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Origins of Life
How did life on Earth originate? Did replication or metabolism come first in the history of life? In the second edition of the acclaimed Origins of Life, distinguished scientist and science writer Freeman Dyson examines these questions and discusses the two main theories that try to explain how naturally occurring chemicals could organize themselves into living creatures. The majority view is that life began with replicating molecules, the precursors of modern genes. The minority belief is that random populations of molecules evolved metabolic activities before exact replication existed and that natural selection drove the evolution of cells toward greater complexity for a long time without the benefit of genes. Dyson analyzes both of these theories with reference to recent important discoveries by geologists and chemists, aiming to stimulate new experiments that could help decide which theory is correct. This second edition covers the impact revolutionary discoveries such as the existence of ribozymes, enzymes made of RNA; the likelihood that many of the most ancient creatures are thermophilic, living in hot environments; and evidence of life in the most ancient of all terrestrial rocks in Greenland have had on our ideas about how life began. It is a clearly written, fascinating book that will appeal to anyone interested in the origins of life.
112 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1986
42 people are currently reading
625 people want to read
About the author
Freeman Dyson
69 books391 followersFreeman Dyson was a physicist and educator best known for his speculative work on extraterrestrial civilizations and for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He theorized several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, Dyson tree, Dyson series, and Dyson sphere.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
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April 5, 2022
Origins of life is a semi popular science book written by physicist Freeman Dyson to explain his model of origins of life along the tradition of Erwin Schrodinger's What is life. The 112 page book consists of four chapters, two of which, chapter 2 and 3, are somewhat technical in treatment. He begins chapter one with intellectual debts to some illustrious predecessors and highlights Schrodinger and Von Neumann as two starting points in terms of his thoughts about the origins of life. However, the central question he asks that Schrodinger didn't handle in full measure, is what came first. Metabolism or replication, protein or nucleic acid? Dyson answers this question by taking help from previous theories and experiments (chapter 3) and proposing a simple toy model (chapter 4). His answer is a double origin hypothesis where proteins are like the hardware that forms the metabolic apparatus of early cells and nucleic acids came later as software doing replication. So, his answer is that cells came first, then proteins and then genes, opposite to the way molecular biology is conventionally perceived. But the trend is beginning to change as his model built on Oparin's work is becoming fashionable again. "Membraneless oragnelles" or "biomolecular condensates" are the terms used by present day researchers instead of Dyson's molecular population. These are actively pursued areas of research currently and to the best of my knowledge, the problem of emergence of metabolism is still unsolved. The fourth chapter titled "Open Questions" is the most fascinating chapter to me and has partial overlap with my work. Along with experiments, he predicts computer simulation of a population of molecules may give some clues to the questions that lie ahead of us. Even if you find the maths in the 3rd chapter bit boring, the rest of it should be accessible to an interested reader without a technical background. His model predictions are summarised as a phase diagram in Figure 4. The diagram is not how biology worked in the earliest stage as a fact, but is a prediction of his model in terms of two parameters. Life is an ordered state and death is a disordered state here. One prediction of his model is a possible range where life is eternally ordered which he terms as "Garden of Eden". There is a transition region where we mortals live. Think of this book as fiction as any theoretical physicist's work should be viewed, unless shown to be true or false by experiments.
June 23, 2019
4.5/5
Sometimes biology content or genetics content may seem a bit dull to me, not because it is, I just can't get that kind of information with the same kind of excitement I read about physics! The book is really amazing, considering the fact that the author is kind of the religious type. It is remarkable how much we have achieved knowledge, since Darwin stated the so famous "natura non facit saltum". However, the book proposes a theory between metabolism and replication, in short words, RNA and DNA. The facts and the examples that he uses are amazing, and makes you wanna be afraid of viruses... this is definitely not a cosmology book, or anything related to it; you get to learn about equations concerning genetics and the experiments conducted on its name, ribosomes, chromosomes, eukaryotic cells and that kind of stuff. There are 4 to 5 chapters, going in order, but the mathematical one is chapter number 3, which is explained in detail, but may seem a bit difficult to comprehend (he's talking about mean-field approximations and correct assumptions concerning population growth for god sakes).
Interesting book, gives you something to really think about.
