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 End of Bias, A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias
by Jessica Nordell -
The Double Helix
by James Watson -
Good Natured
by Frans de Waal -
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
by David Quammen -
Possible Worlds
by J.B.S. Haldane