A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life

by Bill Mesler, H. James Cleaves II

Overview

The epic story of the scientists through the ages who have sought answers to life’s biggest mystery: How did it begin?

In this essential and illuminating history of Western science, Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves II seek to answer the most crucial question in science: How did life begin? They trace the trials and triumphs of the iconoclastic scientists who have sought to solve the mystery, from Darwin’s theory of evolution to Crick and Watson’s unveiling of DNA. This fascinating exploration not only examines the origin-of-life question, but also interrogates the very nature of scientific discovery and objectivity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393353198
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/06/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	793,798
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Bill Mesler is the coauthor of A Brief History of Creation. He lives in Washington, DC.

H. James Cleaves II is vice president of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, a professor at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

1 By the Action of Your Sun 1

Ancients ask where life comes from

Anaximander explains the natural world

Aristotle writes of "spontaneous generation"

2 Provando E Riprovando 15

Francesco Redi and the scientific method

Van Helmont's recipe for mice

"All life comes from an egg"

3 The Eye of a Gnat 25

The Enlightenment transforms science

Hooke pens Micrographia

Anionic van Leeuwenhoek discovers the microscopic world

4 The Laboratory of the Atheists 45

Voltaire subscribes to intelligent design

Atheists seize upon the origin of life

Buffon observes "reproduction"

5 A Vital Force 73

Andrew Crosses "extraordinary experiment"

Vitalism and "imponderable fluids"

Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation captivates Britain

6 Breathed by the Creator into a Few Forms or One 92

The Beagle sets sail for the Galapagos

The Origin of Species wins converts

Charles Darwin imagines a "warm little pond"

7 Pleasant, Though they be Deceitful Dreams 117

Pasteur dispels the notion of a "useless God"

Thomas Huxley grooms a new generation

The germ theory of disease versus spontaneous generation

8 No Vestige of a Beginning 146

The Earth grows ever older

J. B. S. Haldane imagines a "half living" thing

Alexander Oparin reimagines an ancient planet

9 A Laboratory Earth 172

Stanley Miller creates the precursors for life

Scientists flock to exobiology

NASA enters the origin-of-life game

10 The Nucleic Acid Monopoly 186

Apollo 11 looks for clues on the moon

Sidney Fox and his proteinoid microspheres

Crick and Watson discover "the secret of life"

11 Life Everywhere 210

An enigmatic Martian rock

Panspermia revisited

Life in meteorites?

12 One Primordial Form 223

The last universal common ancestor

The Woesian revolution

Scientists look to undersea vents

13 A Cell Is Born 240

The birth of the RNA world

Genetic engineering opens doors

A new genesis?

Epilogue 253

Appendix: Recipes for Life 259

Notes 261

Bibliography 277

Acknowledgments 287

Illustration Credits 289

Index 291

Editorial Reviews

"A wonderful new history of debates about the origin of life."

NPR - Adam Frank

"A joyous and infinitely readable history of our ongoing quest to know how we came to be. Mesler and Cleaves elegantly narrate the evolution of philosophical and scientific inquiry, infusing the subject with all the dramatic intrigue it deserves and bringing historical figures to life as vividly as characters in a novel. A thrilling read."

Nina Siegal

"With fully accessible and engaging prose, artfully weaving history, philosophy, and science, Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves II tell what is perhaps the greatest of all scientific stories, the quest to understand the origin of life."

Marcelo Gleiser

"A well-written and lively account of the science and history behind one of the most fascinating questions in science—how animate matter emerged from inanimate matter—enriched by engaging portraits of the scientists involved and a feel for the very human scientific enterprise at work."

Alan Lightman

"Thoroughly engaging…An absorbing account…A Brief History of Creation reveals as much about the process of science as it does about the puzzle of the origin of life. That’s no mean achievement."

Wall Street Journal - John Farrell

10/12/2015
Journalist Mesler and chemist Cleaves explore how humans have contemplated life’s origins over the millennia, and the authors offer a cogent explanation of the best current thinking on the topic in this broad intellectual history. Because they cover so much ground—moving from the Egyptians through the Greeks all the way to the present—they are forced to be somewhat superficial. Nonetheless, across the arc of their engaging story they raise some fascinating points. Throughout, they touch on the controversy between religion and science, such as the way that those in the mid-19th century who attempted to demonstrate that spontaneous generation occurred regularly were seen as anti-Christian materialists. Unsurprisingly, significant time is spent on the work of Charles Darwin, but he is unfairly criticized for not fully addressing the issue of the origin of life—unfair because that was not the question he was attempting to answer. Yet Mesler and Cleaves recognize that Darwin forever transformed the discussion, since after Darwin, “those who once wondered about the first of each species now wondered about a single first ancestor of all of them.” The last chapters take readers on a tour of current research that will both educate and entertain. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"Readers find themselves positioned to share in the intellectual excitement."

Booklist, Starred review - Bryce Christentsen

"Thoroughly engaging.…An absorbing account."

Wall Street Journal

"Far more accurate and up-to-date than any previous work targeted to the general public. It may thus do yeoman’s service in general public science education, as well as making the public aware of the utility of the history of science."

Science - James Strick

"A fascinating, fast-paced tour through the ages of how some of the greatest minds and characters in history have pondered one of the greatest questions in science. . . . [A] rich, masterfully woven tale of our still-evolving ideas about life and how it came to be."

Sean B. Carroll

11/15/2015
From Aristotle to Charles Darwin, and from Louis Pasteur to Francis Crick, numerous philosophers and scientists have struggled with the question of how life first arose. Coauthors Cleaves (visiting scholar, Inst. for Advanced Study, Princeton Univ.), an organic chemist, and Mesler, a journalist, trace the many speculations about the origin of life proposed over time: spontaneous generation, abiogenesis (life from nonlife), extraterrestrial spores, extremophiles (bacteria that inhabit extreme environments) and self-replicating RNA. In telling this story, the authors not only emphasize how our understanding of the origin of life has been a function of the tools and technology available—whether through the invention of the microscope in the 17th century or the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule in the 20th—but they also reveal how scientific objectivity can be influenced by prevailing religious, political, or professional pressures. The authors' inclusion of an abundance of biographical and historical detail enriches both the science and the scientists. VERDICT This lively, accessible book is recommended for science enthusiasts interested in origin of life issues and the history of science.—CLK

Library Journal

2015-09-03
Changing ideas of how life appeared on Earth, a mystery that remains unsolved. Mesler teams up with Cleaves—vice president of the International Society for the Study of Life, a professor at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton—to present a history of science designed for general readers. They fill their account with dozens of fascinating characters, some from the ancient world, some working today, some holding beliefs now seen as ridiculous—the spontaneous generation of frogs and mice, for instance—and some searching for the answer in modern research facilities. Among them are such familiar names as Aristotle, Leeuwenhoek, Pasteur, Crick, and Darwin, as well as many less well-known ones, such as Henry Bastian or Alexander Oparin. The authors not only present them as men of their times, but bring them to life with anecdotes about their eccentricities (noted British scientist J.B.S. Haldane is seen as a pyromaniac who hated to wear socks), their debates, their successes, and their failures. The authors include illustrations, photographs, line drawings, and even a Herblock cartoon, but more would have been welcome. Their narrative has a grand sweep and shows important figures with competing ideas amid evolving worldviews. As a demonstration of changing times and approaches to the mystery of how life began, an appendix includes some intriguing recipes: Johannes van Helmont's recipe for making mice, Bastian's four recipes for making microbes, Sidney Fox's recipe for proteinoid microspheres, and Craig Venter's recipe for creating a cell. A lively, highly readable jaunt through the world of science.

Kirkus Reviews