BOOKS – Evolving Theories About the Origin of Life

By SAM COALE Special to The Journal

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GENESIS: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origins, by Robert M. Hazen. Joseph Henry Press. 325 pages. $27.95.

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“The greatest mystery of life’s origin lies in the unknown transition from a more-or-less static geochemical world with lots of interesting organic molecules to an evolving biochemical world in which collections of molecules self-replicate, compete, and thereby evolve.”

This is perhaps the heart of Robert Hazen’s fascinating new book on the origins of life, emergence theory, Darwin, intelligent design and a plethora of pyrovates, proteins, polycyclic compounds, hopanes, RNA, DNA, hydrocarbons and amino acids.

Hazen, a scientist and professor of astrobiological research and earth science, is very much a bottom-up man, a mineral man who believes that systems emerge and evolve into higher levels of complexity from earth’s “primordial soup” to molecules to cells.

The trick lies in trying to identify that first step.

In clear, careful prose Hazen takes us into laboratories, meticulously describes experiments, offers theories, supports them, and then questions them. His process mirrors science’s own, step by step from details to educated guesses about larger designs, pointing out possible pitfalls along the way..

Exactly what is life? Something must grow, reproduce and evolve, and the process is incredibly selective, using water, an energy source, and various chemicals. But definitions grow slippery and elusive.

When something’s isolated in a lab, how can we tell if it’s a mere fragment or episode as opposed to a step in an inexorable sequence? Does the very isolation of the experiment render the process suspect? Is emergence a product of our own hindsight, making linear what may not be linear at all, or does it actually exist in nature?

“The history of science has been punctuated by the overthrow of the obvious, [but] does the universe hold levels of emergence beyond individual consciousness?” Do sand, ants, galaxies and human consciousness all emerge in a similar manner?

Hazen debunks “intelligent design,” the idea that God exists in the as-yet undiscovered gaps, for it “ignores the power of emergence to transform natural systems without conscious intervention.” He doesn’t see this as anti-religious, and I agree. But a recent Pew Poll said that 42 percent of Americans believe in such design and agree that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”

Before we submit to raising a nation of scientific illiterates — can we really afford to do that? — we should read books like Hazen’s. He presents evidence clearly and leaves mystery, for me the core of religious faith, intact.