Customer Reviews

The Spark Of Life: Darwin And The Primeval Soup

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

 

 

Where are all the reviews? Come on, people! This is a great book! It is the best popular book I've ever read on the biology of the origin of life. It starts out with a historical survey of the efforts to deal with this problem. When I first picked up the book, I thought this section was only in there to pad out the page count. But I was dead wrong. Not only is the writing style lively and entertaining (without being too cute), but the authors show how an understanding of the historical development of the effort helps to understand where the science of this problem is today. You know how they stay that God is in the details? Well, it is actually in the nitty-gritty details in this section of the book that makes this historical introduction valuable.

Anyone interested in the problem of the origin of life knows about Stanley Miller's experiments of sending electric sparks through a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water vapor and how they produced an incredibly complex mixture of organic compounds, including many of the amino acids of life. But never have I read such a detailed description of the experiments. I usually gloss over descriptions of Miller's experiments, mainly as it turns out because the descriptions are boring without knowledge of the details. But the authors of this book show how extremely interesting the details of these experiments actually were and why they were so important, even though it turned out that Miller's assumptions of the composition of the primitive atmosphere were wrong. This level of detail sets the tone for the entire book, which really delves into the details. Non-specialists are bound to come away with a deeper understanding of the problems involved in understanding the origin of life, even if they've read the popular books by Christian De Duve, Thomas Gold, and John Maynard Smith.

After presenting the historical background, the authors first take a bottom up, then a top down approach to the problem. The bottom up approach examines various likely scenarios that have been developed of how a basic chemical soup could have given rise to metabolism and heredity. The top down approach looks at life as it is today and tries to work the problem backwards. This is an especially interesting section of the book and points out the importance of symbiosis and the probable rampant exchange of hereditary material in the very early history of life. The "tree" of life it turns out is not a well-organized tree at the bottom, but a complex network where diverse, unrelated organisms freely exchanged hereditary material. I found it very interesting that this notion was in this book already, since it was only a few months ago that an article on this theory appeared in Scientific American. This book is VERY up to date.

Before reading this book, I was persuaded that Gold's theories of the origin of life were very likely true, that it really formed deep within the mantle. But after reading this book, I am no longer convinced. Read the book, and you will see for yourself that it is much more likely that it would take a planet subject to widely varying tides and extreme climactic changes to provide the opportunities for the evolution of life. Conditions in the mantle are the exact opposite of all these exciting happenings on the surface. Similar reasoning leads the authors to speculate that the probability of life evolving on the moons of those Jupiter-sized planets surrounding nearby stars that have been discovered in recent years might be very high, since the climactic swings and tidal forces caused by the large gas parent planets would be extreme. Yes, the book ends up in a wonderful final chapter speculating on the probability of life evolving on other planets. At first I had the same thoughts I first had about the beginning of the book, that this last chapter was just fluff. But soon I was utterly riveted by their argument. A fascinating, entertaining, and extremely enlightening book.

I read a lot of material on the origin of life. Having run across Jeffery Bada's writings in some books, as well as on his web page, in the peer-reviewed journal `Science', and in popular science journals such as `The Sciences', I regarded Bada as an honest scientist: one who presents an even-handed accounting of material and evidence. I have always found his fairness and willingness to express his skepticism to be quite refreshing, especially since the topic of the origin of life can have major philosophical and religious ramifications (many scientists present only the positive evidences, hide the conflicting evidences, and do their utmost to shove their materialistic philosophy down the reader's throats). Bada holds firmly to a purely-natural origin of life, but he does not allow his worldview to bias his work - he is true to scientific evidences foremost. I expected the same from him when I heard of his book. When I read "The Spark of Life", I was not disappointed. Bada - and apparently the lead author, Christopher Wills, as well - present the reader with an honest coverage of the details, along the lines of, "According to this theory, ..., but keep in mind that....". As another reviewer noted, the authors present the reader with both sides of the argument and allow the reader to come to his or her own conclusion: the authors do not insist on telling you what you must think. For their maintenance of integrity in what can be a rather volatile subject, I commend the authors and "award" them 5 stars.

But the praise does not end there. They provide an up-to-date, broad, introductory coverage of the OOL field. If you know nothing about it at all, you can sit down and read the book and understand almost every sentence, and when you have completed reading the book, you will be up to speed on almost all aspects. This is probably the best introductory book on the origin of life I have read to date. Again, worthy of 5 stars.

However, note that the book is at the introductory level. It is written in everyday language and does not delve into the confusing and overwhelming complexities of organic chemistry or molecular cell biology. Those who have already read "The Molecular Origins of Life: Assembling Pieces of the Puzzle" will not find anywhere near the level of detail in "The Spark of Life" as they did in "The Molecular Origins of Life": I would recommend this book to those readers only if they found the other book "over their heads", or too-narrowly focussed. But this does not detract from "The Spark of Life" at all. It was not aimed at the research scientist as the other book was.

