A brief history of creation Science and the search for the origin of life

Bill Mesler

Book - 2016

An essential history of Western scientific studies into the origins of life examines historical discoveries in the contexts of philosophical debates, political change, and evolving understandings about the complexities of biology.

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Subjects
Published
New York : W.W. Norton & Company [2016]
Language
English
Main Author
Bill Mesler (author)
Other Authors
H. James Cleaves (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xvii, 312 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-286) and index.
ISBN
9780393083552
  • Preface
  • 1. By The Action of Your Sun
  • Ancientsask where life comes from
  • Anaximander explains the natural world
  • Aristotle writes of "spontaneous generation"
  • 2. Provando E Riprovando
  • Francesco Redi and the scientific method
  • Van Helmont's recipe for mice
  • "All life comes from an egg"
  • 3. The Eye of a Gnat
  • TheEnlightenment transforms science
  • Hooke pens Micrographia
  • Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers the microscopic world
  • 4. The Laboratory of the Atheists
  • Voltaire subscribes to intelligent design
  • Atheists seize upon the origin of life
  • Buffon observes "reproduction"
  • 5. A Vital Force
  • Andrew Crosse's "extraordinary experiment"
  • Vitalism and "imponderable fluids"
  • Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation captivates Britain
  • 6. Breathed by the Creator into a Few Forms or One
  • The Beagle sets sail for the Galápagos
  • The Origin of Species wins converts
  • Charles Darwin imagines a "warm little pond"
  • 7. Pleasant Though They be Deceitful Dreams
  • Pasteurdispels the notion of a "useless God"
  • Thomas Huxley grooms a new generation
  • The germ theory of disease versus spontaneous generation
  • 8. No Vestige of a Beginning
  • The Earth grows ever older
  • J. B. S. Haldane imagines a "half-living" thing
  • Alexander Oparin reimagines an ancient planet
  • 9. A Laboratory Earth
  • Stanley Miller creates the precursors for life
  • Scientists flock to exobiology
  • NASA enters the origin-of-life game
  • 10. The Nucleic Acid Monopoly
  • Apollo 11 looks for clues on the moon
  • Sidney Fox and his proteinoid microspheres
  • Crick and Watson discover "the secret of life"
  • 11. Life Everywhere
  • An enigmatic Martian rock
  • Panspermia revisited
  • Life in meteorites?
  • 12. One Primordial Form
  • The last universal common ancestor
  • The Woesian revolution
  • Scientists look to undersea vents
  • 13. A Cell is Born
  • The birth of the RNA world
  • Genetic engineering opens doors
  • A new genesis?
  • Epilogue
  • Appendix: Recipes for Life
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Acknowledgments
  • Illustration Credits
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

