Status Updates From Is Earth Exceptional?: The ...

Livio’s section is far more enjoyable, rational and less biased than Szostak’s. Unfortunately, he seldom falls into the pit of the theoretical dead-end presented for the origin of life, wasting pages of good science.

““As we have noted several times, we have reasons to believe that small ponds on land are more likely places for life to have originated, but hydrothermal vent environments certainly can sustain life.” So, ponds are essential. On a moon without any pond how can we explain the emergence of life? I read “vent” here. Not to say that Enceladus does harbor life, but to me it seems that vents are important…

Started Livio’s section about the search for extraterrestrial life. I should say it’s better than the first part, about which I have so many misgivings…

Total surprise as the authors directly attack the conceptual framework presented by Martin and Russel. From the short tirade against the theory, I get the authors of this book have not fully understood what they are criticizing. They confound black smokers and alkaline vents and conclude by saying that Martin and Russel work diverts “attention and resources from more realistic scenarios.” Come on.

It is as I feared. Complex treatise that provides no plausible answers. I mean, it’s a great biochemistry discussion, but thermodynamics is left out, entirely. We can discuss lab experiments and chemical mechanisms, but if we leave the energy fluxes out of the discussion we end up having nothing at all.

Ok, so the RNA world. Interesting take by the authors but nothing new under the sun, so to speak. Rather, chapter 2 was strangely short for dealing with such a complex subject like the role of RNA in protein synthesis.

Skipped from page 74 to 141 - the first half of the book is minimum high school level chemistry, if not college level. I tried, I really did, but man if you don’t have an affinity for chemistry this is some incredibly difficult reading.

Perhaps the fastest I’ve ever observed where a book goes from promising and intriguing to waaaay too deep in the weeds and eye-glazingly dry.