Universe in Creation: A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life

Gould, principal investigator at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, proposes a fascinating thesis about life’s emergence in this eloquent debut. He seeks to “make plausible the idea that life arises naturally from the laws of nature,” opposing the argument that life arose on Earth through random chance. In fluent prose, he covers the universe’s history from the Big Bang to life on Earth, building his case not as one would in a scientific journal, “but rather as it might be presented in a trial.” Encountering striking analogies along the way, the reader learns about convergent evolution, which “gives the appearance that life is following some kind of script,” and the Mandelbrot pattern, produced from a mathematical set of numbers, which reveals ever-increasing levels of complexity when magnified. If life isn’t accidental, Gould argues, one should expect “similar forms, functions, and behaviors [to] keep bubbling up, irrepressibly” in the same environment, as they do. His thought-provoking closing arguments highlight three observations of life: “that it is extremely robust across billions of years, that it is extremely diverse across millions of species, and that it is ubiquitous across the planet’s many environments.” The idea that “life seems to belong here” will surely raise skeptics’ hackles, but readers will appreciate Gould’s erudition and his new way of looking at the universe. [em](May) [/em]