Heavenly Insemination Hugh Montefiore
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496 Spring Books Supplement Nature Vol. 296 8 April 1982 Heavenly insemination Hugh Montefiore I SUPPOSE that it is no more strange that an Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. By some sense, the origin of life appears at the outstanding biologist such as Francis Crick Francis Crick. Pp.192. UK ISBN moment to be almost a miracle. should give his views on cosmology than 0-356-07736-5; US ISBN 0-671-25562-2. I wonder, however, whether Crick's view that a distinguished astronomer such as (Macdonald/Simon and Schuster: 1982.) will continue to prevail that "it seems Fred Hoyle should pronounce on £7 .95, $13.95. almost impossible to give any numerical molecular biology. To an outsider, these value to the probability of what seems a are both welcome pointers towards an inte decide how life originated''. rather unlikely sequence of events'' leading gration of the sciences. So perhaps it was A small measure of support for Directed to the emergence of life. In· any case the not outrageously odd to give Crick's book Panspermia is seen in the almost uniform really fundamental problems remain to be to a theologian for review; but he must nature of the genetic code. Some factors, solved; how DNA, RNA and enzymes were walk warily on alien territory. however, Crick does not consider; for originally formed, and how the first cell, Crick writes ostensibly to answer Enrico example, the origin of some bacteria with with its reproductive mechanism, came Fermi's famous question, "If there are properties which seem unlikely to have into existence. intelligent beings in the galaxy, Whether all the dense and why aren't they here?", and he sober argumentation of Crick assesses the hypothesis known as can be validated, I am not in a Directed Panspermia, that is to position to judge. Such matters say, a variant of Arrhenius's as available environments for life nineteenth-century theory, modi to emerge elsewhere, the length fied in that Crick considers of time involved, the mode of whether life was deliberately travel and the duration of the planted on Earth. His book has voyage cannot be more than nothing in common with Hoyle's scientific speculation. Crick's views propounded in Evolution scientific writing is lucid, from Space (Dent, 1981). Crick, magisterial and suitably cautious for example, does not seriously ("seems to be", "apparently", question whether the period "so far as we know"). But in needed for life to emerge by Chapter 15 ("Why Should We natural process requires a time Care?") the tone abruptly alters. span longer than the age of the Crick the Nobel Prize winner has Earth. Nonetheless he seems given way to Crick the human somewhat sensitive to his wife's being. He reminds me here of criticism that his work may seem those days in Cambridge when he more like science fiction than a offered a cash prize for the best Nobel Prize winner's critique of a secular use of a college chapel. scientific theory. Perhaps for this When it comes to religious reason Crick takes the oppor beliefs, gone are the quali tunity (as his title suggests) to give fications and dogmatic certainty his view on life itself, its origin takes over. "Most modern and nature. Written with envi scientists do not subscribe to any able simplicity and free of of them" (has he carried out a abstruse technicalities, it is as a scientific survey?); and result devoid of any annotation. The plain fact is that the myths of The answer that Crick gives to yesterday which our forebears Enrico Fermi is that life on Earth could well evolved to meet our earthly conditions. regarded not as myths but as the living truth, have originated elsewhere in the Galaxy, And it is surprising that he does not have collapsed, and while we are uncertain and that there has been time enough for mention the microfossils which suggest whether we can successfully use any of the intelligent beings to evolve elsewhere in a that eukaryotes existed at least as early as remaining fragments, they are too rickety to suitable environment and to have prokaryotes, although the initial gap of a stand as an organized interlocking body of beliefs [italics mine]. despatched prokaryotic and eukaryotic billion years means that we do not know microorganisms by rocket to this planet, how either evolved. As for the supposedly Francis Crick's personal convictions will whence life here may have developed. random emergence of life in the prebiotic doubtless be read with respect; but he Crick, however, admits that this theory of broth, Crick writes: would put us in his debt if he would give Directed Panspermia, although plausible, some explanation of their logical con It is impossible for us to decide whether the suffers from extreme paucity of evidence. origin of life here was a very rare event or one nection with the natural sciences of which He calls it "premature". Crick the human almost certain to have occurred; he is such a pre-eminent practitioner. being