The Reason Why: The Miracle of Life on Earth by John Gribbin (PDF)

Description

Does one planet really matter among the immensity of the Cosmos? John Gribbin is here to persuade us that it does. In this ground-breaking and provocative new book Gribbin argues that we owe our existence to the impact of a ‘supercomet’ with Venus 600 million years ago. But this is only part of the story, just one of the astronomical and geophysical reasons why the Earth is special. For the first time, he makes the link between the whole series of cosmic events that have affected the Earth and given rise to our intelligent civilization – a civilization, Gribbin argues, that is unique within our Milky Way Galaxy. Even if other Earths are common, and life itself may be common, the kind of intelligent, technological civilization that has emerged on Earth occurs only here. If humankind can survive the present environmental crises, the whole of the galaxy may become our home. And if not, our demise may be an event of literally universal significance.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is an interesting book, if only because it holds an opposing view. Gribbin boldly argues that, although simple life may be common in the universe, the chance of any other technological civilisation existing in our galaxy is vanishingly small. Michael Hart calculated that it would take a civilisation that is only slightly more advanced than our own, a mere one eight-thousandth of the age of the galaxy to traverse most of it. So, as Fermi put it, “If they are there, why aren’t they here?” [before us, that is]. Gribbin then sums up all the things that are special about our place and time in the Milky Way that made our existence possible. Because of some of his best arguments, the Fermi paradox, the Galactic Habitable Zone, properties of our Sun, I am convinced that there may be less technological civilisations in our galaxy then I previously thought. I am not convinced however that we are the only one. As it happens, a lot of the things that Gribbin sums up as being special have to do with our home having been stable for long enough, since it took life on our world 4 billion years to come up with a technological civilisation. But what if this stability is exactly the reason that it took so long? Maybe it is the other way around and it is instability that accelerates evolution. On page 192, Gribbin himself argues that around 5 million years ago, succeeding Ice Ages acted as a pacemaker of human evolution. The pattern repeated for millions of years and it selected on each turn for intelligence and adaptability: “We are here, because of the unusual pattern of climatic changes.” Well, if stability can be taken out of the equation up to a point, we are left with an awful lot of “unusual patterns” in our galaxy. Still, I feel that most of Gribbins arguments are valid. I found this book an interesting and easy read. I liked it.

⭐Gribbin points out that many factors about Earth make it “just right” for life and that a little variation of some of these factors would make life impossible on Earth. Factors such as the position of the Solar System in the Milky Way, the size and the age of the Sun, the presence of heavy elements in the Solar System cloud that Earth and other planets were made from, the distance between Earth and the Sun, the composition of Earth, the Earth’s internal molten Iron, the size of Earth and its gravitational force , the Earth’s spin and its rotational angle, water on earth, tectonic movements on Earth, the presence of Moon and its stabilizing effect on Earth, the presence of Jupiter and its protective effect on Earth, and many, many other factors. These factors are presented in an interesting and progressive manner in the book in chapters with topics such as “What is so special about our place in the Milky Way?” or “What is so special about Earth?” and “What is so special about Us?”Gribbin points out that many of these factors are not norm but rather exceptions when we look at other planets. This makes the probability of having all these exceptional factors present in another place extremely low. So many factors have been “just right” on Earth for life to start and more importantly stayed right long enough to let the intelligent life to evolve.The only downside of the book to me is the absence of illustrations to show things such as order of events or internal structure of Earth and so forth.

⭐I enjoyed this book very much. I know that the author is an evolutionary thinker but he formulates a good argument for a divine plan for our unique planet.I couldnt have expressed it better myself if had tried. It is a facinating read & i like the author can only marvel at the amazing coincidences that brought us to this point. If there is a good God surely this is a good argument for God’s exquisite timing, super intelligence, creativity & benevolence. Thankfully this isnt the only world & universe in existence there is also the invisible substantial world which is a more amazing world than this one. As Jesus said in the Bible let us see with our internal eyes the true perspective on life & the universe & our unique place in the scheme of things.

