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Title: Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils by J. William Schopf ISBN: 0-691-08864-0 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.42 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A good read for nonscientist and scientists alike
Comment: I enjoyed reading this book. It was non-technical enough for a non-palentoligist like myself to understand, and compelling enough to create an earnest desire to turn the next page.
I was a bit troubled by some errors. For example, Schopf mentioned that little children at play sometimes feel a stitch in their side, a condition he ascribed to a build up of lactic acid. Even first-year exercise physiology majors know this to be untrue. (One proof is that people who are incapable of producing lactic acid can still feel this pain). Another is when he says that 10 to the 47th power is rouglhy half of 10 to the 80th. These are both minor points I know, but when I read basic mistakes in a science book, I wonder about the validity statements of which I have no previous knowledge.
However, I enjoyed the concepts and the rendering of the topics, especially the section on radioactive dating techniques and the "Sagan-esk" chapter on life on Mars.
A worthwhile read.
Rating: 3
Summary: Quick Course In 3.5 Billion Years Of Evolution
Comment: If you want to learn about the subject of paleobiology, the history of early life on earth and the hunt for life's origins, read this book. It's not a quick read, Tom Clancy type novel and will take a bit of effort, but it is effort well spent. Author J. William Schopf manages to intelligibly cover the first 3.5 billion years of the history of life on earth and how it has been discovered in only a couple of hundred pages. To make sure he doesn't loose his audience Schopf provides help with the basics by inserting charts and digressions in which he explains the necessary technical language and background facts needed by the lay reader to understand the big picture story. Although the book should be quite satisfying to someone with a scientific bent, non-technical readers with just a little perseverance will read and enjoy this book because the story Schopf tells is fascinating.
Imagine: life begins only a short time after the earth is formed out of the solar nebula, but changes little for hundreds of millions of years. Were those first forms of life plants or animals? Be prepared for the surprise answer.
Very early life consisted of one-cell organisms. What did the first forms of life visible to the unaided eye look like and where did they live? Once again, be prepared to be surprised.
How did scientists ever find fossils of these one celled organisms amidst the millions of square miles of rocks on the earth's surface? The answer has something to do with fishing.
These answers and much, much more await the reader.
The book is not perfect. There is an over-long chapter on the possibility of life on Mars and a little too much about the rivalries between scientists, a subject which deserves it's own separate treatment. But the fascination of the story and the clear, matter of fact style of presentation make this a must read for anyone interested in the early history of life.
Rating: 5
Summary: Surpised about how much new information has been learned.
Comment: Wow. I am surprised at how much has been learned about the early phases of life's development since I last formally studied paleontology. One of my favorite areas of study was invertebrate and early life forms. At the time only a modest amount was known about stromatalites and cyanobacteria. The trace fossils of the soft bodied, multicellular, Ediacaran fauna were known but were considered "late" in geologic and biologic terms. The Burgess Shale community, made famous by Gould's "Wonderful Life" in the late '80s, was known, but the organisms were confusing and many have since been restudied and reclassified. Having been a leading actor in the field of microfossils and early bacterial life forms, Schopf puts everything into perspective in his book, making it virtually a history of research into the topic of life's beginnings.
Cradle of Life begins, as such books so often do, with a brief synopsis of Darwin and his theory of evolution, including most critically, its early problems. Thereafter Schopf begins a veritable "who's who" of early paleontology, giving short professional biographies of those who worked in the field as early as the 19th century. He points out where promising leads were suppressed by virtue of the lesser standing of the individual proposing them, and misleading theories given credence because they were proposed by someone of powerful academic credentials. Some of the tales are impressive object lessons in how things can go wrong for human reasons and why science ultimately "gets it right in the end."
One of the more interesting topics the author confronts is how our recent advances in the field of paleontology might help determine whether life exists or has ever existed elsewhere. The author provides an interesting perspective on the Mars meteorite "life forms" that shows how easily it is to be lead astray by high hopes, and how space research scientists can benefit by a familiarity with modern precepts applicable to early life studies on this planet.
The book goes into great detail about the discovery of early life, what forms evidence takes, how it can be mistaken, what information is derived from study of the remains, and what indirect evidence tells us about the early earth. It also discusses how life might have evolved from non-life, how it managed to get started so early, how the atmosphere changed and how that change affected the diversity of earth's biomass. For those who are only casually interested in the topic of fossils, this book might be a little too much information. I love this kind of stuff, but I could certainly see how others might find it incredibly boring. I doubt that those in junior high would find it rewarding, but those in senior high might have enough science background to understand and enjoy it. Certainly for anyone fascinated with science and by how paleontology works, this book will be right up your alley.
FOR THOSE WRITING PAPERS: in paleontology, biochemistry, biology, evolution, and history of science, this book would make an excellent bibliographic entry as well as a good source of topics. One might discuss how science works, how "authority figures" can derail even the best ideas, how science like other human endeavors are affected by culture, expectations, what is "known" already, etc., how progress in technology has allowed us to learn more about the distant past, how the tendency to specialize can delay progress, how a recent trend toward consilience (for which see Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by E. O. Wilson) might lead to more rapid advances in science. One might compare the work by Nick Lane (see Oxygen: The Molecule that made the World) or by G. Cairns-Smith (Seven Clues to the Origin of Life) to this one to see how their perspectives are the same and how they differ. What do you believe is ultimately supported by the data?
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Title: Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H. Knoll ISBN: 0691009783 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution by J. William Schopf ISBN: 0520233913 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Early Life by Lynn Margulis, Michael F. Dolan, AAOS ISBN: 0763714631 Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It by Gabrielle Walker ISBN: 0609609734 Publisher: Crown Publishers Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History by Peter Douglas Ward, Peter D. Ward ISBN: 0670030945 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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