Finally, I would like to briefly address an error the authors make. On page 109, they mistakenly mention cytosine instead of thymine. This would be a major blunder under normal circumstances, but it is absolutely trivial in the book. Why? Because the mistake is isolated: it affects only two sentences out of the entire book - no other sentence anywhere in the book is based on, or references, this oversight. While writing, an author's neurons apparently got crossed temporarily and wrote the wrong word: something the author obviously realized was wrong after the book went to press. This had to be an honest mistake - not a sign of ignorance. Again, it in no way detracts from the book's integrity.

I have noticed that some biologists have a kind of arrogance about chemistry. "I don't have to know the chemistry!" To a certain extent, it's true that in some branches of biology you can have a very productive career without ever really knowing the chemical details that underlie the biology you're working on. However, a poor grasp of chemistry can also lead you to fall on your face in an embarrassing way, and that's what happens at one point (at least!) in "Spark of Life."

Authors who get the chemistry right in writing about the origin of life can extend previous theories in interesting ways. Christian de Duve, the Nobel Prize winner who wrote "Vital Dust" does exactly that, presenting the idea that protein-based life preceded an RNA takeover. The current enthusiasm for an RNA world as the original form of life on Earth is mostly being promulgated by people who don't really understand how nucleotides behave. As I said before, this includes a lot of biologists. Robert Shapiro's books (he gets it right, too) explain clearly how totally unlikely it is to have rich concentrations of RNA nucleotides lying around in puddles waiting to combine into nascent RNA polymers. On the other hand, this is a very likely thing to happen in cells that are using ATP and other triphosphates for energy storage. There they are, it's easy to polymerize them.

Getting the chemistry right doesn't guarantee you'll get the theory right -- Michael Behe gets the chemistry right, as well. But getting the chemistry wrong can lead down the path of error. I think if Lynn Margulis really understood the difference between Diphytanyl ethers and fatty acid bilayers, she'd see that Archaea are wildly different from "regular" Eubacteria.

OK, so this is a review of "Spark of Life." What Wills and Bada did that made me lose all confidence in their knowledge of primordial soup is this. There are four "bases" used in RNA -- Uracil, =Cytosine=, Adenine, and Guanine. Any undergraduate taking Biochem or MolBio knows this. But Wills and Bada and their editors and readers apparently do not. Thus the statement on page 109:

"Another example is cytosine, an essential nucleobase of DNA. ... cytosine is unstable and decomposes quickly. It may not be a coincidence that RNA, which probably appeared before DNA, uses the more stable molecule uracil instead of cytosine."

Now, this isn't a typo, or a "word-o." There is nothing in the biochemistry of RNA that corresponds to the paragraph above. RNA uses both Uracil and Cytosine. Thymine is used in DNA rather than Uracil -- but the issue is not stability but information. Thymine has an extra methyl which allows it to be distinguished from the Uracil produced when Cytosine inevitably breaks down. So, I am supposed to learn about the primordial soup from people who can't remember what RNA is made of??

There are other irritations as well. The use of "Darwin" to personify selective processes is juvenile, precious, and off-putting. An example from page 112-3:

"organic molecules ... awaited the firm hand of Darwin, who would decide which of them would 'live' or 'die'."

I can't see who would enjoy this book. I read avidly about the origin of life but how can I believe Wills and Bada have any grip on this material given their chemical howler?? I am basically amazed at the positive reviews the book has received so far. I don't find it useful at all.

Religions have had the previous privilege of holding factual their own details of creation, but as humankind has witnessed throughout history, science has continually answered questions to nature's capricious riddles (lighting was always thought to be a sign from the gods until rationale and logic explained fundamental laws with no vengeful motives). Science has recently been given enough information to begin to treat the origins of life as what I ironically consider, the Holy Grail.

As an avid reader of books concerning the origins of life, a common thread for most of them is a biased account of the scientist's or writer's ideas. Although this is an acceptable format, it is a somewhat ingenuous approach considering the depth to the question asked. In Wills and Bada's 'The Spark of Life,' the journey into this question is taken from a strict factual account. Analogous to a court case, the majority of the book deals with the facts at hand. This is very good to know to any reader who wants to make up their own mind. The book also does an extremely good job in discussing the pieces of the puzzle that are missing. No scientist is going to deny the fact that there is a lot more that is unknown than known, but that is what makes this nascent field so interesting.

Wills and Bada present fascinating details of past and present ideas, the people involved and their scientific travels. Some ideas reconfirmed, some thrown out and others still awaiting future research. Some of the old ideas may sound ridiculous to today's reader such as martian canals, moon creatures, to name a few, but the book does a great job in trying to put the reader in the minds of a society where no remote satellites existed, few facts were at hand and imaginations ran wild. The book also spends a lot of time discussing the recent ideas and brings forth the problems and solutions they provide. As an aside, no "lunar bat-men" were ever found, but Wills and Bada ease your mind by relaying that a dedicated woman's group from Massachusetts were very eager to contact them so they could be converted to Christianity.

The book also delves into how today's scientific group is tackling the origins question. Some are involved with working from the bottom-up digging up what is known about the construction of DNA, RNA, proteins, etc. and the other group trying to work from the top-down, dissecting the genetic code in trying to find fundamental roots to the genetic tree. The interesting details of what is being uncovered is discussed and the book does a good job in trying not to make it unaccessible to the non-chemist but also provides excellent resources to anyone with some education in the field. Anyone who is interested in this field should begin with this book as the majority of others branch off from it.

