Customer Reviews

ASTROBIOLOGY PB (Smithsonian's Natural World Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This may be only a small book but the text is accurate and the illustrations well chosen. Indeed, it's an ideal introduction to the subject for a young person interested in science or for a layperson wanting to know the basics of our quest to find life in the universe. I think the earlier reviewer was being unkind and a little mischievous in questioning the author's credentials. Monica Grady is actually head of petrology and meteoritics at the Natural History Museum in London and has carried out extensive research on the Martian meteorites and interstellar grains - topics of central importance to our understanding of what life might be like elsewhere. The truth is that astrobiology is a multidisciplinary science and its experts are drawn from fields as diverse as oceanography, planetary astronomy, origin of life research - and meteoritics.

Monica Grady is a world renowned expert and is probably best known for her edited volumes, Catalogue of Meteorites, which have generated rave reviews. Dr. Grady's text, Astrobiology, is a wonderful little book, which provides an excellent overview of the field and which contains numerous photos. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and is this book is well worth reading and would be of interest to anyone desiring a brief but thorough introductory overview of the field of astrobiology. -Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D. author of: Astrobiology, the Origin of Life, and the Death of Darwinism

This is one of eight books on Astrobiology which were rushed out after the publication of Joseph's revolutionary and ground breaking text, in May of 2000. Like the other seven competing volumes, this text differs from Joseph's, in that it strictly holds to the "party" line, as approved by the United States government, and repeats, without any critical analysis, mainstream scientific dogma. It you are interested in a very short book, with admittedly, amazing pictures, that provides a "safe" and "politically correct" and very brief overview of standard mainstream scientific dogma, then this is the book for you.

I'm sure had I read the book I'd think it was stellar.