Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "evolution"

I just found Peter Ward’s second book Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search For (and Synthesis of) Alien Life, New York and around the world, Penguin Group, 2005. In this book Ward considers life itself—what it is, where in the universe it might be, and however it might be re-invented here soon.

After I finish reading it, I might review Life... in more depth, but for now I‘m recommending it and its prequel Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, New York, Springer-Verlag, 2000. Both books give us an in-depth, open arguments that make a lot of sense to me.

1) The authors’ Rare Earth Hypothesis is based on credible astronomical and biochemical possibilities, suggesting that microbial life is easy “...to evolve from non life...and...should be found widely throughout habitable planets and moons in the cosmos, while complex animals and plants are very rare. Not only are they relatively fragile, requiring “narrow environmental conditions to survive,” they need long-term stability in habitable conditions in order to evolve.

Rare Earth was disliked by SETI and science fiction fans, who ignored the book’s emphasis on the observation that “...simple life should be common.” Ward and Brownlee argued that a long period of habitability required for the evolution of complex, large, oxygen-powered animals was made difficult by a long list of astronomical accidents and “...new information from oceanography, geology and paleontology” that has created the new science called astrobiology.

I’m looking forward to finishing Life As We Do No Know It because Peter Ward is a realist. He readily explores all the options he can muster. In Rare Earth he and Brownlee note that the huge numbers of stars and “their inevitable planets” make the existence of the “intelligent civilizations [in the universe] a near inevitability.” However, the huge distances and time considerations make any contact, even detection, between such civilizations highly unlikely. I believe Carl Sagan did us no favors with his optimism, though the continued SETI search is certainly worth doing, IF we can afford the resources it requires. A big IF as we consider our limits.

As a realist, Ward begins Life... by observing that the universe is so large and diverse, it is “...reasonable to suppose that all manners of life are possible,” but it is also possible that there “...might not be anything except carbon based life-forms, [and] DNA might not be ...just one way but the only way.” We are a sample of one, but we’ve learned enough about physics, astronomy and biochemistry in the last few decades to be realistic about both diverse universality and down-to-Earth chemical probabilities.

I look forward to finishing Ward’s consideration of what life is, here, there and soon to be reinvented. In many labs around the world, scientists are using a variety of approaches to recreate life—everything from re-inventing from scratch to imitating how selection working with self-organizing properties of matter (Some call it the hand of God.) precipitated life on Earth.
Life as We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe

A remarkable book in its thorough questioning as Lane makes his case that we are all alike, except our friends and enemies the bacteria and archaea. Plants, animals, humans, fungi and protists all share similar cells--the eukaryotes--which were able to evolve into complex beings, unlike the bacteria and archaea, which got stuck in their successful niches, expanding but not changing much.

Lane explains in detail why the first living beings on Earth probably got going in the alkaline hydrothermal vents deep in the oceans. There is where energy could drive what was needed. Then came symbiosis to some simple living cells--they engulfed and shared genes and energy talents with mitochondria and (probably later) chloroplasts. As a result, they became more and more complex over the ages.

Lanes' exciting theories are well worth the effort, reading along with the bioenergy-thought processes he believes gave us this precious life. Full review at http://astronaut.com/whos-life-may-rare/

In this book author Nick Lane, biochemist at University College, London, defines in exacting logic where life may have begun on Earth, why archaea and bacteria got stuck "... at the bacterial level of complexity for more than two billion years," and why the jump to complex eukaryotic life, to critters like us, was made possible by difficult, perhaps unique, endosymbiosis events—the engulfing of one microbe by another.

All this is of interest in our search for exolife. If we understood how life began on Earth, we would know better how to look for life elsewhere. The author goes into great detail describing the alkaline hydrothermal vents on Earth's ocean floor. They most likely provided the ideal environment for harnessing the proton exchange required to get simple life started here. We would do well to learn more about those vents before we study possible life-starting environments on Europa, Titan, and Enceladus.

He points out that RNA is far too complex a molecule to start with. He stresses the need to consider the energy requirements of cellular and genomic activity. He describes in detail the alkaline hydrothermal vents and how they could provide the gentle environment to get simple prokaryotic life (the archaea and bacteria) started.

As a result of endosymbiosis between simple organisms on a 2-billion-year-old Earth, cells that became complex eukaryotes plus endosymbionts: mitochondria or (later) chloroplasts (to make plants). Lane says, "...the singular origin of complex life might have depended on their acquisition..." because this endosymbiosis provided energy efficiency.

The author does a masterful job of introducing and exploring critical questions. Why did the bacteria never evolve into more complex critters? Perhaps they stayed stuck due to a "constrained structure" that limited their ability to capture energy.

The uniqueness of complex life in the universe was suggested in Ward and Brownlee's RARE EARTH. They give us many geologic and astronomic reasons why Earth lucked out in the effort to produce complex life. Now we have Lane's bioenergetic arguments to add to our luck.

“Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction” by Chris D. Thomas, New York, Hatchette Book Group, 2017.

We can only hope that the author is right about what is thriving on Earth: In spite of the damage we humans have done to our home- (and most likely only) planet, we have created new homes for other life and stimulated their evolutionary creativity.

An award-winning professor of conservation biology at the University of York, UK, Chris Thomas gives us a rare glimpse of hope for Earth’s future, in spite of the excesses of technology and human over-population. Earth was once quite warm (three million years ago) and the continents’ future coming together again will change all Earth’s species’ options eventually, in spite of any human impact.

Meanwhile, ocean-going containers move species around so that “many microbes…have near-global distribution. It makes our “neophobia” and “hatred of foreign species” in our locales seem a little silly--certainly not worth a “costly control and eradication of…alien species.”

“Life is a process, not a final product, “ the author says. Therefore, maintain flexibility for future change. Humans are as normal as anything else that lives. Accept the fact that we must “..live within our planetary boundaries.”

What to do? Read pages 230 to 242, if nothing else. There the author tells us: 1) “…accept change” and prod it in a “desired direction.” 2) “…maintain flexibility for future generations,” for we cannot imagine their world. We should encourage “as many species as possible in minimizing extinction.” 3) Our evolution and presence “are natural within the Earth system…We should encourage “as many species as possible. Genes, like species, survive because they keep track of the changing world.” Specific options are suggested on page 240, following a thoughtful discussion of whether or not to resurrect those who have recently gone extinct. 4) “…create near biological success stories by whatever means” by helping “…direct the evolutionary process.”

The Next Species: the Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man by Michael Tennesen, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2015
This book gives us a visit to the tropical Andes to search for rare or dangerous or unknown species to illustrate the fear that we humans have triggered a massive extinction, followed by our own demise due to massive overpopulation and decimation of Earth’s natural resources.

The author reviews past extinctions, the losses and the opportunities for innovation that gave us new species. The role played by plate tectonics is noted, and the author tells the stories of his personal journeys in discovering the past from the Oldivoi gorge to current population growth in the world’s cities and the population explosion of human youth.

A history of farming is next, with our current nitrogen problem and its “overwhelming presence.” Disease—epidemics and resistance to antibiotics. Next, our oceans exhibit over fishing, acidification and warming plus fertilizer runoff. Shark numbers have declined, for one. Water availability and the misuse of land leads to a review of volcanoes and the changes that came with recovery of various disasters. Ocean problems are followed by the current demise of predators and the historical loss of large species to human hunting.

So we should move out to Mars? Is that topic really worth a whole chapter? In 50 to 100 years we could succumb to climate change, ocean acidification and invasive species. Then the author makes a remarkable statement about how man can stop “killing himself…we would have to push back from the table of reproduction, resource growth, and limit our use of natural resources.

Of course. Why not? That’s the solution the steady state economist Herman Daly has been developing since the 1970’s. Of course ecosystems will eventually recover from our demise, if our demise occurs—but why should it? We’re not stupid, are we?

New York, Simon and Schuster, 2016.
I agree with reviews of this New York Times best seller, written by a Washington Post syndicated columnist and NPR commentator. This book should be required reading for all voters, even Congress. The last 69 pages are devoted to background information, extensive Notes and detailed Index.

In 548 pages the author manages to reflect the thinking, the lack of it, the intrigue, the debates, the inconsistencies, the treasonous lying and blind-sided focus that produced our current situation and wasted far too much money dividing the country.

The author’s plea is for “…conservatives to take a turn toward moderations…” in order to “…embrace those who have been left out…” in one way or another.

Suicide of the West starts with an introduction that begins “Thee is no God in this book,” though the author is “not an atheist.” He then summarizes human evolution with words like “embarrassing animals” and “humiliating sea of ooze.” this tells me that the author has serious problems recognizing the genius and overwhelming complexity in how our various life forms came into existence.

If he is just trying to be cute, it fails with me. The issues are too critical and our choices too important--especially when a concept like fascism is discussed. The author seems to assume that we are locked into our tribal nature, that early life was brutal before our recent rise in GNP.

His assumptions? Our natural condition is tribal. Money, liberalism and capitalism are not natural. Zero-sum is natural so that violence is required in order to get something needed. (Animal studies show this is wrong. Horses and bison males fight so that the strongest are selected to mate.) He says, “We come into this world no different from any cavemen.” Human nature is instinct and tribalism.

“The romantic idea of following our feelings and instincts can best be understood as corruption.” Entropy is nature taking back what is hers--” giving in to our human nature. Our current leaders are a sign of it, back lash vs. Identity politics, tribalism, what benefits one comes at the expense of another. Our problems are psychological, not policy problems.

Cute wording and undefined phrases like “Contemporary liberalism has a host of others it bites” are not informative. Is there a taboo on discussing human nature? Is civilization nothing but greed, anxiety and violence?