Sometimes biology content or genetics content may seem a bit dull to me, not because it is, I just can't get that kind of information with the same kind of excitement I read about physics! The book is really amazing, considering the fact that the author is kind of the religious type. It is remarkable how much we have achieved knowledge, since Darwin stated the so famous "natura non facit saltum". However, the book proposes a theory between metabolism and replication, in short words, RNA and DNA. The facts and the examples that he uses are amazing, and makes you wanna be afraid of viruses... this is definitely not a cosmology book, or anything related to it; you get to learn about equations concerning genetics and the experiments conducted on its name, ribosomes, chromosomes, eukaryotic cells and that kind of stuff. There are 4 to 5 chapters, going in order, but the mathematical one is chapter number 3, which is explained in detail, but may seem a bit difficult to comprehend (he's talking about mean-field approximations and correct assumptions concerning population growth for god sakes).
Interesting book, gives you something to really think about.
August 22, 2025
DID LIFE BEGIN TWICE? DYSON SUGGESTS “YES”
Freeman John Dyson (born 1923) is a British theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering. In 2000, Dyson was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He has written other books such as 'Infinite in All Directions,''Disturbing the Universe,' and 'The Scientist as Rebel.'
He wrote in the Preface to this 1985 book (2nd edition 1999), “The Tarner Lectures were established with the requirement that the lecturer speak ‘on the philosophy of the sciences and the relations or want of relations between the different departments of knowledge.’ I intended to ignore this requirement when I planned the lectures… I chose the origins of life as my theme because I judged the time to be ripe for a new experimental attack on the problem of origins. The main purpose of the lectures was to stimulate experiments.
"Nevertheless… the study of the origins of life touches many scientific disciplines and raises many philosophical questions. I therefore found myself… fortuitously following Mr. Tarner’s wishes. It was impossible to speak for four hours about the origins of life without encountering some ideas that connect widely separated branches of science and other ideas that stray over the border from science to philosophy.”
In the first chapter, he states, “When we begin to think about the origins of life we meet again the question [Erwin] Schrödinger did not ask, What do you mean by life? And we meet again [John] von Neumann’s answer, that life is not one thing but two, metabolism and replication, and that the two things are logically separable. There are accordingly two logical possibilities for life’s origins. Either life began only once, with the functions of replication and metabolism already present in rudimentary form and linked together from the beginning, or life began twice, with two separate kinds of creatures, one kind capable of metabolism without exact replication and the other kind capable of replication without metabolism. If life began twice, the first beginning must have been with molecules resembling nucleic acids.” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “The main theme of this book will be a careful examination of the second possibility, the possibility that life began twice. I call this possibility the double-origin hypothesis… I do not claim that the double-origin hypothesis is true, or that it is supported by any experimental evidence. Indeed my purpose is … to stimulate experimental chemists and biologists and paleontologists to find the evidence by which the hypothesis might be tested…
"I may state my philosophical bias as follows: The most striking fact we have learned about life as it now exists is the ubiquity of the dual structure, the division of every organism into hardware and software components… I consider dual structure to be prima facie evidence of dual origin. If we admit that the spontaneous emergence of protein structure and nucleic acid structure out of molecular chaos is unlikely, it is easier to imagine two unlikely events occurring separately over a long period than to imagine two unlikely events occurring simultaneously…. The main reason I am hopeful for progress in the understanding of the origin of life is that the subject is moving away from the realm of philosophical speculation and into the realm of experimental science.” (Pg. 10-11)
He suggests, “If one wishes to examine seriously … the hypothesis that life began and flourished without the benefit of exact replication, then it is appropriate to assume that genetic drift remained strong and natural selection remained relatively weak during the early exploratory phases of evolution… Darwinian selection is not logically dependent on exact replication… All that is necessary for natural selection to operate is that there be some inheritance of chemical constituents from an organism to its progeny. The inheritance need not be exact… Darwinian selection is unavoidable as soon as inheritance begins, no matter how sloppy the mechanism of inheritance may be.” (Pg. 20)
