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A fascinating and poetic synthesis of current ideas on the emergence
of our biofriendly cosmos and its destiny. James Gardner's Selfish Biocosm
hypothesis envisions a novel perspective on humankind's role in the universe.
Sir Martin Rees, UK Astronomer Royal,
author of Our Final Hour and winner of the
2001 Gruber Prize in Cosmology
James Gardner tackles the biggest of the Big Questions head on: Why is
the universe bio-friendly? This stunning fact cannot be shrugged aside
as an incidental quirk of nature, but deserves a deep and satisfying explanation.
Gardner skillfully interweaves some of the most provocative ideas at the
forefront of science to outline a possible explanation—and how extraordinary
his explanation turns out to be!
Paul Davies, Professor of Natural Philosophy
in the
Australian Center for Astrobiology, author of
How to Build a Time Machine, The Fifth Miracle, The
Cosmic
Blueprint,
The Mind of God and other popular science books
and winner of the 1995 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion
A magnificent one-stop account of the history of life. From the beginning
of the universe to its end, Jim Gardner tells the entire story in a spell-binding
account of how we got here and where we’re going.
John Casti, mathematician, author of The
Cambridge Quintet
and The One, True, Platonic Heaven, member
of the External
Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute and former Executive Editor
of Complexity, the journal of the Santa Fe Institute
If there is no God—no outside transcendent being who designed and
created the cosmos and life—from whence did it all come and how
are we to find meaning in an apparently meaningless universe? The answer
is derived from science, specifically the new sciences of chaos and complexity
theory, that attempt to formulate natural explanations for these apparent
supernatural phenomena. In this creative consilience of cosmology, evolutionary
biology, and complexity theory, James Gardner courageously speculates
about how it all could have come about and what it could possibly all
mean using only the tools of science. Biocosm is breathtaking in its scope
and its subject—the cosmos and everything in it—is far grander
than the anthropocentric proscenium on which theistic world views play
themselves out.
Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic
magazine,
monthly columnist for Scientific American, and
author of Why People Believe Weird Things
James Gardner carefully reviews all the best ideas on how to understand
the cosmos’s apparent biological imperative and then puts forth
a new, and strikingly dramatic, suggestion of his own, one that makes
use of the exciting field of complexity science. He is well qualified
to do this, with training in theoretical biology and philosophy, and an
impressive trail of published, scholarly work in complexity theory. His
arguments are lucid, and his prose is elegant and engaging. But what will
most strike the reader of this book is the fact that Gardner is not going
after small fish. The subject he is wrestling with is as large, as important,
as they come: What is the purpose of our universe and the life it has
spawned? He tells us how the fact that the universe was “made for
life” can be ultimately understood by science and need not forever
be the domain of theology or metaphysics.
Ever since Newton, scientists have tried to understand existence by discovering
its underlying rules. The result has been a massive edifice of natural
law, and biology has been seen as a consequence of the universe’s
construction, rather than an instigator. Only on Earth’s surface,
where life has molded the seas, the continents, and even the atmosphere,
is biology thought to have had an important role in shaping physical conditions—the
so-called Gaia hypothesis. But Gardner has taken Gaia to its furthest
conceivable magnitude: extending the role and influence of life to the
stars and beyond.
There is little doubt that his ideas will change yours.
Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute
