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The origin of life is a hotly debated topic. The Christian Bible states that God created the heavens and the Earth, all in about seven days roughly six thousand years ago. This episode in Genesis departs markedly from scientific theories developed over the last two centuries which hold that life appeared on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago in the form of bacteria, followed by unicellular organisms half a millennia later. It is this version of genesis that Alexandre Meinesz explores in this engaging tale of life's origins and evolution.
How Life Began elucidates three origins, or geneses, of life—bacteria, nucleated cells, and multicellular organisms—and shows how evolution has sculpted life to its current biodiversity through four main events—mutation, recombination, natural selection, and geologic cataclysm. As an ecologist who specializes in algae, the first organisms to colonize Earth, Meinesz brings a refreshingly novel voice to the history of biodiversity and emphasizes here the role of unions in organizing life. For example, the ingestion of some bacteria by other bacteria led to mitochondria that characterize animal and plant cells, and the chloroplasts of plant cells.
As Meinesz charmingly recounts, life’s grandeur is a result of an evolutionary tendency toward sociality and solidarity. He suggests that it is our cohesion and collaboration that allows us to solve the environmental problems arising in the decades and centuries to come. Rooted in the science of evolution but enlivened with many illustrations from other disciplines and the arts, How Life Began intertwines the rise of bacteria and multicellular life with Vermeer’s portrait of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the story of Genesis and Noah, Meinesz’s son’s early experiences with Legos, and his own encounters with other scientists. All of this brings a very human and humanistic tone to Meinesz’s charismatic narrative of the three origins of life.
- Sales Rank: #2242068 in eBooks
- Published on: 2010-02-15
- Released on: 2010-02-15
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A French marine biologist best known for his work with Mediterranean ecosystems gone awry (documented in his 1999 Killer Algae), Meinesz brings his vast knowledge of molecular biology to bear on the question, "What is Life?" He comes up with some startling, if speculative, answers. Despite many advances in genetics and other sciences, Meinesz asserts there is no empirical evidence of a life-generating "molecular soup" (and he that doubts any will be forthcoming), but evidence does exist to support the theory that the "seeds of life" came to earth on a meteor. Using the latest scientific data, Meinesz covers the sweep of evolution, paying particular attention to bacteria and unicellular organisms. He locates the engine for evolution in a system of "endosymbiosis," illustrated in a chapter on the symbiotic relationship between tropical "vampire" sea slugs and the "killer" algae. Meinesz doesn't deny the role disaster and luck play in the survival of life forms over billions of years, and he doesn't believe that the "increasing complexity" of evolution is a given-rather, the "grandeur of life" is a ceaseless evolution that stretches in more directions than one. Writing with charm and an eye toward the general audience, Meinesz's lively guide to evolution is compelling, up-to-the-minute popular science at its best. Illus., 15 color plates.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A French marine biologist best known for his work with Mediterranean ecosystems gone awry (documented in his 1999 Killer Algae), Meinesz brings his vast knowledge of molecular biology to bear on the question, 'What is Life?' He comes up with some startling, if speculative, answers. Despite many advances in genetics and other sciences, Meinesz asserts there is no empirical evidence of a life-generating 'molecular soup' (and he that doubts any will be forthcoming), but evidence does exist to support the theory that the 'seeds of life' came to earth on a meteor. Using the latest scientific data, Meinesz covers the sweep of evolution, paying particular attention to bacteria and unicellular organisms. He locates the engine for evolution in a system of 'endosymbiosis,' illustrated in a chapter on the symbiotic relationship between tropical 'vampire' sea slugs and the 'killer' algae. Meinesz doesn’t deny the role disaster and luck play in the survival of life forms over billions of years, and he doesn’t believe that the 'increasing complexity' of evolution is a given—rather, the 'grandeur of life' is a ceaseless evolution that stretches in more directions than one. Writing with charm and an eye toward the general audience, Meinesz’s lively guide to evolution is compelling, up-to-the-minute popular science at its best."
(Publishers Weekly starred review 2008-09-29)
"What distinguishes this book from other recent studies...is the integrative and humanistic approach in which Johannes Vermeer's painting of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (the discoverer of microbes) and contemporary cartoons depicting cells eating cells (the origins of cellular organelles) are integrated with genetics, natural selection, geological cataclysms, and speculations on the extraterrestrial origins of life (panspermia) to portray how unicellular organisms arose 3.5 billion years ago, gave rise to unicellular organisms 2.5 billions years ago, and came to dominate current biodiversity on the planet. The writing is engaging, the style accessible, and the messages clear...Highly recommended."