As a side note, I was very fortunate to have schooled with Dr. Jeffrey Bada at the Scripp's Institution of Oceanography and had the opportunity to do summer research in his laboratory. My high praise for this book comes, not only from the content, but also from knowing one of the men behind the book. Dr. Bada truly loves his work and it is refreshing to know that the research is coming from dedicated scientists such as him.

This is a good popular book on the current hypotheses of how the first complex molecules may have combined to form the fundamental structures of early replicating systems. After a good brief historical survey that shows some of the problems previous encountered, the authors examine a variety of possible scenarios as to how a "primordial" chemical soup could have given rise to more complex structures, metabolism, and genetic information containing molecules. The authors, both of whom are well known and respected known scientists have a writing style that is easy to read and the level of the material should be reasonably accessible to even high school level readers. A couple of minor errors that anyone could make on the first edition were corrected in the later editions.

Wills and Bada's book provides a good balance between scientific detail and readability, compared to most books on the origin of life. The answers presented for some of the main questions regarding the origin of life, such as where life first arose, are presented with some bias towards the authors' opinions. However, the authors usually mention other solutions currently being entertained by the scientific community, and provide their reasons for preferring a particular solution. In this way, Wills and Bada's book is less speculative and, in my opinion, more scientifically credible than some other books on the same topic that are too focused on one particular scenario for the origin of life, without citing alternative solutions or justifying their reasons for preferring a particular solution. Having read a good number of books on the origin of life, I would rate this book as one of the best for providing a solid introduction to the scientific search for the origin of life, particularly for those readers that are comfortable with technical terms that are about the level encountered in freshman year college science courses.

The issue of life's origins has long been troubling to scientists and lay observers alike. When Charles Darwin wrote to Joseph Hooker that life likely formed in "some warm little pond" from elemental chemicals, he set in motion years of study by countless researchers. The question hinged on what was necessary to initiate "the spark of life". Wills and Bada recount much of the work done to explain that obscure beginning. For them, the pivotal event is the famous Miller-Urey experiment of the 1950s. First hailed as a, perhaps "the", major breakthrough, it was challenged and suffered from more updated information. The authors revive the original concept, enlarging it to restore its validity. The means they use to achieve this is two-pronged: an investigation of life from "the bottom up" matched by another from "the top down".

Wills and Bada clearly wish to update the reading public in what has transpired in "origins of life" research since Stanley Miller zapped his own "little pond" in a sealed flask. They acknowledge the objections later researchers posed about Earth's early environment. They also confront the scenarios offered by Graham Cairns Smith and Gunter Wachtershauser. The former suggested organic compounds might "learn" replication from clay crystals, while the latter suggested the energy transfer methods associated with iron pyrites would support metabolic paths prior to the formation of cells. Wachtershauser's mechanism, they admit, works admirably in the environment of sea-floor vents, which were almost certainly present on the early Earth. Yet, attractive as both suggestions are, the authors find updated versions of the original Miller-Urey more convincing.

The issue is, of course, Darwin's evolution by natural selection. How early in life's beginnings could "selection" begin its winnowing process? Building up molecules that will ultimately establish life-sustaining forms is unsatisfactory. In order to function, selection must have replication and variation in place. The replication means sustained patterns of one form, while variation suggests many types of forms allowing selection to take place in a stable environment. That, insist the authors, means something like a gene must have been established reasonably early in life. Since a gene's task is the production of proteins which accelerate the process, there must have been a feedback loop system in action. For some, this structure suggests an early form of RNA, leading to what they call "the RNA world". The authors contend that RNA, even in simple form, is still too complex and fragile a molecule to have survived Earth's harsh conditions. Instead, they propose what they deem a "Peptide Nucleic Acid" or "PNA". Not suffering RNA's delicate nature, PNA in various forms could find havens in tidal pools, tenaciously bound to rocks and forming oily films as protection against desiccating sunlight. Thus Darwin's "warm little pond" finds vindication 150 years later, buttressed by Miller and Urey's experiment and better understanding of biochemical processes.

All this may sound like intimidating reading. It's far from that. The authors have gone to some effort to keep the language in this work clear and explicit. They build their case carefully, leaving the reader in no doubt of their intention and the significance of their points. They provide reasonably expressed counters to other proposals, carefully explaining the reasons for their own objections to earlier hypotheses. Beyond these considerations, they also discuss the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life, particularly that on Mars and satellites of the giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. To enhance this discussion, a number of William Hartmann's paintings are included. They are lovely, but add little to the discussion. Other illustrative material is more cogent to the theme. One might also wish that the authors had found a synonym for "primeval soup". I lost count of the number of times it's used. The book is a worthwhile read, but isn't the final answer on the questions of life's origins. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This book starts out fine as to laying out the different scenarios for life's origins , but one has to read it cautiously because it is filled with the biases of the authors, occasionally lacking a balanced scientific perspective on the origins of life.