Skip to main content

This is Life - Christophe Galfard *****

There have been some excellent books on the origins of life, notably Philip Ball's How Life Works and Henry Gee's A Very Short History of Life on Earth, taking distinctive approaches. The field might feel overcrowded - except Christophe Galfard managed to come along with a whole new, highly entertaining take on the project with a physicist's-eye-view.

We begin with evolution. An excellent example of Galfard's sideways take on the topic is the short chapter entitled 'Why alien fish don't fly'. This starts with the reader picturing themselves lying by a river in a forest clearing. A fish jumps out of the river... but doesn't swim towards the clouds, it drops back in. We then pivot to Aristotle dividing the universe into the bit with the Earth and the bit outside the Moon's orbit - and giving us the concept of natural laws (including that a jumping fish will drop back). Then Newton breaks Aristotle's barrier between Earthly things and the heavens, bringing everywhere into the aegis of all natural laws (including those alien fish). Finally, the section transitions into evolution by natural selection. It's mesmerising.

That's just one, four-page chapter of nine in the evolution section alone, each as scattergun and beguiling. We then get on to sections on extinction, the history of Earth, the structure of biological entities, domains of life and ideas on origins of life. All have the same mix of immersing the reader as a character and short chapters with distinct jumps of context. I can honestly say this is one of the most marmite-like (some will love it, some will hate it) books I've read.

I do have a couple of personal issues that admittedly won't be a problem for many readers. It's too long for me - I've never yet read a circa 500 page book that couldn't be usefully edited down a bit. And I sometimes found Galfard boundless enthusiastic mateyness, abruptness and rapid changes of context a little hard going. Quite often, for example, we get a sequence of ultra-short paragraphs, such as:

No nucleus.

Nothing.

Just a membrane with molecules inside.

Hundreds of thousands of molecules busy keeping that strange, simple cell alive.

This approach is central to the nature of the book, but I still have a bit too much British reserve not to find it occasionally grating. 

Even so, I can’t remember when I last enjoyed a biology book so much as a pure reading experience. Galfard brings to life his exploration of where we come from a species with remarkable storytelling.

Hardback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beyond Belief - Helen Pearson *****

Apparently it comes as a surprise to many that medicine was not particularly scientific until the end of the twentieth century (to be honest, it's no surprise to me - we had a GP who used homeopathy in the 90s). Instead it was based on anecdotal guidance - the kind of thing that appeared to work. Evidence-based medicine has since improved the field, trying where possible to base decisions on evidence, ideally based on randomised controlled trials. The first part of Helen Pearson's book covers this well - though I think it's by far the least interesting part of what we discover. Instead what's truly fascinating is the rest of it, looking at a wide range of other fields where evidence was rarely properly used and that are only now starting to dip a toe in the water. These include social policy, policing, conservation, business and education. The main part of the book gives us examples of how bad these areas have been in terms of basing decisions on what's always been ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Random Universe - Andrew Jaffe *****

This is an absolutely fascinating book for anyone interested in the way that science really works, bearing in mind the difficulties of having to base our models and theories on induction. Andrew Jaffe introduces the difficulties we face when trying to take a scientific view because largely we are dependent on induction: predicting the future from what has previously been observed. He explores what probability is, the two key ways of looking at it (frequentist and Bayesian) and how scientists use (or misuse it) to work out the implications of their experiments for hypotheses. This is then expanded into looking at the nature of scientific models and the philosophy of science before heading out to entropy, quantum randomness and attempting to achieve meaningful cosmology with its potential dearth of evidence.  The topic might sound a little dry, but in fact Jaffe does it with good humour and a very readable style. For example, he uses measuring his daughter's height by making marks on...
Post a Comment
Read more

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune )   underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...
Post a Comment
Read more