THE ORIGINS OF LIFE BOOK REVIEW

THE AUTHORS:
John Maynard Smith was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist known for applying game theory (the idea that in nature the best option always occurs) to evolution. He died in April 2004. Ers Szathmry is a Hungarian theoretical evolutionary biologist. He is famous for mathematically describing early evolution, and for drawing out the general framework to discuss the major transitions in evolution.

THE BOOK
On its blurb, The Origins of Life is said to be written in clear, jargon-free form. It still isnt an easy book to understand. This is understandable; biology requires a clear understanding of many scientific terms and concepts. This book speeds through the different theories and problems regarding the theorisation of evolution and its explanation. It goes as far as it can to explain the perfectness, as such, of our natural world today, until it cannot continue to avoid saying that, in a way, it just does. This book presented me with in-depth ideas about evolution, which I neither agree with nor disagree with. It starts of zooming in right to the molecular level of our DNA, explaining the relevance of the base pairs and how they affect the hereditary mechanism and can have a surprising impact. It questions what we consider to be a complex organism, and it even analyses the difference between information and data, and this differences relevance to evolutionary biology. In the second chapter, the book introduces the reader to concepts of cellular multiplication, with reference to symbiosis and epigenesis. It theorises the reasons for the existence and development of the cell and the chromosome. It explains the origins of sex (i.e. gender) using game theory (within maths, game theory reflects calculated circumstances [games] where a persons success is based upon the choices of others. Rather than choice as such, Maynard and Szathmry refer to random occurrences directly affecting other occurrences.) The Origins of Life was an interesting read. Because (after putting my mind to it) I could understand what the book was telling me, yet simultaneously learning about new ideas, I was interested in what they had to say. In some chapters, the book presents you with facts and opinions you would already have heard of (e.g. the advantages of sex to population), but it gives you an entirely different interpretation of it, one you wouldnt usually be familiar with. The final chapter of this book was by far my favourite. It provided me with their opinion, which I think is a decent explanation, of the existence of language. It gives views about how we learn language (for example, trial and error, or an instinctive knowledge zone hard-wired into our brains due to genetics). It uses explanations of William Paleys designer argument for the existence of the eye (a theory which it stubbornly

Janan Sathiendran

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discredits) to explain the genetic stages of evolution that also cause language to evolve. It explains why language cannot be hard-wired it must be learnt as a child. By using genetics to explain language, it allowed me to understand the possible scientific explanation behind the existence of the thing we take most for granted, and never think about. One thing the book does not explain is why the human language is the most evolved other organisms dont communicate as sophisticatedly as we do. I would hazard a guess at saying that this is the work of generations of evolution the genetic mutations that resulted in more and more complex language and understanding capabilities of the pre-human brain, and the mutations that caused our ancestors to think more rationally before acting in comparison to other organisms instinctive behaviour these organisms would have survived over the others. However, I did enjoy this book, and would recommend it to anyone deeply interested in biology. It would, of course, be more preferable in laymans terms. But its proposition of new arguments and concepts regarding the evolution of species, on both a cellular and global level, make it a hard book for keen biologists to put down.

Janan Sathiendran

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03/09/2012