(Choice 2009-02-01)
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title (Choice)
"Meinesz brings a refreshingly novel voice to the history of biodiversity and emphasizes here the role of unions in organizing life. . . . [A] charismatic narrative of the three origins of life."
(Southeastern Naturalist)
About the Author
Alexandre Meinesz is professor at the University of Nice–Sophia Antipolis and the author of Killer Algae, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Daniel Simberloff is the Nancy Hunger Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Tennessee and the translator of Killer Algae as well as The Art of Being a Parasite by Claude Combes, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Very readable, almost great, but overlooks the elephant in the room.
By David C. Bossard
I really wanted to give this book 5 stars. It is one of the best popular-level treatments of the development of life on earth. On this basis, I recommend it highly.
But after a very promising first few pages, Dr. Meinesz fails utterly to explore the implications of the biggest problem of natural evolution: the vast complexity of the task at hand. This is the elephant in the room, and it shows up at each of his three Geneses, which are (pg. 203): "the appearance of bacteria [origin of life on earth], the formation of microscopic animal and plant cells [creation of the nucleated cell], and the elaboration of multicellular forms composed of different cell types [creation of visible plants and animals]" -- the parenthetical elaborations are my own.
The book started off admirably well. His is the first popular-level book that I have read, to mention the 1998 NAS symposium, Size Limits of Very Small Microorganisms: Proceedings of a Workshop (Compass Series (Washington, D.C.).) which concluded that "the minimum number of genes required to code for vital proteins is about 200." (pg. 31). Most of this is needed to encode the central dogma - the vastly complex process that encodes the DNA and then translates that code into working proteins - and implies that the smallest possible DNA molecule is about 300,000 base pairs. His very next sentence is "But how has life advanced from nothing to the genetic capital contained in" this smallest size genome?
Up to this point, I was thinking "Bravo! Finally someone is stating the obvious!" But then everything falls apart and he descends into the usual fairy tales about how life began, which totally ignore the implications of the complexity in the central dogma. "We must concede that bacteria-- prodigiously complex biochemical factories... have no identified ancestors." (pg. 32). He notes, "There should therefore still exist an abundance of reproductive organisms intermediate between prebiotic matter and bacteria." But there aren't. So maybe the ancestors of bacteria came from outer space. How convenient -- no evidence on earth, so push the problem out to space, and meanwhile finesse the fact, so amply documented by Dr. Yockey. Information Theory, Evolution, and The Origin of Life and others that the complexity of the task is such that there is no known or conceivable progression of natural processes that would lead to this "prodigious" bacterium, even in the vast amount of space and time in this or a myriad of universes.
At least Dr. Meinesz had the honesty to say that "We must humbly recognize that the ... birth of life on Earth, is only an unsupported hypothesis; all research trying to confirm it is at an impasse. It is just an idea that seems logical and evident. An idea that is taught. This idea has become a dogma." But he also acknowledges that the idea of life originating elsewhere "is seductive; it is also based on nothing, it is just another speculative hypothesis." [pg. 33] After further rumination, this is the end of the chapter "On the Origin of Life on Earth: The First Genesis."
From this point the book is an excellent and quite readable description of how life developed on earth, with many interesting vignettes. But his treatment leaves out a lot of important considerations. I would have preferred that he faced the various dilemmas that arise along the way, with the same honest candor that he followed earlier. For example, he too soon brings in the extremophiles (pg. 53), without noting that these are quite advanced rather than primitive species - see Lynn Margulis' discussion in Diversity of Life: The Illustrated Guide to the Five Kingdoms. He talks about chlorophyll and photosynthesis (pg. 55), without noting its own vast complexity. I may have missed it, but I don't believe that he even mentioned the critical problem of nitrogen fixing (the unique and complex nitrogenase molecule) without which life would have remained ephemeral and primitive.
The second genesis (pg. 92) is the formation of the proper nucleated cell. Some of the suggested ways to achieve this second genesis sound vaguely plausible, but again Dr. Meinesz fails to discuss the vast complexity of the processes that are implied in the proper cell. The big difference between bacterial cells (prokaryotes) and proper cells (eukaryotes) is the complex machinery that supports the proper cell metabolism, including the cytoskeleton and the kinesis molecule which provide an efficient way to transport food and wastes within the cell. This is why eukaryotic cells can be much larger than bacteria which rely on diffusion to move things around the cell. Consequently, these cells can form the visible plants and animals.
