Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions Of Evolution (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
Whether you accept the theory of evolution or not, one thing that puzzles all who dare think about life is its complexity. It certainly perplexed me. This book is the antidote to that condition.Nick Lane's descriptions of the theories behind the evolution of movement, photosynthesis, respiration, etc., are not condescending. What impressed me most is the use of natural language to express scientific theories unequivocally. This is encouraging. It's the kind of communication which is vital in ensuring an educated public. This kind of prose should be adopted in the school classroom. I don't think such complex ideas could be communicated with an amateur audience in a better way. (I learnt a few new things I didn't learn in biology class myself.)The only thing that looked as if it might lessen my admiration of this work is the proposal of pan-psychism (the hypothesis that consciousness is embedded in matter, which are as of yet undiscovered properties) as a solution to the problem of qualia—the subjective feelings such as pain, happiness, sadness, etc. It has been suggested by others that matter is imbued by a mystical property from which qualia arises. It was an unexpected ghost from the Land of Woo, where David Ike and Graham Hancock indulge in a glass of Quackary on the sands of Wishful Thinking. It seems out of place in a book about science.Explaining away qualia by putting the problem on physics isn't good enough. It's too parsimonious. For this reason, I would agree with Daniel Dennett: why can't neurones produce 'qualia'? (It seems that the reason why Daniel Dennet asked this question was ignored by Lane. It wasn't an attempt to dismiss the problem of qualia. It was a retort to claims that qualia and consciousness cannot be explained scientifically.)I should be more prepared to entertain an opposing view, however. I'm supposed to be a sceptic after all. For all we know matter could have some yet unknown property waiting to be discovered; a property which will magically solve the problem of consciousness. As the author puts it, natural selection only operates on properties of proteins; it seems more likely that qualia correlates with a specific arrangement of neurones; natural selection favouring increasingly effective neural circuits.Maybe I'm being too harsh on the author. He followed up his section on pan-psychism with an opposing and more realistic hypothesis. If anything, he's provided a biography of thought (he does this consistently with every evolutionary invention. Throughout the book he has described the development of theories with the arrival of new data). The mind is strengthened by its opposition; to paraphrase Aristotle: an intellect is marked by the ability to entertain an idea without accepting it.All in all the book reverberates two important intellectual lessons. First, we must be ready to change our opinions in light of new evidence. Lane takes a firm position against dogmatism. The second is that the solutions to problems are rarely intuitive. For me, this book was fantastic. It contains more biochemistry than most people would probably care to learn, but I enjoyed it. Highlights for me include: reasons the primordial soup isn't the best candidate for the origins of life, the mind-boggling complexity of cells, details of photosynthesis, enormous differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, and the huge costs and benefits of warm-bloodedness. If you enjoy biochemistry and find life to be utterly fascinating, you'll enjoy this well-written book.
What do You think about Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions Of Evolution (2009)?
Nick Lane's best book so far - a fantastic read. Should be in every school and college!
—Dazia
This book will blow your mind. Repeatedly. I am still recovering.
—Bethany
"Again, all known conifers are sexual." fascinating read so far
—jess
An important book about evolution. Very cleverly written.
—cakexthexcat