The topic of origins, whether the origin of the universe or the origin of life, has fascinated humans for many millennia, and perhaps since our species first appeared on the planet. Writing for a lay audience, Mesler (journalist) and Cleaves (Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) focus on the origin of life and the search for knowledge about that origin. It is an excellent history of that search, starting with ancient Egyptian creation mythology and Greek philosophical musings, discussing the experiments of Redi, Buffon, Pasteur, and Miller (among many others), and bringing readers to the present state of scientific knowledge about how life began. Scattered throughout are many side stories and anecdotes that may change the common perceptions about some of the famous experiments that are key to the narrative. There are only a few factual errors (e.g., on p. 202 the authors discuss experiments with a "pneumonia virus"; the pathogen in these experiments was actually a bacterium), but in general, the treatment of a vast array of experiments and investigators is accurate. This well-written book will be useful to students of the history of science, and engaging and entertaining to the general public. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --David Alan Rintoul, Kansas State University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* On the seventh floor of a Harvard research building, a microscope sits beneath a picture taped to the wall of a hypothetical primal cell. Through this microscope, biologists hope to glimpse confirmation of a theory answering the most fundamental scientific question: How did life begin? In taking their readers to this microscope, Mesler and Cleaves retrace a tortuous path. Beginning with Anaximander and Aristotle, who believed in spontaneous generation of plants and animals, readers see how pioneering researchers including Redi and Pasteur rendered such ancient views implausible, only to have their successors rehabilitate them in more sophisticated versions. Readers see how Darwin's own theory of life born in some warm little pond has given way to theories focusing on organic freight in meteorites, on electrical storms in a primal methane atmosphere, and on thermal vents near deep-sea volcanoes. But nothing has accelerated research on biogenesis more than breakthroughs in genetics, enabling scientists to tease from genomes of living creatures the characteristics of their earliest ancestors, to reverse-engineer new life forms, and to simulate the primordial evolution of bubble-encased RNA molecules. As researchers anxiously track the behavior of those RNA molecules, readers find themselves positioned to share in the intellectual excitement now surrounding a seventh-floor microscope!--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Journalist Mesler and chemist Cleaves explore how humans have contemplated life's origins over the millennia, and the authors offer a cogent explanation of the best current thinking on the topic in this broad intellectual history. Because they cover so much ground-moving from the Egyptians through the Greeks all the way to the present-they are forced to be somewhat superficial. Nonetheless, across the arc of their engaging story they raise some fascinating points. Throughout, they touch on the controversy between religion and science, such as the way that those in the mid-19th century who attempted to demonstrate that spontaneous generation occurred regularly were seen as anti-Christian materialists. Unsurprisingly, significant time is spent on the work of Charles Darwin, but he is unfairly criticized for not fully addressing the issue of the origin of life-unfair because that was not the question he was attempting to answer. Yet Mesler and Cleaves recognize that Darwin forever transformed the discussion, since after Darwin, "those who once wondered about the first of each species now wondered about a single first ancestor of all of them." The last chapters take readers on a tour of current research that will both educate and entertain. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

From Aristotle to Charles Darwin, and from Louis Pasteur to Francis Crick, numerous philosophers and scientists have struggled with the question of how life first arose. Coauthors Cleaves (visiting scholar, Inst. for Advanced Study, Princeton Univ.), an organic chemist, and Mesler, a journalist, trace the many speculations about the origin of life proposed over time: spontaneous generation, abiogenesis (life from nonlife), extraterrestrial spores, extremophiles (bacteria that inhabit extreme environments) and self-replicating RNA. In telling this story, the authors not only emphasize how our understanding of the origin of life has been a function of the tools and technology available-whether through the invention of the microscope in the 17th century or the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule in the 20th-but they also reveal how scientific objectivity can be influenced by prevailing religious, political, or professional pressures. The authors' inclusion of an abundance of biographical and historical detail enriches both the science and the scientists. VERDICT This lively, accessible book is recommended for science enthusiasts interested in origin of life issues and the history of science.-CLK © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Changing ideas of how life appeared on Earth, a mystery that remains unsolved. Mesler teams up with Cleavesvice president of the International Society for the Study of Life, a professor at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princetonto present a history of science designed for general readers. They fill their account with dozens of fascinating characters, some from the ancient world, some working today, some holding beliefs now seen as ridiculousthe spontaneous generation of frogs and mice, for instanceand some searching for the answer in modern research facilities. Among them are such familiar names as Aristotle, Leeuwenhoek, Pasteur, Crick, and Darwin, as well as many less well-known ones, such as Henry Bastian or Alexander Oparin. The authors not only present them as men of their times, but bring them to life with anecdotes about their eccentricities (noted British scientist J.B.S. Haldane is seen as a pyromaniac who hated to wear socks), their debates, their successes, and their failures. The authors include illustrations, photographs, line drawings, and even a Herblock cartoon, but more would have been welcome. Their narrative has a grand sweep and shows important figures with competing ideas amid evolving worldviews. As a demonstration of changing times and approaches to the mystery of how life began, an appendix includes some intriguing recipes: Johannes van Helmont's recipe for making mice, Bastian's four recipes for making microbes, Sidney Fox's recipe for proteinoid microspheres, and Craig Venter's recipe for creating a cell. A lively, highly readable jaunt through the world of science. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.