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Origin of Life: The 5th OPTION Paperback – July 6, 2006

by Bryant M. Shiller (Author)

11 ratings

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Here is more information about the book It's all here in The 5th OPTION - what Life is, what it is doing here, and how it got here! The answers will change forever your perception of reality!

Print length

542 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Trafford Publishing
Publication date

July 6, 2006
Dimensions

7.5 x 1.23 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

1412027799
ISBN-13

978-1412027793
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bryant Shiller earned an engineering degree from McGill University, Montreal; worked as a communications engineer prior to becoming an independent entrepreneur.

"The most important aspect of my university education was in learning how to think like an engineer and discovering that the engineering mindset can be applied to analyze virtually any set of problems - 'Origin of Life' included."

Always the perpetual student and multi-talented - his intellectually curious nature led him to consider alternatives to the generally ineffectual efforts at solving the Origin-of-Life mystery. He recognized that the "chemical soup" approach favoured by mainstream science was in trouble and became convinced that the solution to understanding the bio-life phenomenon required "out-of-the-box" thinking.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Trafford Publishing (July 6, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 542 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1412027799
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1412027793
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.04 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 1.23 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #6,133,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #33,113 in Biology (Books)
- #172,731 in Philosophy (Books)
- #1,116,186 in Religion & Spirituality (Books)

Customer Reviews:
11 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		52%
4 star		32%
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2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		16%

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Mr. Z

An Interesting Material

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2012

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I was recommended to read this material, which examines life and its origins from an engineering point-of-view and the author was proposing a "Rational Design Hypothesis" - a "5th Option" that explains the origin of life. It's such a fascinating read on the subject of how the Earth was "designed" in the first place as well as his excellent analysis of DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) - the what's and the how's of it all.

I gave it four out of five stars for this book due to its interesting ideas and theories on the subject, but I have found the author's speculative scenarios to be rather distressing and unsatisfying. Additionally, the text has become too hulking dense for me to read through as it took a few weeks for me to get through it but his interesting ideas were driving my curiosity and energy to read it all. Still, it's an interesting material.

4 people found this helpful

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Harrison Koehli

Good ideas, poor presentation

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2012

What is the fifth option? It's an alternative to abiogenesis, panspermia, directed panspermia, and creationism as an explanation for the origin of life: rational design. Shiller, an engineer, applies a systems approach to understanding biological systems, and the life system on earth as a whole. I'll get the flaws out of the way first: this book is way too long. It's not that I don't like long books in principle, but this one has too much repetition and with a good editor could really be cleaned up and streamlined. In that sense, it's kind of all over the place and difficult to read as a result. It's also a bit out of date when it comes to research into noncoding DNA and doesn't address some problems and assumptions about what exactly DNA does and is capable of doing. For example, Shiller discusses species attribute distribution curves, using things like height as an example, but doesn't discuss the missing heritability problem. 'Height genes' only account for something like 5% of the inheritance of height, so where does the heritability come from? Shiller writes as if there's a lot less mystery surrounding DNA than there is.

On the other hand, that last sentence is completely wrong, because in other areas, Shiller is very vocal about the mystery of DNA. This gets to the pros about the book. Despite its poor editing and structure, it contains some great and innovative ideas: junk DNA as semantic information database, species attribute curves and their response to biosphere attributes, an alternate view of natural selection, the amino acid diagrams and their implications, the idea of a genetic 'kill switch', the panentheist philosophy, among others. So if you can get through it, I think the gems are worth the junk in between. Overall, Origin of Life: The 5th Option (***1/2) is a somewhat readable book with some brain-explodingly good ideas.

7 people found this helpful

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Peter Norquest

Worth the effort

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2012

Written from a Systems Engineering perspective, this book takes an in-depth look at the design and function of life on Earth, and concludes that the origin of life could not be the result of random, unstructured events; on the contrary, in order to account for phenomena such as the prokaryote-eukaryote distinction and the robustness of amino acid coding in the face of ongoing mutations, Shiller makes the case that a form of intelligent design must be invoked to explain both the origin of the Life System itself as well as its design purpose: to adapt and survive in the face of a continuously changing environment without becoming extinct. Shiller leaves speculation about the identity of the designer largely to the reader, but predicts that one important key to uncovering the signature will be the study of introns. It's a long and complex read, but extremely satisfying by the end.

10 people found this helpful

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Gaby

R-evolutionary!

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2013

Although much has come out about the so called "junk" DNA ever since this book was published, I find it is still a compelling and insightful reading now as it was then. I never would have thought about life on Earth from an engineering point of view if it was not for this book. It was eye-opening and refreshing to be offered such a bird's view of how life is and what is our possible meaning on it. It was a page turner and a wonderful collection item for those in pursuit of the art of seeing beyond the tip of their noses. It is definitely worth it and I'm grateful to the author for putting so much effort and insight in it.

3 people found this helpful

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Philip E

The most likely option

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2012

To hell with priests (no offence Fr.Farragher or Fr. Cooney, if you're reading this!) and to black holes with materialist scientists who claim that life just sort of "happened when some stuff bumped into some other stuff and that consciousness just arose as an 'accidental by-product.'" I'm going with this author who gives another option and does a damn better job of backing up his hypothesis than either science or religion has. It may be that both science and religion are partly right but since they've refused to work with each other over the last couple of centuries, they've contributed very little to figuring out any answers to our deepest questions. Don't expect all the answers from this book but do expect a very reasonable argument that suggests that there has been a "bit of conscious engineering" involved in the creation of life, the universe and everything.

3 people found this helpful

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Dr Allan Lazare

An Origin of Life Hypothesis That Does Not Insult My Intelligence

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2005

This book is as close to a theory of everything I have ever read. For all its explanations of complex scientific issues, I found it a genuine pleasure to read. Shiller puts forth his scientifically testable Rational Design Hypothesis at a time when mainstream science relegates any design theory as unscientific. His reverse engineering analysis of biological life confirms convincingly the validation of classical Darwininan evolution(of species)while at the same time questioning the whole neo-Darwinian notion of chemical evolution upon which the chemical soup theory of life's origins hangs its collective hat. I found the reasoning both meticulous and convincing. I chose to skip some of the technical details obveously included for the benefit of professional biologists. A truly refreshing treatment of important issues.

9 people found this helpful

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Philip E

The most likely option

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2012

Verified Purchase

To hell with priests (no offence Fr.Farragher or Fr. Cooney, if you're reading this!) and to black holes with materialist scientists who claim that life just sort of "happened when some stuff bumped into some other stuff and that consciousness just arose as an 'accidental by-product.'" I'm going with this author who gives another option and does a damn better job of backing up his hypothesis than either science or religion has. It may be that both science and religion are partly right but since they've refused to work with each other over the last couple of centuries, they've contributed very little to figuring out any answers to our deepest questions. Don't expect all the answers from this book but do expect a very reasonable argument that suggests that there has been a "bit of conscious engineering" involved in the creation of life, the universe and everything.

3 people found this helpful

TOMMY

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

Very interesting

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Origin of Life: The 5th OPTION Paperback – July 6, 2006

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