Werner Ebeling

As with all books on the origin of life the author's theories are highly speculative. The reason for the two Star review is more for the books flaws of other sorts. First, it suffers from poor organization. The authors periodically wander off topic, sometimes for pages st a time. Secondly, there are pages and pages of math with integrals, derivatives and partial derivatives with often minimal explanation, and then to top it off the authors have the temerity to repeatedly use variations of the phrase, "it is obvious that . . ." Such things are rarely obvious to anyone but the authors. On the plus side, the authors do make a valiant attempt at breathing new life into what is essentially a rehashing of origin arguments that have long been considered unrealistic at best. Fortunately, in a few spots they do admit the current insurmountable difficulties in producing a compelling origin of life model.… (meer)