He summarizes, “I am putting forward in this book such evidence as I can collect to support the hypothesis that life had a double origin. The double-origin hypothesis implies that the first living creatures were able to metabolize but not to replicate and that they were built of molecules resembling proteins rather than nucleic acids.” (Pg. 29)
He points out, “At the time when [Stanley] Miller did his experiments… the prevailing opinion among the experts was that the atmosphere of the primitive earth was reducing… The experts believed that at the epoch of life’s origin the earth’s atmosphere was reducing and contained the hydrogen-rich species ammonia, methane, and molecular hydrogen that Miller used in his experiment. Miller’s experiment was supposed to be a true simulation of probiotic chemistry on the primitive earth. But now nobody believes this any more.” (Pg. 32-33)
He observes, “The Oparin picture was generally accepted by biologists for half a century. It was popular not because there was any evidence to support it but rather because it seemed to be the only alternative to biblical creationism. Then, during the last forty years, Manfred Eigen provided an alternative by turning the Oparin theory upside down… The Eigen theory reverses the order of events. It has genes first, enzymes second, and cells third. In the beginning, in the gospel according to Eigen, was the RNA world. This is now the most fashionable and generally accepted theory.” (Pg. 38) He adds, “I happen to prefer the Oparin theory, not because I think it is necessarily right but because it is unfashionable… The Oparin theory deserves a more careful analysis in the light of modern knowledge.” (Pg. 44-45)
He suggests, “I call the region ‘hot sulphide soup’ because this phrase has been used to describe the composition of deep hydrothermal vents where life might have originated… I call the region ‘Garden of Eden’ because this phrase has been used to describe an alternate theory of the origin of life. It is possible to imagine cells evolving by random accretion of molecular components so that they drift into the central transition region either from the hot sulphide soup or from the Garden of Eden. Once they reach the central region, they are capable of life and death, and the evolution of biological complexity can begin.” (Pg. 66-67)
In the final chapter, he asks, “All these questions are subsidiary to another question, Why is life so complicated?... The question… means, in this context, Given that a population of molecules is able to maintain itself in homeostatic equilibrium at a steady level of metabolism, how many different molecular species must the population contain?” (Pg. 73)
He concludes, “In the beginning, I am saying, was complexity. The essence of life from the beginning was homeostasis based on a complicated web of molecular structures… After the transfer of complication from hardware to software, life continued to be a complicated interlocking web in which the replicators were only one component…. In my version the history of life is … the voice of the replicators attempting to impose their selfish purposes upon the whole network and the voice of homeostasis tending to maximize diversity of structure and flexibility of function.” (Pg. 89)
Those interested in “origin of life” speculation and research will enjoy this short but thought-provoking book.
Freeman John Dyson (born 1923) is a British theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum field theory, solid-state physics, and nuclear engineering. In 2000, Dyson was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He has written other books such as 'Infinite in All Directions,''Disturbing the Universe,' and 'The Scientist as Rebel.'
He wrote in the Preface to this 1985 book (2nd edition 1999), “The Tarner Lectures were established with the requirement that the lecturer speak ‘on the philosophy of the sciences and the relations or want of relations between the different departments of knowledge.’ I intended to ignore this requirement when I planned the lectures… I chose the origins of life as my theme because I judged the time to be ripe for a new experimental attack on the problem of origins. The main purpose of the lectures was to stimulate experiments.
"Nevertheless… the study of the origins of life touches many scientific disciplines and raises many philosophical questions. I therefore found myself… fortuitously following Mr. Tarner’s wishes. It was impossible to speak for four hours about the origins of life without encountering some ideas that connect widely separated branches of science and other ideas that stray over the border from science to philosophy.”
