Recommendations from our site
“It’s speculating about alternative biologies. The problem is that we have just one example of biology, the one that happened on Earth. Everything on Earth—from a fungal spore to a blue whale, to a redwood tree—is the same biological experiment. We don’t know what a different biological experiment would lead to, or what the creatures and life forms that emerge would look like. If you vary from the one example we know, you’re immediately in the realm of pure speculation. It’s a tricky business because we simply don’t know. I enjoyed the book. I did have a little asterisk in my head as I read it saying, ‘Wait a minute! We don’t know that that could happen or that it would be like that!’” Read more...
Chris Impey, Scientist
Our most recommended books
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The Elegant Universe
by Brian Greene -
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
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Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
by Merlin Sheldrake -
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot -
Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity
by Carlo Rovelli -
Voyage of the Beagle
by Charles Darwin