas. This is not the easiest book to comprehend, and I found myself going to Wikipedia quite often.
The late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, not coincidently a significant influence on England, started to bridge the gap between science and religion in his remarkable book In The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning. In this brilliant tome, England has raised the bar so high in the field of the integration of science and religion, such as he is the only one there.
In Every Life Is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things (Basic Books), author Dr. Jeremy England, a theoretical physicist, has perhaps but a hundred lines (ok, maybe a bit more) on religion. However, with his nuanced and subtle and incredibly brilliant style, England has written one of the finest and most splendid books on the topic of religion and science.
In Melachim 1 19:12, it states that God is not in a powerful earthquake or fire but instead in a gentle whisper. In the book, England does not try to overpower the reader with massive numbers or complex statistics but uses that gentle whisper to make his point. Yet, with all the whispering in the book, England proposes some fascinating and provocative ideas. With his idea of dissipative adaptation, he believes that he has found the fundamental physics that explains life's origin and how life has evolved.
So what is this thing that England calls dissipative adaptation? In his review of the book, Chad Orzel writes that dissipative adaptation is the idea that a complicated system that can be reconfigured by random motion will tend to end up in one of two kinds of states. Either it is tuned to absorb and redirect the flow of incoming energy in ways that do something useful (building or repairing pieces of the system), or it ends up tuned to be unable to absorb the energy, and thus remains in a stable configuration long after you might have expected random fluctuations to break it up.
England uses dissipative adaptation to build a conceptual framework to use physical terms for a mechanism of emergent lifelike behavior that does not root itself on self-replication and natural selection. It is the integration of creationism and natural selection.
It's worth noting that the Chumash itself is particularly interested in the question of how and why matter might cross from being lifeless to alive, and this subject is at the center of one of its most central narrative moments. While the Chumash is not a science book, England uses the biblical lexicon to provide a rich organizing framework for the different ideas in the natural sciences that can be woven together into a complete account of the origins of living things.
In the book's eight chapters, England takes a Biblical verse and expounds on it from a dissipative adaptation perspective. The book opens with the obvious verse of In the beginning. England then expands on a wide variety of verses and their scientific implications. From the snake of Moshe, blood in the Nile, the burning bush, and more.
As to the burning bush, England see in the text an emphasis on the destructive potential of the very energy flow by which life is sustained. England applies dissipative adaptation to this story to show that fire is far from a randomizing, disassembling influence. The environment to which an organism is adapted is integral to it. And in this sense, every life is on fire, like the burning bush - wreathed in that familiar flame which helped coax it into being.
Many people expect science to provide absolute certainty, which it often does. The brilliant scientist he is, England often goes to the perimeter of the mystic side of things, pondering if a rock can remember and if flames and tornadoes know something about what it means to be alive.
Rather than positing definitive answers, England notes that many scientific questions often do not yield definitive answers. Rather they remind us that life admits many imperfect translations into the language of physics, and in order to hone our skills as translators, we may want to spend some time pondering life's highly ambiguous boundary.
Many of England's writings to date have tried to demonstrate that the scientist and homo religious are often in concert, albeit with different languages and terminologies. They often have two different languages to address the same phenomena. The book, in part, is his attempt to bridge this divide, and create a common language.
This is a book about science and religion that is unlike anything I have ever read. In every chapter, England exudes extraordinary brilliance, and at times he seems to think the reader is as brilliant as he, as he throws in complex terms and ideas. This is not the easiest book to comprehend, and I found myself going to Wikipedia quite often.
The late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, not coincidently a significant influence on England, started to bridge the gap between science and religion in his remarkable book In The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning. In this brilliant tome, England has raised the bar so high in the field of the integration of science and religion, such as he is the only one there.
June 26, 2025
I’m torn between taking the time to write a scathing review with details on the ridiculousness of what the author is trying to do here and not wasting my time by just saying this book deserves to be on its own shelf labeled “laughingstock.” How could any self-respecting contemporary intellectual take seriously this unholy marriage of thermodynamics and Biblical stories? It does nothing but devalue and trivialize each, science and religion, which if left to themselves serve important but separate purposes in human life.