In the first chapter, he states, “When we begin to think about the origins of life we meet again the question [Erwin] Schrödinger did not ask, What do you mean by life? And we meet again [John] von Neumann’s answer, that life is not one thing but two, metabolism and replication, and that the two things are logically separable. There are accordingly two logical possibilities for life’s origins. Either life began only once, with the functions of replication and metabolism already present in rudimentary form and linked together from the beginning, or life began twice, with two separate kinds of creatures, one kind capable of metabolism without exact replication and the other kind capable of replication without metabolism. If life began twice, the first beginning must have been with molecules resembling nucleic acids.” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “The main theme of this book will be a careful examination of the second possibility, the possibility that life began twice. I call this possibility the double-origin hypothesis… I do not claim that the double-origin hypothesis is true, or that it is supported by any experimental evidence. Indeed my purpose is … to stimulate experimental chemists and biologists and paleontologists to find the evidence by which the hypothesis might be tested…
"I may state my philosophical bias as follows: The most striking fact we have learned about life as it now exists is the ubiquity of the dual structure, the division of every organism into hardware and software components… I consider dual structure to be prima facie evidence of dual origin. If we admit that the spontaneous emergence of protein structure and nucleic acid structure out of molecular chaos is unlikely, it is easier to imagine two unlikely events occurring separately over a long period than to imagine two unlikely events occurring simultaneously…. The main reason I am hopeful for progress in the understanding of the origin of life is that the subject is moving away from the realm of philosophical speculation and into the realm of experimental science.” (Pg. 10-11)
He suggests, “If one wishes to examine seriously … the hypothesis that life began and flourished without the benefit of exact replication, then it is appropriate to assume that genetic drift remained strong and natural selection remained relatively weak during the early exploratory phases of evolution… Darwinian selection is not logically dependent on exact replication… All that is necessary for natural selection to operate is that there be some inheritance of chemical constituents from an organism to its progeny. The inheritance need not be exact… Darwinian selection is unavoidable as soon as inheritance begins, no matter how sloppy the mechanism of inheritance may be.” (Pg. 20)
He summarizes, “I am putting forward in this book such evidence as I can collect to support the hypothesis that life had a double origin. The double-origin hypothesis implies that the first living creatures were able to metabolize but not to replicate and that they were built of molecules resembling proteins rather than nucleic acids.” (Pg. 29)
He points out, “At the time when [Stanley] Miller did his experiments… the prevailing opinion among the experts was that the atmosphere of the primitive earth was reducing… The experts believed that at the epoch of life’s origin the earth’s atmosphere was reducing and contained the hydrogen-rich species ammonia, methane, and molecular hydrogen that Miller used in his experiment. Miller’s experiment was supposed to be a true simulation of probiotic chemistry on the primitive earth. But now nobody believes this any more.” (Pg. 32-33)
He observes, “The Oparin picture was generally accepted by biologists for half a century. It was popular not because there was any evidence to support it but rather because it seemed to be the only alternative to biblical creationism. Then, during the last forty years, Manfred Eigen provided an alternative by turning the Oparin theory upside down… The Eigen theory reverses the order of events. It has genes first, enzymes second, and cells third. In the beginning, in the gospel according to Eigen, was the RNA world. This is now the most fashionable and generally accepted theory.” (Pg. 38) He adds, “I happen to prefer the Oparin theory, not because I think it is necessarily right but because it is unfashionable… The Oparin theory deserves a more careful analysis in the light of modern knowledge.” (Pg. 44-45)
He suggests, “I call the region ‘hot sulphide soup’ because this phrase has been used to describe the composition of deep hydrothermal vents where life might have originated… I call the region ‘Garden of Eden’ because this phrase has been used to describe an alternate theory of the origin of life. It is possible to imagine cells evolving by random accretion of molecular components so that they drift into the central transition region either from the hot sulphide soup or from the Garden of Eden. Once they reach the central region, they are capable of life and death, and the evolution of biological complexity can begin.” (Pg. 66-67)
In the final chapter, he asks, “All these questions are subsidiary to another question, Why is life so complicated?... The question… means, in this context, Given that a population of molecules is able to maintain itself in homeostatic equilibrium at a steady level of metabolism, how many different molecular species must the population contain?” (Pg. 73)
He concludes, “In the beginning, I am saying, was complexity. The essence of life from the beginning was homeostasis based on a complicated web of molecular structures… After the transfer of complication from hardware to software, life continued to be a complicated interlocking web in which the replicators were only one component…. In my version the history of life is … the voice of the replicators attempting to impose their selfish purposes upon the whole network and the voice of homeostasis tending to maximize diversity of structure and flexibility of function.” (Pg. 89)
Those interested in “origin of life” speculation and research will enjoy this short but thought-provoking book.
