Bill Mesler

This book examines the question of how life originated on Earth, and tells the story through the history of the men (and women) who pondered the question through the ages. Readers will be familiar with many of the names, going back to the ancient Greeks and early European natural philosophers and scientists. Of course, microscopic life was unknown to them, and it was impossible to see life's stages at the smallest levels before van Leeuwenhoek's microscope. Concepts changed once microscopic forms of life could be identified, but prior that that, spontaneous generation of life, and religious / biblical accounts for life's creation remained the norm.

The insights and ground breaking research of Darwin on the theory of evolution, Crick and Watson's discovery of DNA, Carl Woese's work on phylogenetic taxonomy, etc., were just several of the steps described in the book which helped refine origin of life theories.

The last part of the book got a little more bogged down for me with the discussions of eukaryotes, prokaryotes, cell wall membranes, horizontal gene transfer, proteins, RNA, DNA, etc. But it remained interesting to see the theories that simple life forms may have developed around deep sea hydrothermal vents, or even how life could have been carried to earth from meteorites several billion years ago.
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A well written history of theories concerning the origin of life on earth. Starts with the ancient Greeks and ends in the present day, covering all the main theories that have been proposed. Contains good coverage of the long held belief in spontaneous generation and the experiments of Pasteur and others that finally led to its death. The one thing I do appreciate about the book is the frankness with which the author admits that science still does not have a definitive answer to how life arose, even though he, and scientists in general, are committed to eventually finding a plausible naturalistic model.… (more)