It’s a shame the fascinating science of thermodynamics, entropy, and order-emergence has been sullied and distorted by such shenanigans. I suppose the one star is for his reasonably accurate presentation of nonequilibrium systems, complexity and emergence theory, and the like. But there are plenty of other books on these topics without the religious stories. Try these:
1. Eric Schneider/Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
2. Eric Chaisson, Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos
3. Ilya Prigogine/Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos by PRIGOGINE, Stengers Reissue edition
4. Lee Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos
5. Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications
6. Nick Lane, The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
7. Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour
8. Eric Smith/Harold Morowitz, The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth: The Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere
9. Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature
10. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
11. Steven Strogatz, Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order
12. Peter Hoffman, Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
If anything, one should behold in this book the extent to which human minds are capable of mushing just about anything together in seriousness. Breathtaking!
It’s a shame the fascinating science of thermodynamics, entropy, and order-emergence has been sullied and distorted by such shenanigans. I suppose the one star is for his reasonably accurate presentation of nonequilibrium systems, complexity and emergence theory, and the like. But there are plenty of other books on these topics without the religious stories. Try these:
1. Eric Schneider/Dorion Sagan, Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
2. Eric Chaisson, Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos
3. Ilya Prigogine/Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos by PRIGOGINE, Stengers Reissue edition
4. Lee Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos
5. Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications
6. Nick Lane, The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life
7. Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour
8. Eric Smith/Harold Morowitz, The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth: The Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere
9. Ilya Prigogine, The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature
10. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
11. Steven Strogatz, Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order
12. Peter Hoffman, Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
If anything, one should behold in this book the extent to which human minds are capable of mushing just about anything together in seriousness. Breathtaking!
April 10, 2025
Es difícil imaginar cuál ha sido la motivación tras este libro, a no ser que se trate de motivaciones múltiples e incompatibles. En primer lugar es un libro divulgativo de termodinámica de la biología. Los trabajos académicos del autor son fascinantes, pero en este libro no llegamos ni al felpudo de su obra. Todo se queda en una carretilla de ejemplos, bien traídos, y una imagen que articula su exposición de principio a fin: la bola con colinas y escaleras mecánicas. Me parece una imagen excelente, que sintetiza en un solo motivo visual el núcleo de sus ideas, pero no sé si da para sostener un libro entero.
Por otra parte, la religión. Todos los capítulos abren y cierran con algún elemento del [[Génesis - Antiguo Testamento - Torá]]. El autor argumenta que sirven como metáfora de lo que está explicando, o como recordatorio mnemotéctino, o como hilo conductor narrativo, como aliño entretenido, etc. Nada de esto tiene sentido. Sus excursiones exegético-alucinadas son un añadido que nada aporta a la explicación del tema científico del que, supuestamente, trata la obra: el origen termodinámico de la vida.
Parece que el libro es más bien fruto de un capricho: juntar en un mismo texto dos temas ortogonales que le fascinan por igual, el judaísmo y la termodinámica de la vida.
## La bola
Breve resumen de su analogía principal: una bola que rueda por gravedad en un paisaje de colinas, valles y circos con escaleras mecánicas en algunas laderas y fluctuaciones térmicas que dan empellones a la bola en dirección aleatoria. En una orografía sin escaleras, la bola tenderá a caer en los valles y circos, y solo en casos muy infrecuentes un empellón térmico la hará remontar una ladera y pasar al valle contiguo. Las escaleras mecánicas cambian esta situación, y permiten que la bola escape de algunos valles (los que tienen escaleras) y tienda a quedarse en otros (los que carecen de ella).
¿Qué representa todo esto? El paisaje es el espacio de configuraciones posibles de un conjunto de moléculas. La bola es la configuración concreta en que se encuentran, y su movimiento por las laderas representa el paso de una configuración a otra. Los valles son configuraciones de menor energía, en los que el conjunto de moléculas tendería a instalarse de manera estable si no existiesen las escaleras. Las escaleras representan un flujo de energía libre. Esta energía libre sera aprovechable por el sistema cuando se encuentre en una configuración que así se lo permita: esas son los puntos del paisaje por los que pasan las escaleras. Al absorber energía libre, la bola se monta en la escalera y es trasportada a otro punto del paisaje, que se corresponde con otra configuración. Si la nueva configuración no es capaz de absorber más energía libre, la bola se habrá apeado de la escalera y rodará al valle más cercano, donde cogerá otra escalera si se encuentra con ella.
