Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: A Scientific Detective Story (Canto)

by A.G. Cairns-Smith

Book Overview

This book addresses the question of how life may have arisen on earth, in the spirit of an intriguing detective story. It relies on the methods of Sherlock Holmes, in particular his principle that one... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521398282
• Release Date: November 1990
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.4" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

True? False? Who knows? But definitely a great read!

First, I have to preface my review by saying that I haven't yet read other books about the origin of life, so I have nothing to compare this book to...anywayThis short book is absolutely fascinating. The thrust of the author's argument is this:Life as we know it is too complex to have originated in its present form. Nucleic acids and proteins and most organic molecules necessary for life are too complex to have originated in the primitive atmosphere even if the conditions were favorable. We need to find something that is capable of growing, replicating (not perfectly), and providing a substrate for the formation of molecules necessary for life as we know it today. What could possibly do that? Ah yes, crystals of clay! Clay is abundant. It grows and replicates but not perfectly thus allowing for irregularities to accumulate. These crystals with irregularities could then provide a surface that brought molecules together in close proximity so that they could interact and produce the organic molecules needed for life. Eventually, the secondary organisms that resulted from this process achieved a certain complexity that gave rise to life as we know it.Interesting argument. Is it true? Is it even plausible? I actually don't know the answer to either question, and I have a feeling that there are no definite answers.I found this book thought-provoking, and it presented an interesting solution to the mystery of the origin of life.

Concise, logical, lucid

A. Graham Cairns-Smith has created a small gem in his Seven Clues to the Origin of Life. The book, a discussion of the pre-biotic stage of the evolution of life, is concise, logical and lucid and explained in terms that would be comprehensible to anyone from the junior high student with a basic science education to beyond it. As Daniel C. Dennett writes in the journal Nature about another of the author's books, "Cairns-Smith is a brilliant explainer of difficult ideas, bringing to the task an imagination that is magnificently disciplined by detailed scientific understanding." I had heard of the concept of a crystal template for the creation of organic molecules while studying mineralogy for a geology degree in the 1980s, so Cairns-Smith's topic had already intrigued me. When I found reference to this book in the annotated bibliography of another I was reading, I decided to look it over too. I wasn't disappointed. Dr Cairns-Smith is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Chemistry Department at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. The main area of his research has been in simple non-nucleic acid genetic systems which might have been important in the earliest stages of the evolution of life, a topic on which he has collaborated with others and continued to publish in professional journals as recently as 1996. So he is eminently prepared to discuss the pre-biotic era of life. Although the book is old for a work of science (1985), it is nonetheless still very much a leading idea in the subject of the early stages of life. Furthermore, the author cleverly puts the topic into terms that most of his readers will understand, even borrowing concepts from architecture/building, the nature of ropes, and the history of technology to do so. Avoiding confusing professional jargon, he leads the reader through the material in a logical, step by step manner until his conclusion: that we may owe our existance to the character and evolution of clay materials. While one may not necessarily believe that this is actually how the process worked-or for religious reasons may disagree altogether-it is still a cogent work, one that illustrates how science comes up with its theories of how things got to be as they are.

Highly readable and thought-provoking book!

I reread this book every year, right before I present the origin of life in my historical geology classes. I spend an entire lecture on this book. The topic and the ideas presented by the author enthrall my students. Someone always asks to borrow it. One of the great things about this book is that my students, even the first year students, can understand it. The ideas presented by Dr. Cairns-Smith make much more sense to me than other ideas I have seen presented on the origin of life on Earth.

Sherlock Holmes most important case: The origin of life!

How would Holmes and Watson investigate the curious case of life on earth. A.G. Cairns-Smith, shows us using the great detective's techniques (with great quotes from his many other cases) how life must have begun on earth. His is the only explanation I've ever read which understands that half of evolution was needed just to get to DNA. The seven clues are listed in a summary at the end and present the best explanation of how life could begin from inorganic chemicals - which as he shows, it must have done so.