Life Without Genes Book

If life started with genes, then hominid tool making may as well have started with the Model T Ford. Genetic processes are too sophisticated to have arisen spontaneously. So how did we come to be? Where must we look in our search for the beginnings of life? Adrian Woolfson is less interested in examining every theory than in exploring and explaining the whole notion of self-organisation: how the simplest self-organisers--the droplet of fat, say, that adopts a spherical shape in water--might give rise to living complexities. On the way, he offers a lucid and entertaining account of genetic processes, their importance--and their limitations--in making us what we are. Woolfson takes a mathematical approach to his subject. From a mathematical perspective, "living creatures are symbols which stand for their underlying mathematical edifices". So far, so dry: but Woolfson leaves us in no doubt as to what this implies: " ... packed alongside the small collection of crocodile gene kit boxes that have ... experienced the thrill of life and tasted blood ... is a much larger collection ... Crocodiles the size of tadpoles, winged crocodiles, tree-climbing crocodiles or crocodiles with elephant tusks and tiger stripes." Might DNA and genetic processes themselves be superseded? Woolfson's account ends on a speculative note. Life Without Genes is ground-up explanation of the first water. From Airfix kit-inspired, just-so stories to lucid descriptions of the work of the mathematician Ilya Prigogine, Woolfson is a virtuoso in full command of extraordinary material. --Simon IngsRead More