Christian de Duve (1917–2013)

An extraordinarily well written account of the state of contemporary biology by a Nobel laureate (1974). De Duve gives a unified and coherent account of the biochemistry of life, genetics, evolution, mind and astrobiology. He believes that life and, possibly, intelligence, are natural consequences of the constitution of the universe. By his own estimation, there may be 10^17 foci of life in the universe (p 279).
The book is also an Apologia. He quotes the famous saying by Laplace, when he show more was questioned by Napoleon on the role of God in the universe: “Your Majesty: I have no need for that hypothesis”. However, having revealed his own lapse of faith, he does not adopt a hostile and truculent attitude towards religion. show less

Picked this up at a used bookstore. Two volume set. Great writing and illustrations if you want to learn more about cell biology and want to avoid the overwhelming details of a textbook.

A broad-ranging view of biology. Most of the drearily inevitable religion-related comments are concentrated in the last chapter, for convenient skipping by the intelligent reader.

Je ne lui mettrai pas d'étoiles parce que si les trois premières parties (intitulées "L'histoire de la vie", "Les mécanisme de l'évolution" et "L'aventure humaine") sont très intéressantes (bien que déjà dépassées par certaines découvertes très récentes mais il est difficile d'en tenir rigueur à l'auteur) la quatrième ("Les défis du futur") me semble proprement imbuvable. Et pourtant, il n'a pas tort et je suis trop partagée entre mes sentiments et ma raison pour pouvoir show more donner une appréciation. show less