Este es un argumento visual que explica la estabilidad (homeostasis) de las estructuras disipativas: una estructura puede parecer compleja, pero si un desvío de tal disposición la lleva a otra que absorbe energía libre y la devuelve al mismo sitio, tendremos que la estructura permanece en el tiempo (～[[Ilya Prigogine]]). Es de esperar, por tanto, que en flujos de energía libre aparezcan estructuras capaces de absorber gran cantidad de energía libre y disiparla rápidamente (montarse y bajarse de escaleras en una zona estrecha del paisaje, hacia la que llevan muchas otras escaleras, más lejanas). (Ver:: [[2023 - Drive-specific selection in multistable mechanical networks - Hridesh Kedia et al.]])
Queda sin explicar en el libro lo que es, quizá, su aportación más interesante: como se aplica todo esto al origen de sistemas replicativos ([[2013 - Statistical physics of self-replication - Jeremy L. England]], [[2016 - Statistical Physics of Adaptation - Nikolay Perunov, Robert A. Marsland, Jeremy L. England]]). Tan solo da algún apunte de pasada.
25 04 07
Por otra parte, la religión. Todos los capítulos abren y cierran con algún elemento del [[Génesis - Antiguo Testamento - Torá]]. El autor argumenta que sirven como metáfora de lo que está explicando, o como recordatorio mnemotéctino, o como hilo conductor narrativo, como aliño entretenido, etc. Nada de esto tiene sentido. Sus excursiones exegético-alucinadas son un añadido que nada aporta a la explicación del tema científico del que, supuestamente, trata la obra: el origen termodinámico de la vida.
Parece que el libro es más bien fruto de un capricho: juntar en un mismo texto dos temas ortogonales que le fascinan por igual, el judaísmo y la termodinámica de la vida.
## La bola
Breve resumen de su analogía principal: una bola que rueda por gravedad en un paisaje de colinas, valles y circos con escaleras mecánicas en algunas laderas y fluctuaciones térmicas que dan empellones a la bola en dirección aleatoria. En una orografía sin escaleras, la bola tenderá a caer en los valles y circos, y solo en casos muy infrecuentes un empellón térmico la hará remontar una ladera y pasar al valle contiguo. Las escaleras mecánicas cambian esta situación, y permiten que la bola escape de algunos valles (los que tienen escaleras) y tienda a quedarse en otros (los que carecen de ella).
¿Qué representa todo esto? El paisaje es el espacio de configuraciones posibles de un conjunto de moléculas. La bola es la configuración concreta en que se encuentran, y su movimiento por las laderas representa el paso de una configuración a otra. Los valles son configuraciones de menor energía, en los que el conjunto de moléculas tendería a instalarse de manera estable si no existiesen las escaleras. Las escaleras representan un flujo de energía libre. Esta energía libre sera aprovechable por el sistema cuando se encuentre en una configuración que así se lo permita: esas son los puntos del paisaje por los que pasan las escaleras. Al absorber energía libre, la bola se monta en la escalera y es trasportada a otro punto del paisaje, que se corresponde con otra configuración. Si la nueva configuración no es capaz de absorber más energía libre, la bola se habrá apeado de la escalera y rodará al valle más cercano, donde cogerá otra escalera si se encuentra con ella.
Este es un argumento visual que explica la estabilidad (homeostasis) de las estructuras disipativas: una estructura puede parecer compleja, pero si un desvío de tal disposición la lleva a otra que absorbe energía libre y la devuelve al mismo sitio, tendremos que la estructura permanece en el tiempo (～[[Ilya Prigogine]]). Es de esperar, por tanto, que en flujos de energía libre aparezcan estructuras capaces de absorber gran cantidad de energía libre y disiparla rápidamente (montarse y bajarse de escaleras en una zona estrecha del paisaje, hacia la que llevan muchas otras escaleras, más lejanas). (Ver:: [[2023 - Drive-specific selection in multistable mechanical networks - Hridesh Kedia et al.]])
Queda sin explicar en el libro lo que es, quizá, su aportación más interesante: como se aplica todo esto al origen de sistemas replicativos ([[2013 - Statistical physics of self-replication - Jeremy L. England]], [[2016 - Statistical Physics of Adaptation - Nikolay Perunov, Robert A. Marsland, Jeremy L. England]]). Tan solo da algún apunte de pasada.
25 04 07
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2024
I agree with other reviewers that the Biblical connections are tenuous at best, and their weakness is obvious; England is not a scriptural scholar, not even a talented amateur. There must be better ways to pair the Hebrew Bible with the physics presented here, but I doubt it would be that much more interesting. Fortunately his additions are easily ignored except for the final, unnecessary chapter. Shakespeare would provide more evocative and on-point quotes and connections to life, death, matter and being, as just one alternative. Now those would be interesting cross-disciplinary connections.
