The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories [Hardcover]

Charles B. Thaxton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1984

A seminal work for the theory of intelligent design, this book provides a scientific critique of the prevailing paradigmatic theories of chemical evolution. The authors include Discovery fellows Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley, and they conclude that the prebiotic soup from which the first cell supposedly arose is a myth. The Miller-Urey experiments employed an unrealistic gas mixture, and there is no geological evidence for its existence in Earth's distant past. The "soup" faces a myriad of other problems, such as inevitable rapid destruction at the hands of radiation.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: Philosophical Library (April 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802224466
• ISBN-13: 978-0802224460
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,461,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Long on Details, December 9, 2005

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Jonathan (Chateaufort, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (Paperback)

For 15 years, this book has been the first that I recommend for colleagues and friends wishing to evaluate the validity of evolution. Its value is that it focuses in ample detail on just one single, critical step in evolution: getting from non-life to life. The book describes work by 4 researchers who attempted to find the mechanism that led to the evolution of the first proto-cell. The authors detail their attempts to find this mechanism that would work against the known processes which the first step in biological evolution would have had to surmount (such as entropy). Each researcher brought a different expertise to the work, so the book is able to bring a number of perspectives to bear on this one relatively narrow issue.

This is not a book for individuals with merely secondary-school maths, biology or chemistry knowledge. The further one has studied in those disciplines (university, post-graduate), the better able he will be to appreciate the research.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mystery of Life's Origin, May 18, 2010

By 

JACQUES LAFRANCE (Tulsa, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mystery of LIfe's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (Paperback)

I recently finished reading this book and was impressed. The authors were well-informed on the topic and cited more than 100 references. They dealt with the various scientific proposals on how life got started on Earth and very effectively pointed out their strengths and failures. They summarized the results of many scientific experiments and discussed how those experiments compare with what we know about the early Earth and how the experiment reflects the intelligent experimenter's interference. They dealt with the philosophical basis of scientific inquiry and showed how scientist are generally unwilling to face their basic assumptions, thereby failing to accept the implications of the limitation of all current research. At the end the authors confessed that they, too, had been under these assumptions until the evidence forced them to recognize the limitations of those assumptions and accept where the evidence is leading. I recommend this book for all those with scientific interest and especially those who believe that there is a natural explanation for everything. The book will give scientifically valid data and support for alternative views. It is very enlightening and very well researched and written.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Scientific Analysis of Important Data Related to Evolution, May 26, 2009

By 

T. Kennedy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mystery of LIfe's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (Paperback)

This book offers an excellent scientific analysis of important data related to the theory of evolution. I have a degree in Applied Physics from Georgia Tech but portions of this book were over my head. Having said that, a vast majority of the book was intellectually stimulating and raised some very real questions about evolution theory that are often ignored and left unanswered. College professors need to read this book in order to have a balanced view of the different theories regarding the origin of life. This book is NOT a theological book and does not promote religion. It is scientific to the core and extremely compelling. I highly recommend it to the scientific community and other interested persons.