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Origins of Life (CANTO) (Paperback)

by Freeman Dyson (Author) "In February 1943, at a bleak moment in the history of mankind, the physicist Erwin Schrodinger gave a course of lectures to a mixed audience..." (more)

4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 110 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (28 Sep 1999)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0521626684
ISBN-13: 978-0521626682
Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.7 x 0.5 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 445,372 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#68 in Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical > Biology > Cellular Biology > Cellular

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Review

‘This is first class update of the first editon.’ Peter Mata, Spaceflight

Product Description

How did life on earth originate? Did replication or metabolism come first in the history of life? In this book, 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. Dyson analyzes both of these theories with reference to recent important discoveries by geologists and chemists. His main aim is to stimulate new experiments that could help to decide which theory is correct. This second edition covers the enormous advances that have been made in biology and geology in the past decade and the impact they 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.

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First Sentence
In February 1943, at a bleak moment in the history of mankind, the physicist Erwin Schrodinger gave a course of lectures to a mixed audience at Trinity College, Dublin. Read the first page

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4.0 out of 5 stars The theory of the double origin of life elegantly presented, 10 Oct 2009

By	G. Imroth (Hertfordshire, England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review relates to the second edition of `Origins of Life' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999).

In 'Origins of Life', Freeman Dyson argues an old theory of the double origin of life, that cells preceded enzymes, which preceded genes in the early evolution of life. Metabolizing homeostatic cellular life evolved first. It had the ability to reproduce but not to replicate. Replication followed when nucleotides (which originally were parasitic on the metabolizing cellular material) were tamed and put to use by the cells.

Freeman Dyson here combines theories from Alexander Oparin and Lynn Margulis to formulate a philosophy of biological origins that emphasises the creative role of error and disorder, in which natural selection did not get going until replication evolved, so there was a theoretical period of pre-Darwinian evolution when copying-errors were greatly tolerated and random drift was dominant.

The argument is engaging and a useful corrective in one respect to those of us who favour the selfish gene interpretation of biological evolution: Dyson argues that life began in complexity (as a web of homeostatic molecules), not in simplicity (as in replicators). 'Life by its very nature is resistant to simplification, whether on the level of single cells or ecological systems or human societies'. Thus replicators never were in full control but are always prevented from over-asserting themselves by homeostatic forces that maximise 'diversity of structure and flexibility of function'. A cellular system is much like the old Hapsburg empire: 'despotism tempered by sloppiness' (these quotations from page 89).

Dyson sums up:

'I have been trying to imagine a framework for the origin of life, guided by a personal philosophy that considers the primal characteristics of life to be homeostasis rather than replication, diversity rather than uniformity, the flexibility of the genome rather than the tyranny of the gene, the error tolerance of the whole rather than the precision of the parts' (page 90).

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5.0 out of 5 stars Post Schrodinger, 13 April 2009

By	David Beard "architect" (england) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Freeman Dyson's book is heavily influenced by Schrodinger's influential text 'What is Life'. Schrodingers' little book - barely 80 pages long - considered life from the perspective of a physicist and speculated about the molecular basis of life. Dyson argues that Schrodinger placed excessive emphasis on genetic inheritance and focusses attention on the development of metabolism as the key to understanding the evolution of life.

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