With that out of the way, the rest of the book is absolutely top quality. England is an excellent, crystal-clear writer. There's lots of poor ways to present thermodynamics; we've all read many that are correct but in no way evocative. I've read none that connect scales so easily and naturally as England does. He might have mentioned the first, second and third laws of thermodynamics by name; nevertheless, he used them constantly, so we now know what they mean from nano to macro scales whether we can name them or not. He doesn't get bogged down in past fashionable popular physics; he uses what he needs and leaves the rest alone. He sets the stage for his explanation of dissipative adaptation and though it does not get a rich treatment, it is all crystal clear. And in such a short book. I'd much rather he dropped the last chapter and really leaned into dissipative adaptation and perhaps expanded on the machine learning connections, at least to the point where he found they started to break down, which they will.
The models presented here are entirely consistent with evolutionary biology, and his presentation of a few of its ideas is largely correct. Macro-scale models similar to dissipative adaptation have been bouncing around evolutionary biology for quite a while, in a constellation of ideas around canalisation, phenotypic plasticity, evolvability, and the evolution of gene regulation. Dawkins's idea in The Selfish Gene of a gene's environment being its fellow genes -- e.g., the rowing crew example -- is very much along these lines.
So in spirit England's ideas are not novel in evolutionary biology, but for a contribution from a physicist, they are a hell of a lot more interesting than supercriticality or Kaufmann's self-organisation or standing fields or just about any other thing. These might actually be helpful.
With that out of the way, the rest of the book is absolutely top quality. England is an excellent, crystal-clear writer. There's lots of poor ways to present thermodynamics; we've all read many that are correct but in no way evocative. I've read none that connect scales so easily and naturally as England does. He might have mentioned the first, second and third laws of thermodynamics by name; nevertheless, he used them constantly, so we now know what they mean from nano to macro scales whether we can name them or not. He doesn't get bogged down in past fashionable popular physics; he uses what he needs and leaves the rest alone. He sets the stage for his explanation of dissipative adaptation and though it does not get a rich treatment, it is all crystal clear. And in such a short book. I'd much rather he dropped the last chapter and really leaned into dissipative adaptation and perhaps expanded on the machine learning connections, at least to the point where he found they started to break down, which they will.
The models presented here are entirely consistent with evolutionary biology, and his presentation of a few of its ideas is largely correct. Macro-scale models similar to dissipative adaptation have been bouncing around evolutionary biology for quite a while, in a constellation of ideas around canalisation, phenotypic plasticity, evolvability, and the evolution of gene regulation. Dawkins's idea in The Selfish Gene of a gene's environment being its fellow genes -- e.g., the rowing crew example -- is very much along these lines.
So in spirit England's ideas are not novel in evolutionary biology, but for a contribution from a physicist, they are a hell of a lot more interesting than supercriticality or Kaufmann's self-organisation or standing fields or just about any other thing. These might actually be helpful.
October 13, 2022
Jeremy England shares some useful science in his Every Life Is On Fire, science which targets the transition from pre-life to life during the early days of our planet.However, he tries his best to relate that science to the Bible, particularly stories surrounding Moses. His efforts feel contrived, even desperate. In fact, it reminded me of an embarrassing contrived and desperate episode in my life from eighth grade.
It was Catholic school. I was 14 and unlike most other teenagers. Music was not part of my life. I didn’t appreciate music. I had no favorite musicians or bands. I had no albums or 45s. I listened to nothing. Our homeroom teacher, Sister Anne George, had decided it would be awesome for each of us to get a turn at creating the morning prayer. She excited everyone - well, almost everyone - by saying we could include any music we liked as long as we could tie it to our prayer. It didn’t take others too long to decide what music they would use; it didn’t take me too long to realize I was screwed.
My day for morning prayer was “tomorrow,” and as of 9:00 PM the night before, about an hour from lights out, I had nothing. I went to the basement and did what I had to do - I stole a 45 from my sister’s collection. It was a song by some guy named “Rod Stewart.” The song was “Maggie May.” That’ll do. I listened to the song once or twice and cobbled together something vaguely akin to a prayer.
I can still see Sister Anne George’s eyebrows rising almost to the ceiling as the song played. After regathering those eyebrows, she thanked me, saying, “well that was interesting.”
