Product Description

This work examines what is perhaps science's ultimate question: the origins of life on earth. Paul Davies presents a series of recent discoveries which are leading to some startling theories about the origins of life on earth. New life forms have been discovered in bizarre habitats: deep underground and under the ocean floor. The conditions thought to be necessary for life have thus been radically revised and this has led to the realization that life could very well exist on other planets hither to thought to be inhospitable. Further, cosmic impacts can transport these rock-dwelling micro-organisms from planet to planet across the solar system and beyond. so life could quite easily travel from earth to other planets. Indeed, life could have arrived on earth from elsewhere.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #813671 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The origin of life remains one of the most attractive and yet seemingly intractable problems in science. Was it by accident or design that at least 3.5 billion years ago inorganic matter somehow became vitalized on Earth? And if it happened here, could it have happened elsewhere in the Universe? Nobel prize-winning biologist Jacques Monod concluded that life is the product of chance, that "Man at last knows he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe."

Paul Davies cogently argues otherwise in The Fifth Miracle. Originally a British physicist, Davies is now a prize-winning science writer living in Australia. Writing for a general readership, he covers all the main topics surrounding this fundamental question, from microbial biology and biochemistry, through the fossil record and genetics to Martian meteorites. Eminently readable, generally accurate and without mind-boggling detail (references are provided for intellectual explorers), Davies presents the current ideas and data in a very even-handed way. He comes down on the side of those who believe that we are not alone but live in a "self-organizing and self-complexifying universe, governed by ingenious laws that encourage matter to evolve towards life and consciousness." -- Douglas Palmer

Customer Reviews

The mystery of life in a meteorite
Paul Davies here goes through the theories attached to the enduring problem of where life originally came from, how an inhospitable lump of rather warm rock managed to become a world of living creatures. Sometimes the science is really a bit too (unnecessarily) blinding, especially where Davies tries to relate the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy to the origins of life: the connection between physics and biology here is rather difficult to understand. But by the time Davies'...erm... less substantiated theories about meteorites and Mars start being elaborated, the book's taken on a momentum of its own. It's a very interesting book, but, to a layman, only quite convincing.

Mind opening and very facinating
This book describes in detail various theories on the origins of life. It is supported by a combination of scientific research information and personal views which made it a very enjoyable read. One of the most interesting books I have read on this subject. I would be very interested to know which of the theories Paul Davies favours most.

Life might be on Mars - the facts
At every page I was ready to put this book down if the author showed himself to be a quack scientist. I finished, just, and am very greatful. Paul Davies wants to convince us - not that life does exist on Mars, and life forms do roam all over universe on stray asteroids - but that it could be true. That's fine with me. So along with dozens of "could be"s and "might be"s we actually get a lot of real science on the way. What sparked off life? If you are interested, read this book, but don't expect the answer.