affirms: "Once the scale and nature Wherein, for example, lies a scientist's of the galaxy is appreciated, it is intolerable yet elsewhere he writes of it as "an infinite "almost boundless optimism concerning not to know whether we are its sole inhabi ly rare event" and even admits that his ability to forge a new set of beliefs"? It tants"; but Crick the scientist is cautious: an honest man, armed with the knowledge might seem to some, that the dreadful "I cannot myself see just how we shall ever available to us now, could only state that, in threat of thermonuclear war overhanging © 1982 Nature Publishing Group Nature Vol. 296 8 April 1982 Spring Books Supplement 497 the civilized world, with one-fifth of all being, so as to make possible the eventual quite similar new and gentler world-views, scientists at work on defence contracts, emergence of Homo sapiens (whether or that do away with the body-mind should fill us with almost boundless not ours is the only form of intelligent life dichotomy and the idea of the control of pessimism. Granted, however, "the in the Universe). These "coincidences" nature in favour of an ecological tremendous success of science, especially in certainly occurred. They may be due to perspective in which the distinctions the last hundred years", what is the logical complex sequences of random and between subject and object, value and fact connection between scientific explanation meaningless events. But they are also are deliberately blurred. Both authors are and ultimate meaning, or between compatible with divine providence. Crick deeply impressed by what they see as a scientific knowledge and ultimate belief? tells us that in considering the origin of life convergence with Eastern philosophy (Yin Or again, what is the scientific basis for the a "gut reaction" is likely to be superficial Yang, Zen Buddhism) of the ideas in phrase "outmoded religious beliefs"? For or misleading. Not all intuitions however quantum physics; both condemn the example, is a scientific evaluation of the deserve to be described in such pejorative excesses of reductionism in favour of origin of life compatible with a theistic terms. Spiritual insights are not to be holism; both write for the general reader concept of creation? Readers may wish despised as adequate explanations to such (otherwise I would not dare to review them) that Crick had here argued his case rather questions which, despite Dr Crick's almost but in a scholarly fashion, with detailed than merely stated his conclusion. Seen boundless optimism, seem to transcend the notes and references; both regard Gregory from our anthropic viewpoint, a fields of scientific investigation. D Bateson'sMind and Nature (Dutton, 1979) remarkable series of "coincidences" must as the most seminal modern work; both have taken place onwards from the initial have the same critically respectful attitude explosion which brought the cosmos into Hugh Montefiore is Bishop of Birmingham. to Freud, while preferring the development of his ideas by Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Ronald Laing and Herbert Marcuse. Finally, both are centrally concerned with describing the misery of the modern world with its violence, poverty, consumerism, Wholes and parts, meaning and mechanism alienation, inflation, drug dependence, Marie Jahoda lunatic arms race and ecological destructiveness. In this last respect they The Reenchantment of the World. By the notion of shifting paradigms are, of course, not alone. In contrast to the Morris Berman. Pp.353. Hbk ISBN fashionable. Meadows' Limits of Growth (Universe 0-8014-1347-0; pbk ISBN 0-8014-9225-4. To the extent that there is agreement Books, 1972), with which they have (Cornell University Press: 1982.) Hbk among these authors and with others who otherwise much in common, they are $43.10, £24.95; pbk $11.10, £5.95. The write in the same key, all of this amounts to cautiously optimistic because they see the Turning Point: Science, Society And The a clarification, perhaps a redefinition, of new scientific world-view already emerging Rising Culture. By Fritjof Capra. Pp.464. the aims of science: no longer is science in North American culture. US ISBN 0-671-24423-X; UK ISBN conceived as cumulatively proceeding to Differences between these two books are 0-7045-3054-6. (Simon & Schuster I the establishment of ultimate truth about a largely matters of emphasis. Capra, a Wildwood House:1982.) $17.50, £9.50. finite number of laws that govern a finite physicist, is particularly good in describing universe; no longer can science make the development of physics from Newton THE revolution in the basic assumptions of apodictic statements about ontological to the present and is careful to point out physics brought about by Einstein and by essence since the laws of nature are not which of the modern theories he adheres to the development of quantum theory has simply out there but anchored in the minds are still controversial, for example, Chew's repercussions far beyond that discipline.