Quantum Evolution: How Physics' Weirdest Theory Explains Life's Biggest Mystery (Norton Paperback) [Paperback]

Johnjoe McFadden (Author)

Book Description

Series: Norton Paperback | Publication Date: May 17, 2002

"Challenging but invariably eloquent and elegant answers to the most fundamental questions...: What is life? What is mind?"—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Johnjoe McFadden "enters new and provocative territory in his marriage of physics and biology" (Science News). His simple but staggering theory of quantum evolution shows how quantum mechanics gives living organisms the ability to initiate specific actions, including new mutations. As Paul Davies exclaims, "if these ideas are right, they will transform our understanding of the relationship between physics and biology" and may radically revise the notion of random evolution and the debate over consciousness and free will.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The hairiest heresy of evolutionary biology, the one most likely to get scientists figuratively burned at the stake, is the notion that any force more selective than blind chance could drive mutation. Such "directed evolution" smacks too much of a retreat into creationism for most science-minded readers to be comfortable with, but there's no a priori reason to reject the idea. Molecular biologist Johnjoe McFadden risks the Inquisition by suggesting just such a possibility in Quantum Evolution: The New Science of Life. Directed at a general but somewhat sophisticated readership, the book covers the basics of both standard evolutionary theory and quantum-level physics, then synthesizes them in an interesting theory of made-to-order mutation that explains enough to warrant attention and is, importantly, testable.

McFadden's writing is clear and sharp, and it shows a high regard for the reader's intelligence and patience for complex ideas. This is no airplane book--except for those already well-versed in the latest in both evolutionary theory and subatomic physics. The rewards of reading are great, and the author bows just enough to established theory that he might meet the fate of his intellectual predecessors. The ideas underlying Quantum Evolution may be right or wrong, but they challenge received wisdom without plunging into dogmatism--and that's good science. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

McFadden's attempt to pinpoint what makes life "alive" begins with a long, slow, multidisciplinary explanation of life's fundamental processes and ends with a fantastic quest through the strangest branch of science: quantum mechanics. Traversing all the great thinkers who laid the foundations of biology, genetics, physics, chemistry and mechanics, the first half is written for those with very little or no knowledge of science. The transitions between even widely disparate topics are flawless and build a coherent picture of the complexity of even the simplest organisms. Once quantum mechanics truly becomes the focus (approximately halfway through), McFadden's talent for description hits perfect pitch. Layers of understanding about the unfathomable peculiarities of fundamental particles lead to amazing possibilities. McFadden voices a new theory that is gaining popularity: that quantum mechanical forces may have sparked life in the primordial soup, may create the difference between alive and inanimate objects and may even play a role in consciousness. Illus. not seen by PW. (Feb.)Forecast: Operating at two levels, this title may be a hard sell. The scientifically literate will want to skip the first half, with its elaborate explanations of the basics, and those little-versed in science may be overwhelmed by the book's main argument. Enthusiastic readers may be found, however, among those once immersed in science but who have been away from it for a long time; they will be able to use the beginning as a refresher course and will then be prepared for the main thesis. But reaching them in particular will be a challenge for booksellers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (May 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393323102
• ISBN-13: 978-0393323108
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #328,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Biophysics

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66 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of an interesting but unpredictable genre, July 12, 2001

By 

Daryl Anderson (Trumansburg, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Quantum Evolution: The New Science of Life (Hardcover)

You've probably noticed that there is a growing flood of books that purport to explore the interface between the spooky scientific world of quantum physics and a range of other aspects of existence? You've probably also come to realize that these vary widely in emphasis (consciousness, healing, the paranormal... now evolution), and you've probably worried that they vary in quality as well - you're right.

Johnjoe McFadden's "Quantum Evolution" is, thus far, the best of the lot that I have discovered. It is engaging, extremely readable, consistently scientific and broadly important in its explorations.

If you are mostly interested in the healing or paranormal or so-called "new age" linkages to quantum phenomena, look elsewhere. The strength of this book is that it maintains a stance on the scientific side of the matter even as the science steps into the looking glass of quantum reality.

Many in the sciences don't seem to know what to do with the quantum world. The physicists seem to wobble in their ability to create rich models at any level above that of the quantum phenomena themselves - perhaps because theirs can be a sparse world... the vast emptiness beyond the quark. They are often only comfortable "wrapping" the ultimately incomprehensible realities of the quantum world in merely mathematical or semantic models.

McFadden, on the other hand, comes to this effort as a life scientist. As a molecular biologist he has moved from internationally recognized work on Tuberculosis to explorations at the bacterial level to studies of the molecular activities of the cell. Now, he has moved to the realization that the strange, spooky realm of quantum particle-waves, of wave-function collapse and multiple-world models is a logical next step. Singularly important life processes do not function merely at the molecular level of the chemists. Their core elements are actions and movements of individual particles, of single protons and electrons, and hence only understandable through quantum models - however strange the reality they demand.

