A brief history of creation : science and the search for the origin of life /
An essential history of Western scientific studies into the origins of life examines historical discoveries in the contexts of philosophical debates, political change and evolving understandings about the complexities of biology.
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
[2016]
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
Table of Contents:
- 1. By the action of your sun. Ancients ask where life comes from ; Anaximander explains the natural world ; Aristotle writes of "spontaneous generation"
- 2. Provando e riprovando. Francesco Redi and the scientific method ; Van Helmont's recipe for mice ; "All life comes from an egg"
- 3. The eye of a gnat. The Enlightenment transforms science ; Hooke pens Micrographia ; Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers the microscopic world
- 4. The laboratory of the atheists. Voltaire subscribes to intelligent design ; Atheists seize upon the origin of life ; Buffon observes "reproduction"
- 5. A vital force. Andrew Crosse's "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. The Beagle sets sail for the Galápagos ; The Origin of species wins converts ; Charles Darwin imagines a "warm little pond"
- 7. Pleasant, though they be deceitful dreams. 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. The earth grows ever older ; J.B.S. Haldane imagines a "half-living" thing ; Alexander Oparin reimagines an ancient planet
- 9. A laboratory earth. Stanley Miller creates the precursors for life ; Scientists flock to exobiology ; NASA enters the origin-of-life game
- 10. The nucleic acid monopoly. 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. An enigmatic Martian rock ; Panspermia recisited ; Life in meteorites?
- 12. One primordial form. The last universal common ancestor ; The Woesian revolution ; Scientists look to undersea vents
- 13. A cell is born. The birth of the RNA world ; Genetic engineering opens doors ; A new gensis?
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Recipes for life.