November 21, 2020
This little booklet, already 20 years old, is of course outdated by so many modern insights into the origin of life, but still it kept my attention because of the author's originality. Dyson compares television commercials, internet spam, astrology and political propaganda to the junk DNA that resides in any genome. It fulfills a function because in Dyson's model the essence of life includes looseness of structure and tolerance of errors. What a timely view of modern society with its selfish memes of complot theories and fake news, promoted by mighty idiots!
August 16, 2014
Quite romantic double-origin hypothesis. In a hot hole at the bottom of the ocean life begins. First metabolism (protein) hosted the parasite called replication (amino acids). The relationship was so good that after few eons they became symbionts. Then natural selection started. Thrilling stuff… enjoyed Freeman’s toy model and the philosophical discussion at the end. Now the challenge is understand homeostasis, it is like Freeman pushing Schrodinger’s ideas to the next level.
August 6, 2017
Le ipotesi sull'origine della vita esposte in maniera accessibile - si', se hai conoscenze di biologia sopra il comune - "e brillante" - qui devo darne atto. Ho letto pagine e pagine scorrendo le lettere che formavano le parole, senza capire una beneamata mazza. Una esperienza quasi religiosa. Cito a casaccio " Piu' che una semplice critica al modello dell'iperciclo di Eigen, l'analisi di Ursula Niesert è una critica nei confronti di qualsiasi teoria sull'origine della vita che assuma una organizzazione cooperativa di vaste popolazioni molecolari senza offrire espliciti meccanismi di difesa nei confronti della possibilità di corto circuito delle vie metaboliche". E questa, volendo, si capisce pure...
July 20, 2024
I re-read, July 2024. Clarifying edits are indicated by asterisks in the original review, and the comment are found at the end of the review.
Dyson states that Schrodinger's "What is Life" (1944) assumes that life's essence is replication and that metabolism was secondary. In this book, Dyson speculates that metabolism came first and was followed by replication. Today, Dyson comments, life and replication are "practically synonymous" but, he asks, "can we imagine metabolic life without replication or replicative life without metabolism?" He believes we can.
Dyson says that for replication to occur, a host is needed and for a host to occur, metabolism is needed. Nucleic acid is the softwear and softwear itself is not capable of metabolism. In Dyson's "double origins hypothesis,"* softwear without hardware is a parasite. Drawing on Margulis, Dyson speculates that the first "metabolic apparatus" was directed by enzymes that had no genetic component. Subsequently, much later in the history of life, RNA emerged as a parasitic disease within the cell that eventually learned to tolerate and incorporate it and "parasitic RNA grew gradually into a harmonious unity, the modern genetic apparatus."
The book is largely technical and beyond my understanding. Practically, I am not sure about how significant this perspective might be as Dyson does not disagree with the "life as replication" theory, but only says that replication followed metabolism.
At the end of the book, Dyson affirms his agreement with Dawkins that humankind has "overthrown the tyranny of the genes" that has dominated life for 3 billion years as our behaviors "are now to a general extent culturally rather than genetically determined."** Well, if we replaced genetic tyranny with cultural determinism, are we free? If culture determines us, how or who determined culture? In the end, do the base cultural patterns reflect a deep inner need to (a) survive as vehicles and (b) to replicate our genes? If so, perhaps we've not left the "tyranny of our genes" after all. Dyson does not engage these questions.
*I missed this point on first reading. Whereas it's true, that Dyson's emphasis is on the life as metabolism side, he offers a double hypothesis regarding life's origins: there was metabolism without replication, and there was replication without metabolism. Both phenomena occurred in life's emergence from non-life and the bottom line for Dyson is, "Life began twice."
**My sense is that Dawkins and Dyson are plagued with the Platonic curse that mind is everything versus "animal" emotion, and therefore both are enamored with the mind's role in controlling human destiny. I think for both there's a conflation of the motive for action with the how and what of action. Humans, ultimately, are, as with all life, motivated by need and fear. They go out to get what they need, and they resist what they don't want or need. Whereas the objects of need and fear along with the behavior that is relevant toward the objects vis-a-vis need and fear varies in history and by culture, the underlying motive force is invariant (fixed). What objects are engaged, and how behavior relates to such objects, gives us only a partial, and superficial, understanding of why we engage the world as we do.