This book is clearly intended for the thoughtful layperson. It succeeds admirably in its task of educating the reader in a broad base of realms of scientific knowledge. Chapters are divided into smaller 1-3 page "chunks" that isolate pieces of larger concepts in such a way as to allow you to skip or skim a section if you consider yourself comfortable with the science at hand. This approach will also help you build a really solid working knowledge of, for instance, the molecular biology of life, of cellular respiration, by digesting pieces at a time. If you take your time you can learn a lot and step into the strange quantum science with a much more confident grip on the scientific substrate of the argument.

By taking on evolution, which most scientists consider central to understanding life, McFadden manages to build a broader, but always scientific, exploration, that takes quantum realities as its launch point. Early in the book the author demonstrates his wonder at the role of life, itself, in the universe, and states his abiding respect for the role of natural selection and evolution in the development of life. He nevertheless candidly and even-handedly explores some of the more recent scientific critiques of the central Darwinian model - of so-called "punctuated evolution" for example.

Once he has established a strong, scientific tone for the discussion he opens the door to one typically less-scientific alternative to evolution by natural selection. This is the notion of directed adaptation. Species might not only change, over time, through the interaction of random mutation and changing environment - the Darwinian model. Instead, individual organisms might, somehow, adapt and change as individuals and pass on those changes to succeeding generations. This "Lamarckian" paradigm had been considered discredited by steady accumulation of scientific data. But the kinks in the data have also accumulated and range from the broadly geological (gaps and leaps in the fossil record) to the minutely molecular (multi-sequence molecular processes of life which cannot be decomposed into selectable smaller sequences).

Having educated you in a broad range of life science, guided you through the mirrored funhouse of quantum reality, and finally built scientific bridges to the bio-molecular from the quantum, here is where McFadden has led you: to answer the questions at the core of evolutionary theory, itself at the core of life. How he manages that final piece is fascinating, sometimes unsettling, and yours to discover. There is no way that quantum explanations of anything can be wholly grasped, no way to entirely resist the urge to simply reject them as meaningful underpinnings of reality. Nevertheless, I think McFadden accomplishes this latter synthesis extremely well, suggesting answers to a fascinating range of questions along the way.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Interface of the Quantum and Classical Worlds, June 16, 2005

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From the Oregon Country - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quantum Evolution: How Physics' Weirdest Theory Explains Life's Biggest Mystery (Norton Paperback) (Paperback)

This very well-written and entertaining account, by a microbiologist from Great Britain, deals with the phenomenon of evolution, and of consciousness, and postulates that they are both ultimately quantum phenomena. At the border areas, so to speak, of the world of hard classical reality, the "real" world experienced in everyday life, and that of the indeterminate multiverse of the quantum world, in the interchange of information between these two levels of reality, is to be found the driving force behind evolution, and of mind. But this is not a metaphysical treatise: the author is a hard-nosed scientist, and the theory did not originate with him. Other accredited members of the scientific community have arrived at similar conclusions concerning the role of the subatomic world in the macroscopic universe. This spell-binding work goes into great detail revealing how the manipulation of particles in the quantum world could, indeed, propel evolution forward, and could explain the mysteries of mind, consciousness, and free-will. Highly recommended!

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Macro meets micro: evolution and Schrodinger's cat, March 11, 2001

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Quantum Evolution: The New Science of Life (Hardcover)

Although I would not feel ready to fully accept the argument in this book, the appearance in the second half of the book of the issues of quantum mechanics was very astonishing indeed, raising issues whose time has come. One has the sudden feeling, "now maybe we are getting somewhere", as we examine new previously unknown pieces of the puzzle, those of the quantum realm having so far been left out of the running. Something is lacking in current thinking as mechanical processes are pressed into service where they inevitably fail to explain. Even the idea of 'self-organization',as the author points out, seems inadequate to the complexity of what is really happening. That leaves the unexplored and highly complex interaction of biochemistry with the realm of the atom as a possible source of new unexplained and unknown mechanisms. It was quite strange to be in the middle of a discussion of life genesis confronted by the perplexities of the Copenhagen interpretation and the maddening subtleties of Schrodinger's cat, now with the perspective of decoherence brought to bear on the issues of finding the 'quantum measurement' equivalent in the processes of life evolution. Although there is a way to go here, the new approach seems most promising indeed.There is also a discussion of this in relation to Cairns 'adaptive mutations', with its Lamarckian overtones. The books ends somewhat more speculatively applying all this to issues of consciousness. We are entering terra incognita. And it is useful, if nothing else, to relieve one thinking with this fresh perspectives of all the prior baloney and mantra chanting that is draped in front of the unsolved problems of evolution. Fascinating.