I particularly liked his discussion of the various "catastrophes" in Ch. 8. He calls them "contingent" following the lead of Stephen Jay Gould and citing his excellent book on the Burgess Shales, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. The implication is that such catastrophes are inherently unplanned. I'm not so sure of that: one could argue that the progression of life on earth required these catastrophes to clear the field for the next advances. His discussion of the Chicxulub meteor disaster (pg. 175ff) that wiped out the dinosaurs brought back memories of Glen T. Penfield, who was one of the original engineers to discover the impact crater -- see the (true) account of his 1978 discovery in Steve Alten Domain (The Domain Trilogy), pg. 122. Penfield remarked in a lecture back in 1992, that the Apocalyptic account in Revelation 6:12-17 describes a similar event. Ironically, Dr. Meinesz' discussion of a "similar situation today" (pg. 176) includes the remark "Mines, active or not, would be sought out as refuges, but they would be monopolized by the dominant figures of our societies and the military". This is exactly parallel to Rev. 6:15 "The kings of the earth ... and generals ... hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains."
In summary, this is a very good book, almost great, but the really great book still needs writing -- carrying on the inspiring start of Dr. Meinesz to its full completion.
HMS Challenger
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Not quite what I was looking for, but great!
By DJ Glass
First off, don't be scared off by the fact that this book has been translated from French; translator Daniel Simberloff is a friend of the author and has done a great job of capturing the spirit of the original language and making the book read as if English were its original language.
Regarding the content: I was expecting (from the title) an accessible account/explanation of abiogenesis (the study of how life arose). This isn't EXACTLY what the book does. Rather, it's a beautifully written work aimed at a lay audience with a marginal background in high school biology which draws heavily on personal anecdote and metaphors from the realms of art, history, and religion to explain the titular "Three Geneses" of life. These are the formation of bacteria, the formation of eukaryotic cells, and the formation of multicellular life, respectively. Considering the book's title, I was disappointed that Meinesz sort of glosses over the organic chemistry and the story of how life initially arose from nonliving chemicals, and focuses most of his attention on early unicellular and multicellular life, i.e. things that happened shortly AFTER life began.
Before reading this book, you'll want to know that there is a lot of divergence from the main topic, and Meinesz approaches his subject with, and dedicates many pages to, a sense of spiritual wonder (in the non-religious sense, although he does discuss Judeo-Christian religion quite a bit)...this will delight some readers while frustrating those who came looking for the science and the actual story of "how life began." Some chapters are digressions into historical, religious, or other cultural topics (all of which are tied to the main theme in some way, of course). I found these sections extremely well-written and well-integrated, but I skimmed some of them, as my purpose in buying this book was to learn about the science.
Meinesz is a proponent of exogenesis (the idea that early life began somewhere other than Earth and was brought here by comets or meteorites) BUT he is not married to the notion, and discusses it in the most cautious, scientific, and tentative way possible, as one of a set of plausible alternatives. He also subscribes to Stephen Jay Gould's concept of Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA), which states that science and religion are different, complementary, non-mutually exclusive ways of understanding the world, and that they each are appropriate for use within their own realms; the book is written from this standpoint. In fact, he is a big Gould fan in general, a fact which informs his writing a bit (in a good way). He uses cartoon drawings and analogies such as Lego to illustrate some of the concepts he discusses, which makes the book quite accessible.
There IS a good bit of biology involved, don't get me wrong. Meinesz discusses much of early life and the disparate theories of how eukaryotic cells and multicellularity arose. There are also many great photos (some of them in color) of various fossils and living organisms.
In summation, if you're looking for a book specifically about abiogenesis, this isn't what you're looking for; however, How Life Began is a great, entertaining book in its own right, if you're seeking a layman-friendly book on evolution in general, with a special focus on early life, which integrates other disciplines such as religion, art, history, and ecology into an entertaining and wondrous read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Not what it promises
By DrHMD
I will keep it short as other reviews have a similar story. A wonderful and easy read book that does not address it's title. Life did not begin with a cell, but with something unimaginably simpler and virtually unknown - the origin of life from nonliving chemicals. That is why I got the book and it is not even mentioned. Maybe "The evolution of cells" or just drop the "How life began" and stick with "Evolution's Three Geneses". With the right title it would be a five star book, but I would not be interested.
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