Title:
The 5th Miracle – The Search for the
Origin and Meaning of Life
Author:
Paul Davies
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster, 1999 (First)
ISBN:
9780684863092
Pages:
304
Life
is the most wonderful phenomenon in the universe. If you reduce its complexity
to its most basic elements, it is nothing more than a collection of ordinary material
that doesn’t differ at all from inanimate objects. Still, living beings are so
fundamentally different and inexplicable that science has not been able to cast
its beacon of searching light on the issue of origins of life. About half a
century ago, at the instant when DNA’s secrets were coming out, it was widely believed
that the puzzle would be solved in a matter of a few years. But decades later,
science has not been able to advance knowledge much deeper than where it was.
Paul Davies is a physicist, writer, broadcaster and a professor, who has
authored many books on popular science. In this book, Davies presents some
unusual ideas on the origin of life. Being an advocate of panspermia, he
postulates the origin of earthly life taking place on Mars! A presentable case
is made out with novel scenarios and clever reasoning. Since the subtitle also
mentions a quest to the meaning of life, philosophical enquiry into the nature
of life is also included. We know that evolution does not have foresight nor
involve a direction to an ultimate goal towards a higher being. Natural
selection makes it blind to be oblivious to the advantage of an entire species
as compared to the survival benefit of a particular animal. This book is a
model case of how a physicist can introduce novel concepts in a conservative field
such as biological studies.
Those
who first pick this book up from a bookshelf would wonder at the significance
of the title. The mystery is neatly explained in the preface, and is linked to
the chapter on Genesis in the Bible. God first created the Universe, then made
light, then the firmament and the fourth in line was dry land. After arranging
the ‘infrastructure’, God commanded that vegetation may appear on land. This
first reference to life in the Bible is arranged as fifth in the sequence of
miracles, and hence the title ‘The 5th Miracle’ is the most perfect
for a book that makes its quest on the origin, nature and meaning of life. The
earth is bountiful in life, and there are indications that the presently
inhospitable terrain of Mars was once home to life. There may be several
variants of life, which may not resemble life as we know it. Davies spells out
autonomy, reproduction, metabolism, nutrition, complexity, organization, growth
and development as the essential characteristics that delineate life in any
form. At the same time, the chain of unification runs through all forms of
terrestrial life whether it is a plant, animal or a simple bacterium. For
example, take the protein Cytochrome C,
which is made of hundreds of amino acids. This protein is present in plants and
animals. The copy in humans differs from that of Rhesus monkeys in just one
amino acid, out of a total of hundreds. The human cytochrome protein differs
from that in wheat by about 45 amino acids, providing solid proof that man
diverged from the line of plants pretty early in his development as compared to
simian forms. This is also a proof of evolution at work.
Before
looking at how life originated, a general discussion on why and if life had to
appear on earth. When a physicist writes a book on popular science, we can be
pretty certain that a reference to the Second Law of Thermodynamics would somehow
be included. According to this now famous theory, the entropy, or level of
disorder, in the universe always increases. However life brings about order in
complexity and it may appear that biological systems violate the thermodynamic
principle. This notion is false and Davies really tries his best to dispel doubts
in this regard. The Second Law is applicable only to closed systems in which
matter or energy does not enter into the system. However, terrestrial
life-forms make an open system, in which the sun’s energy is always available.
Even with localized order, the entropy of the universe taken as a whole
increases, thus underlining the truth of the law. The author faces an uphill
task in explaining how life itself took root. Today’s beings use a genetic code
encoded in the DNA to manufacture proteins essential for their survival and
reproduction. The author compares this to software of the DNA and hardware of
the proteins. However, all attempts to explain the origin of self-replicating
molecules end in confusion, as it is not forceful enough to convince skeptics.
Davies makes an extensive survey of
organisms existing in specialized niches like deep sea thermal vents and
nutrient-deficient habitats. Pyrolobus fumarii is the organism that sets the
record for highest temperature at 113 deg C. Introduction to organisms that
thrive in extreme conditions is presented with good reason. Spectacular
conjectures on the origin of life – biogenesis – follow next. The author is much
interested in the concept of panspermia, the theory that places the origin of
life somewhere in the deep mists of space, which reached the earth hitchhiking
on a comet or meteor. It is also possible that life originated in Mars; where
there is abundant proof that running water flowed through the terrain. Martian
meteorites have been found on earth, the most recent and fruitful being a piece
of rock discovered in Antarctica. Traces of organisms that once lived in Mars
have been detected by researchers, though the chain of reasoning is tenuous and
highly imaginative. But problems still persist. Even if it is believed that a
meteor impact dislodged a piece of rock containing microbes, it has to undergo
the tremendous ordeal of radiation in space, heat of entry into earth’s
atmosphere and the shock energy of the impact on earth. Since the argument is
purely hypothetical, Davies comes up with several mechanisms by which microbes
may just be able to survive the bodily transportation to another planet, each
being weirder than the previous one.
This book on the origins of life is
written by a physicist. We have heard the axiom that ‘physicists defer only to
mathematicians, while mathematicians defer only to god’! True to the maxim,
most of the authors referred in the book are physicists, thus curtailing the
real-life significance of it. Even Fred Hoyle is quoted more times than Charles
Darwin. This excessive reference is all the more inappropriate when we remember
that Hoyle was a stubborn opponent of the Big Bang theory, while still clinging
to his pet hypothesis that the Universe always existed. Also, Hoyle is the
co-author of a research paper that ‘found’ that great pandemics visited the
earth when our planet travelled through the tail of a comet. Davies expresses rational,
even controversial, arguments throughout the book, but some of his remarks seem
to be deliberately designed as to be quoted out of context as proof of a
creator of the world. For example, “The
conclusion has to be that without a trained organic chemist on hand to
supervise, nature would be struggling to make RNA from a dilute soup under any
plausible pre-biotic condition” (p.131).
What about this? Wouldn’t this be the choicest nectar for creationists and
proponents of intelligent design? Then again, he states on p.263 that “although biological determinists strongly
deny that there is any actual design, or preordained goal, involved in their
proposals, the idea that the laws of nature may be slanted towards life, even
if not contradicting the letter of Darwinism, certainly offends its spirit”.
This book by a non-expert on biological systems lacks proper depth and appeal.
This is only recommended to those who want to learn the theories occupying the
extremes of probability.
The book is recommended.
Rating: 2 Star
No comments:
Post a Comment