Was there a tie-in between “Maggie May” and my prayer? I needed to think so. Is there a tie-in between England’s useful science and his Moses? He needs to think so, but my rising eyebrows say I’m not buying it.
It was Catholic school. I was 14 and unlike most other teenagers. Music was not part of my life. I didn’t appreciate music. I had no favorite musicians or bands. I had no albums or 45s. I listened to nothing. Our homeroom teacher, Sister Anne George, had decided it would be awesome for each of us to get a turn at creating the morning prayer. She excited everyone - well, almost everyone - by saying we could include any music we liked as long as we could tie it to our prayer. It didn’t take others too long to decide what music they would use; it didn’t take me too long to realize I was screwed.
My day for morning prayer was “tomorrow,” and as of 9:00 PM the night before, about an hour from lights out, I had nothing. I went to the basement and did what I had to do - I stole a 45 from my sister’s collection. It was a song by some guy named “Rod Stewart.” The song was “Maggie May.” That’ll do. I listened to the song once or twice and cobbled together something vaguely akin to a prayer.
I can still see Sister Anne George’s eyebrows rising almost to the ceiling as the song played. After regathering those eyebrows, she thanked me, saying, “well that was interesting.”
Was there a tie-in between “Maggie May” and my prayer? I needed to think so. Is there a tie-in between England’s useful science and his Moses? He needs to think so, but my rising eyebrows say I’m not buying it.
July 25, 2024
"trying to understand where life might have come from impels us to start a conversation whose scope is far broader than mere physics. In order for me to have a chance of finding my way around such a conversation, it is both a practical necessity and a matter of personal conviction for me to root the discussion firmly in the interpretation of biblical text, so that is what I have done here."
That is the opening of the final chapter. Bitch, this is the ENTIRE FUCKING REASON I have been reading your mess of a book.
But other then the horrendous biblical inclusions in this book, it is flawed in many other ways.
First of all, it does NOT answer the main question, not in the slightest. I know you can't give a definitive answer either way, but it doesn't even seem to try.
Secondly, it is (at least for me as a biologist, and I presume many other non physicists) hard to understand. This might be on me, so I'm not too condoning on this one.
But it's also just badly written.
The final flaw is that it gives some statements, without backing them up. Not does the author question himself and these presumptions at all.
This is a christian apologists attempt at giving non-existent connections from the bible to physics.
Alas to say, it has been a proper waste of my time.
That is the opening of the final chapter. Bitch, this is the ENTIRE FUCKING REASON I have been reading your mess of a book.
But other then the horrendous biblical inclusions in this book, it is flawed in many other ways.
First of all, it does NOT answer the main question, not in the slightest. I know you can't give a definitive answer either way, but it doesn't even seem to try.
Secondly, it is (at least for me as a biologist, and I presume many other non physicists) hard to understand. This might be on me, so I'm not too condoning on this one.
But it's also just badly written.
The final flaw is that it gives some statements, without backing them up. Not does the author question himself and these presumptions at all.
This is a christian apologists attempt at giving non-existent connections from the bible to physics.
Alas to say, it has been a proper waste of my time.
January 31, 2021
'In the present day, a cosmological theorist telling a popular audience about what kinds of particles were permitted to exist during different epochs spanning minuscule fractions of a second after the big bang frequently winds up sounding like a charismatic mystic addressing potential members of a newly founded cult.'
'The possibility that any strongly driven collective of different macromolecular building blocks might be spurred by dissipative adaptation effects to exhibit group-level behaviors that have solved global energy flow problems in ways that may amount to computing something nontrivial about the external environment. This conception of cell behavior makes room for a lot more spontaneous creativity and adaptive capability in the system's behavior.'
Do current markets compute something nontrivial about our external environment? If you want to build a true civilisation, it's important to design markets and incentives that allow for meaningful computations and for the peaceful and productive co-existence of rational and irrational forces. Current flash mobs are a farcical and nihilist attempt at this, though they hint at its unlocked potential to do good.
'The possibility that any strongly driven collective of different macromolecular building blocks might be spurred by dissipative adaptation effects to exhibit group-level behaviors that have solved global energy flow problems in ways that may amount to computing something nontrivial about the external environment. This conception of cell behavior makes room for a lot more spontaneous creativity and adaptive capability in the system's behavior.'