⭐Gribbin is a reputable author and it is disappointing to find him making an unsuccessful effort, surely insincere, to convince readers that, as the subtitle says, there is a “Miracle of life on Earth”. Misleading assertions abound. We are told that “we may be one of the first, if not the first, intelligent civilisation in the Galaxy”. Whether any of the trillion or so stars in our galaxy have planets circling them which harbour intelligent life neither Gribbin nor anyone else can say; maybe millions or billions of those stars qualify. Still less can anyone say what beings are to be found on planets dependent on any of the trillion trlllion stars in other galaxies. He tells us he thinks that “the chance of any other technological civilization existing in the Milky Way …is vanishingly small. We are alone…” Very flattering for us readers, but nonsense all the same. Some of the reasoning borders on the childish. He refers to “examples in the real world today which suggest that the rise of the apes (or, at best, one kind of ape) to intelligence was far from a foregone conclusion”. This is apparently supposed to support the notion that the evolution of human beings was an extremely improbable event. He refers to the COROT-7b star as “not a likely home for life”. Gribbin seems unaware that the Kepler probe has found 68 earth-like planets around fewer than 1,000 stars which were examined; that points to the conclusion that there is an immense number of earth-like planets.This is a thoroughly disappointing work.

⭐As I read this, I kept wondering which crackpot political, social, or religious belief Gribbin was trying to support with this book. I say this because a book that comes to such counterintuitive conclusions without producing a single shred of actual fact to support any of them could not possibly have been written with the scientific method in mind. It’s basically “this is what I want you to believe; I hope you mistake this vast wall of text for real, actual evidence, since I don’t have any”.Not impressed at all!!

⭐This is a well written and highly readable account of the evolution of life on our planet which attempts to place this story within its cosmic context. John Gribbin succeeds in conveying his argument in an informed and eloquent manner. As ever he makes science highly readable and for me that is a big plus. I am by no means an expert on the subject but I have always been intrigued by the story of life on Earth. I don’t know if the author’s `unique’ spin has strong academic merit, although the quality of his argumentation would suggest it has. I am aware that it has been argued previously that the existence of our moon has been critical in creating the conditions for life on Earth. However, the author builds on this to develop a new and, it would appear, more radical thesis: that the moon’s role is such that a technologically advanced civilisation is unique to our planet. This is a brave assertion given the potential number of habitable planets not only in our galaxy but the whole universe. Of course only time will tell if his argument is a valid one. I was reminded of the premise that underpinned Isaac Asimov’s novels: the only life in the galaxy exists on Earth and it is humanity’s destiny to populate the stars (this is a recollection from the 1970s so I hope I’m correct here!). An engrossing read. Highly recommended.

⭐Gribbon’s books are always well written, well researched and up-to-the-minute. ‘The Reason Why…’ is no exception. An absorbing tale of the narrow sets of parameters needed for life to exist and the role of chance in keeping it going. It does not answer the question of exactly how life began, but it covers pretty well how life could not begin, and tries to answer the question of whether other intelligences are likely to exist. I have some reservations, however, with this kind of speculation. Firstly, the odds of life arising in this planet are 1, certainty, since we are here. To understand how unlikely that event actually is, doesn’t really prove anything about our or anyone else’s presence in the galaxy. Because we do not have enough (or indeed any) observations of similar conditions that do not produce life, there is no way our probabilities are anything more than speculative. We already know that planets seem to exist in configurations that were thought impossible just a few years ago. While Gribbon discusses past extinctions and their evolutionary role he does not go into the last and most pertinent term of the Drake Equation, the window of opportunity for a civilisation. This is the one that will tell us why there are no other civilisations visible in the galaxy. It is the future probability of extinction not our past luck that will determine how far life gets in the universe.

⭐This is an absorbing read through a wide range of evidence about the possibilities of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Each arguement, concerning the chances of life evolving, is supported by informed evidence which,however,can sometimes be lengthy.The use of a diagram would often help with both length and clarity; an example is the use of a frontal and an edge view of our Galaxy.There are some ambiguities, which suggest more editing was needed. An example here is the doubtful expression:- “quartz crystallises out of the molten magma leaving it richer in silica”(quartz is silica).A reader will finish feeling that he,or she, has had a refreshing experience of the dependence of human existance on a narrow band of conditions in each of the Galaxy, Sun, Solar System and the Earth.This precious Earth has provided a home for evolution over a vast period of time.

⭐Excellent all round, cannot fault the book. But like every thing you need to keep your options open on interpretations of personal observations about the way things are.

⭐Never got bored reading this book, the cosmos fascinates me, as does our place in it. We are so lucky to be here and the more you read into why, the more it hits home, I would place this book just behind “Rare Earth”

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