Steps towards Life: A Perspective on Evolution

✍ Scribed by Manfred Eigen, Ruthild Winkler-Oswatitsch

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 176
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This fascinating work, co-authored by a Nobel Prize winning scientist, extends Darwin's ideas on natural selection back into evolutionary time and applies them to the molecular "fossil record" that preceded the origin of life. Using the techniques of molecular biology, the book demonstrates that life on Earth is the inevitable result of certain chance events that took place in the unique history of our planet. Further, we can not only precisely formulate the laws governing the emergence of life, but we can test them under controlled laboratory conditions. In fact, the authors show how it is perfectly possible to construct evolutionary accelerators--machines which optimize the conditions for certain events and which can be used to demonstrate their theoretical conclusions in laboratory experiments. The book is organized in three sections. The first 10 chapters form the main text. Each is introduced by quotations from Thomas Mann's classic novel The Magic Mountain, a work that is deeply concerned with the themes presented here in scientific form. In the second part, important biological ideas form the themes of 15 colorfully illustrated 'vignettes," which can be read separately or as elaborations on the main text. The final section summarizes key events in the history of molecular biology and includes an extensive glossary of technical terms. Written for a wide audience, and already highly successful in the original German edition, this book brings fresh insight to the search for evolutionary origins. In addition to general readers, who will find it clear and accessible, the book will interest students and scientists in biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, and evolution.

✦ Table of Contents

Front cover......Page 1
Title page......Page 2
Copyright......Page 3
Preface......Page 4
Contents......Page 9
PART I 'What was life?' - Theme and variations......Page 11
1. Life is historical reality......Page 12
2. Can the historical origin of life be reconstructed?......Page 13
3. Complexity as a physical probleIn......Page 18
4. How does information arise?......Page 21
5. Life is a dynamic state of matter organized by information......Page 24
6. Is there a principle of order in biological systems?......Page 26
7. Evolution means the optimization of functional efficiency......Page 31
8. What are the natural prerequisites for the origin of life?......Page 40
9. The ladder of organizational levels......Page 48
10. Unceasing creation......Page 57
PART II Vignettes from molecular biology......Page 59
1. Sequence comparison (statistical geometry)......Page 60
2. Sequence comparison (examples)......Page 65
5. Structural forms of the nucleic acids......Page 75
6. The proteins: molecular purveyors of cellular function......Page 79
7. Instruction: copying, reading, and translation......Page 82
8. The genetic code......Page 84
9. Quasi-species: the cloning of mutant distributions......Page 86
10. Quasi-species: the structure of mutant distributions......Page 89
11. Experiments in evolution......Page 94
12. Sequence space......Page 99
13. Viral infection......Page 108
14. Hypercycles and compartments......Page 114
15. Recombinant DNA......Page 122
PART III Résumé, Epilogue, Notes, Glossary......Page 126
Résumé: Darwin is dead - long live Darwin! ......Page 127
Notes and literature on the history of molecular biology......Page 134
Glossary......Page 147
Index......Page 172