Fitness of the cosmos for life : biochemistry and fine-tuning /
edited by John Barrow [and others].
- Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2008.
- 1 online resource (xxiii, 501 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
- Cambridge astrobiology ; 2 .
- Cambridge astrobiology ; 2. .
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
The improbability of life / Locating "fitness" and L.J. Henderson / Revisiting The fitness of the environment / Is fine-tuning remarkable? / Complexity in context : the metaphysical implications of evolutionary theory / Tuning fine-tuning / Fitness and the cosmic environment / The interconnections between cosmology and life / Chemistry and sensitivity / Fitness of the cosmos for the origin and evolution of life : from biochemical fine-tuning to the Anthropic Principle / How biofriendly is the universe? / Tuning into the frequencies of life : a roar of static or a precise signal? / Life on Earth : the role of proteins / Protein-based life as an emergent property of matter : the nature and biological fitness of the protein folds / Could an intelligent alien predict Earth's biochemistry? / Would Venus evolve on Mars? : bioenergetic constraints, allometric trends, and the evolution of life-history invariants / Creating a perspective for comparing / Fine-tuning and interstellar chemistry / Framing the question of fine-tuning for intermediary metabolism / Coarse-tuning in the origin of life? / Plausible lipid-like peptides : prebiotic molecular self-assembly in water / Evolution revisited by inorganic chemists / George M. Whitesides -- Everett Mendelsohn -- Owen Gingerich -- John F. Haught -- Edward T. Oakes -- Ernan McMullin -- Paul C.W. Davies -- Mario Livio -- John D. Barrow -- Julian Chela-Flores -- Christian de Duve -- Simon Conway Morris -- Jayanath R. Banavar and Amos Maritan -- Michael J. Denton -- Stephen J. Freeland -- Jeffrey P. Schloss -- Albert Eschenmoser -- William Klemperer -- Eric Smith and Harold J. Morowitz -- Guy Ourisson -- Shuguang Zhang -- R.J.P. Williams and J.J.R. Fraústo da Silva.
This highly interdisciplinary 2007 book highlights many of the ways in which chemistry plays a crucial role in making life an evolutionary possibility in the universe. Cosmologists and particle physicists have often explored how the observed laws and constants of nature lie within a narrow range that allows complexity and life to evolve and adapt. Here, these anthropic considerations are diversified in a host of new ways to identify the most sensitive features of biochemistry and astrobiology. Celebrating the classic 1913 work of Lawrence J. Henderson, The Fitness of the Environment for Life, this book looks at the delicate balance between chemistry and the ambient conditions in the universe that permit complex chemical networks and structures to exist. It will appeal to a broad range of scientists, academics, and others interested in the origin and existence of life in our universe.