Dyson's preferred assumption reflects a personal philosophy about life's creativity - its capacity to change and adapt to new circumstances. In part, this bias is seen in his, and Dawkins', use of the word "tyranny" of the genes, as if the genetic (i.e., animal, not mind) impulses are bad. This characterization is further baked into Dyson's thought by his mischaracterization of Darwinian evolution as "competitive" versus cooperative, to the point that humans can correct their bad ways in favor of the good ways. Though Darwin bumped back and forth on the Spencerian survival of the fittest mantra, Darwin himself was emphatic about the capacity for cooperative behavior within the tribe. To be sure, tribalism has its negative aspects, but these are also counterbalanced by the positive aspects of cooperation. In fact, the capacity to cooperate was, in Darwin's view, the essential trait that was necessary to survive in a hostile environment: with the tribe, the individual survived; without the tribe, the individual died. Interestingly, Dyson saw Schrodinger's "What is Life" in the same way: Schrodinger's personal philosophy reflected his need to see human behavior's essence as free (will). On wonders whether that also biased his thinking in his long-standing debate with Einstein that quantum phenomena lies beyond Einstein's view that they, too, are governed by the law of cause and effect.
Dyson states that Schrodinger's "What is Life" (1944) assumes that life's essence is replication and that metabolism was secondary. In this book, Dyson speculates that metabolism came first and was followed by replication. Today, Dyson comments, life and replication are "practically synonymous" but, he asks, "can we imagine metabolic life without replication or replicative life without metabolism?" He believes we can.
Dyson says that for replication to occur, a host is needed and for a host to occur, metabolism is needed. Nucleic acid is the softwear and softwear itself is not capable of metabolism. In Dyson's "double origins hypothesis,"* softwear without hardware is a parasite. Drawing on Margulis, Dyson speculates that the first "metabolic apparatus" was directed by enzymes that had no genetic component. Subsequently, much later in the history of life, RNA emerged as a parasitic disease within the cell that eventually learned to tolerate and incorporate it and "parasitic RNA grew gradually into a harmonious unity, the modern genetic apparatus."
The book is largely technical and beyond my understanding. Practically, I am not sure about how significant this perspective might be as Dyson does not disagree with the "life as replication" theory, but only says that replication followed metabolism.
At the end of the book, Dyson affirms his agreement with Dawkins that humankind has "overthrown the tyranny of the genes" that has dominated life for 3 billion years as our behaviors "are now to a general extent culturally rather than genetically determined."** Well, if we replaced genetic tyranny with cultural determinism, are we free? If culture determines us, how or who determined culture? In the end, do the base cultural patterns reflect a deep inner need to (a) survive as vehicles and (b) to replicate our genes? If so, perhaps we've not left the "tyranny of our genes" after all. Dyson does not engage these questions.
*I missed this point on first reading. Whereas it's true, that Dyson's emphasis is on the life as metabolism side, he offers a double hypothesis regarding life's origins: there was metabolism without replication, and there was replication without metabolism. Both phenomena occurred in life's emergence from non-life and the bottom line for Dyson is, "Life began twice."
**My sense is that Dawkins and Dyson are plagued with the Platonic curse that mind is everything versus "animal" emotion, and therefore both are enamored with the mind's role in controlling human destiny. I think for both there's a conflation of the motive for action with the how and what of action. Humans, ultimately, are, as with all life, motivated by need and fear. They go out to get what they need, and they resist what they don't want or need. Whereas the objects of need and fear along with the behavior that is relevant toward the objects vis-a-vis need and fear varies in history and by culture, the underlying motive force is invariant (fixed). What objects are engaged, and how behavior relates to such objects, gives us only a partial, and superficial, understanding of why we engage the world as we do.
Dyson's preferred assumption reflects a personal philosophy about life's creativity - its capacity to change and adapt to new circumstances. In part, this bias is seen in his, and Dawkins', use of the word "tyranny" of the genes, as if the genetic (i.e., animal, not mind) impulses are bad. This characterization is further baked into Dyson's thought by his mischaracterization of Darwinian evolution as "competitive" versus cooperative, to the point that humans can correct their bad ways in favor of the good ways. Though Darwin bumped back and forth on the Spencerian survival of the fittest mantra, Darwin himself was emphatic about the capacity for cooperative behavior within the tribe. To be sure, tribalism has its negative aspects, but these are also counterbalanced by the positive aspects of cooperation. In fact, the capacity to cooperate was, in Darwin's view, the essential trait that was necessary to survive in a hostile environment: with the tribe, the individual survived; without the tribe, the individual died. Interestingly, Dyson saw Schrodinger's "What is Life" in the same way: Schrodinger's personal philosophy reflected his need to see human behavior's essence as free (will). On wonders whether that also biased his thinking in his long-standing debate with Einstein that quantum phenomena lies beyond Einstein's view that they, too, are governed by the law of cause and effect.
May 19, 2009
Amazon 2008-04-12
August 9, 2016
Highly recommended!
November 2, 2020
Amazing the two most important things of life: metabolism and replication.
March 2, 2019
The great theoretical physicist and famous essayist has looked at origins of life in this very short book.
[ I’m pretty sure this is a re-read, although I remember almost nothing about it. (As today’s Pickels reminds us, that’s true of most books most people read. So why bother reading at all? But then again, the same thing can be said of food. Anyway …) ]
It is based on lectures given in 1985 on work some time before then, so it would appear to be extremely dated. After all, what field has made more advances than molecular and cell biology? And in some ways it is – some more recent books, e.g., by Nick Lane, have much more detail and fuller stories. But then again, that’s what it’s always like to be a theoretician. You look at physical basics, energy, etc., and build a model. If a sphere is a good-enough model for a chicken, then model the chicken as a sphere. And then see what falls out with respect to matching existing data and making experimentally verifiable predictions.
The main question explored is the relationship between two fundamental attributes of life (as we know is): replication through information storage versus metabolism. Which came first. Dyson proposes a dual origin (of SW & HW, parasite and host). Dyson writes nicely about previous work, even if some of it is a bit biased towards the “great person” view of history. But the bulk of the text presents a simple model of metabolism, the plausibility of its origin, and proposed experiments that could give some answers.
[ I’m pretty sure this is a re-read, although I remember almost nothing about it. (As today’s Pickels reminds us, that’s true of most books most people read. So why bother reading at all? But then again, the same thing can be said of food. Anyway …) ]
It is based on lectures given in 1985 on work some time before then, so it would appear to be extremely dated. After all, what field has made more advances than molecular and cell biology? And in some ways it is – some more recent books, e.g., by Nick Lane, have much more detail and fuller stories. But then again, that’s what it’s always like to be a theoretician. You look at physical basics, energy, etc., and build a model. If a sphere is a good-enough model for a chicken, then model the chicken as a sphere. And then see what falls out with respect to matching existing data and making experimentally verifiable predictions.
The main question explored is the relationship between two fundamental attributes of life (as we know is): replication through information storage versus metabolism. Which came first. Dyson proposes a dual origin (of SW & HW, parasite and host). Dyson writes nicely about previous work, even if some of it is a bit biased towards the “great person” view of history. But the bulk of the text presents a simple model of metabolism, the plausibility of its origin, and proposed experiments that could give some answers.
October 13, 2025
Three big questions we all innately ask - where did we come from; who are we and what is the purpose? Dyson’s book is the best synthesis for the first one - how life originated - of all I’ve read. He offers a theory “dual origin - metabolic and replicative”, presents other competiting theories and even frames a quite elegant mathematical model all under 100 pages of crisp and lucid writing. Two pieces of Chemistry had sex and created Biology.
June 24, 2020
Six stars
March 25, 2013
To be fair, I speed-read this while waiting for -someone- to finish browsing the book store...but really fascinating stuff. I like the procedural way in which Dyson approaches origins of life. He combines the ideas of a number of scientists into a sort of hybrid theory of his own making.
Under 100 dense pages, and well worth an afternoon's read.
Under 100 dense pages, and well worth an afternoon's read.
October 31, 2007
biology and chemistry are hardly subjects in which i am educated and this book is still very readable and understandable, while maintaining scientific and intellectual academic integrity.
July 26, 2011
The noted physicist does a good job of outlining the issues and the direction of (then) current research.
September 13, 2011
I was dissapointed in this book, but I must give credit to Dyson for trying to get through such a difficult topic.
October 2, 2011
I was dissapointed in this book, but I must give credit to Dyson for trying to get through such a difficult topic.
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