Do current markets compute something nontrivial about our external environment? If you want to build a true civilisation, it's important to design markets and incentives that allow for meaningful computations and for the peaceful and productive co-existence of rational and irrational forces. Current flash mobs are a farcical and nihilist attempt at this, though they hint at its unlocked potential to do good.
July 20, 2020
Prooftexting In A Science Book? This was a first- prooftexting, the technique of taking random Bible verses out of context to "prove" a point, in a science book. Here, Dr. England looks at the origins of life from a physicist's perspective... while using the life of Moses (he of the "Pharoah, Let My People Go" fame) as the overarcing narrative. One of the more prosaic, academic oriented science books I've read this year, Dr. England does a decent job of explaining high order thermodynamics - literally a form of rocket science - in an easy-ish way for most to understand. He simply does it in a way that is on the harder side of the actual reading experience from other science books I've read over the last year or two in particular. Truly fascinating stuff though, and very illuminating on the physics side of things, particularly as they relate to the future of "smart" polymers - which is not a subject Dr. England directly addresses here. Very much recommended.
October 29, 2020
I am not a scientist so I read Mr. England's books with a desire to understand better the contributions of physics, thermodynamics and biology to explaining the origins of life. While the author devotes the last chapter to some philosophical reflections, the books is most definitely not a theological text. Rather, the author has used portions of the Bible to spark our imaginations to think about what divides animate from inanimate matter. If, as some of the reviewers, you have no scope for imagination or choose to get hung up because of this modest framework for the author's discussion then you should blame yourself not the author.
The book is interesting and readable. It helps us to understand the prerequisites for life and especially the importance of energy to transform and preserve the structure of life systems. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's use of Biblical allusions to help me as a reader think about the science of life such as the staff of Moses which is nothing but a wooden stick until it is thrown to the grown and becomes a serpent.
For those who wish to be challenged a little bit, the last chapter's reflections on the role of faith in interpreting and applying the language of life, you will find it worth the time to read.
The book is interesting and readable. It helps us to understand the prerequisites for life and especially the importance of energy to transform and preserve the structure of life systems. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's use of Biblical allusions to help me as a reader think about the science of life such as the staff of Moses which is nothing but a wooden stick until it is thrown to the grown and becomes a serpent.
For those who wish to be challenged a little bit, the last chapter's reflections on the role of faith in interpreting and applying the language of life, you will find it worth the time to read.
January 2, 2025
Despite the compelling scientific ideas discussed, England's message deviates from the book's title with a prescriptive starting point driven by the Hebrew Bible. If this were called, "Every Life is on Fire: How the Bible Explains the Origins of Living Things" then I would give it a solid four stars. That's not to say I found fault in the parallels he drew, but rather, that I felt they were often overextended. This becomes apparent in the table of contents itself, where the chapter titles (e.g., "Staff and Snake", "Flame and Tree") never deviate from a pattern of referencing Biblical iconography.
I would still recommend reading the book because it presents a very accessible primer on thermodynamics and how it relates to life. The metaphors presented are also quite thoughtful. I would suggest reading What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger first, as it orients this topic in more general terms with more appropriately general questions to match.
I would still recommend reading the book because it presents a very accessible primer on thermodynamics and how it relates to life. The metaphors presented are also quite thoughtful. I would suggest reading What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger first, as it orients this topic in more general terms with more appropriately general questions to match.
Want to read
August 20, 2021A somewhat underwhelming study in thermodynamics.
I'd have never thought I'd read a book - by choice (!) - about that subject. Coming from an engineering background, I thought this might be a good diversion from the regular fiction fare I spend most of my reading hours with, and some of the initial reviews had me opt for this book.
Not the best choice. Has a spots of brilliance, but for the most part, (I hope) there are better books on the subject out there. While not bogged down by scientific details, nor demanding a physics major background, I felt the actual handling of the subject was less than intelligent, and at times too simplistic.
Written for the masses, unfortunately it falls way below the bar.
I'd have never thought I'd read a book - by choice (!) - about that subject. Coming from an engineering background, I thought this might be a good diversion from the regular fiction fare I spend most of my reading hours with, and some of the initial reviews had me opt for this book.
Not the best choice. Has a spots of brilliance, but for the most part, (I hope) there are better books on the subject out there. While not bogged down by scientific details, nor demanding a physics major background, I felt the actual handling of the subject was less than intelligent, and at times too simplistic.
Written for the masses, unfortunately it falls way below the bar.
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