Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T01:33:10.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Fitness of the cosmos for the origin and evolution of life: from biochemical fine-tuning to the Anthropic Principle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

By
Julian Chela-Flores
Edited by
John D. Barrow ,
Simon Conway Morris ,
Stephen J. Freeland  and
Charles L. Harper, Jr
Julian Chela-Flores
Affiliation:
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
John D. Barrow
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Simon Conway Morris
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Stephen J. Freeland
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Charles L. Harper, Jr
Affiliation:
John Templeton Foundation
Get access

Summary

The boundaries of philosophy, science, and theology

Some of the deeper questions that humans have raised are not always answerable within the boundaries of science. Instead, philosophers and theologians have approached such questions within their own domains of competence. One such example is provided by the question of purpose in evolution (see the discussion below). Indeed, the concept of purpose in a general sense may be understood as something that one sets before oneself as an object to be attained, an aim to be kept, a plan to be formulated. In attempting to give an answer to the question of “purpose in nature,” we should discuss the main components of human knowledge in an integrated way, so as to ask the right questions in the right field of knowledge. This approach should encourage us to provide appropriate answers that are reasonable within philosophy, science, or theology. At this juncture, it may also be argued that the task of a scientist should be independent of those of the other areas of human culture (Russell, 1991, p. 13). On the other hand, it is surely useful to be aware that this view of the role of science that is “divorced” from both philosophy and natural theology can also be seen from a different point of view (Townes, 1995, p. 166): because science and religion are evolving and are similar in their search for truth, convergence of these independent searches for truth may occur in the future.

Type
Chapter
Information
Fitness of the Cosmos for Life
Biochemistry and Fine-Tuning
 , pp. 151 - 166
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akindahunsi, A. A. and Chela-Flores, J. (2004). On the question of convergent evolution in biochemistry. In Life in the Universe, ed. Seckbach, J., Chela-Flores, J., Owen, T., et al. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 135–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayer, A. J. (1982). Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. London: Unwin Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Bernstein, M. P., Dworkin, J. P., Sandford, S. A.et al. (2002). Racemic amino acids from the ultraviolet photolysis of interstellar ice analogues. Nature, 416, 401–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carr, B. J. and Rees, M. J. (2003). Fine-tuning in living systems. International Journal of Astrobiology, 2(2), 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chela-Flores, J. (1998). The phenomenon of the eukaryotic cell. In Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Russell, R. J., Stoeger, W. R. and Ayala, F. J.. Vatican City State/Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), pp. 79–99.Google Scholar
Chela-Flores, J. (2001). The New Science of Astrobiology: From Genesis of the Living Cell to Evolution of Intelligent Behavior in the Universe. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chela-Flores, J. (2003). Testing evolutionary convergence on Europa. International Journal of Astrobiology, 2(4), 307–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chela-Flores, J. (2006). The sulphur dilemma: are there biosignatures on Europa's icy and patchy surface? International Journal of Astrobiology, 5(1), 17–22.Google Scholar
Chela-Flores, J., Owen, T. and Raulin, F., eds. (2001). The First Steps of Life in the Universe. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, L., DeVries, A. L. and Cheng, C.- H. C. (1997). Convergent evolution of antifreeze glycoproteins in Antarctic notothenioid fish and Arctic cod. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 94, 3817–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clench, M. H. and Austin, O. L. (1983). Apodiform. In Macropaedia. Chicago: The Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 1, pp. 1052–66.Google Scholar
Morris, Conway S. (2003). Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronin, J. R. and Chang, S. (1993). Organic matter in meteorites: molecular and isotopic analyses of the Murchison meteorite. In The Chemistry of Life's Origins, ed. Greenberg, J. M., Mendoza-Gomez, C. X. and Pirronello, V.. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 209–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1983). Universal Darwinism. In Evolution from Molecules to Men, ed. Bendall, D. S.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 403–25.Google Scholar
Duve, C. (1995). Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative. New York: Basic Books (HarperCollins).Google Scholar
Duve, C. (2002). Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind and Meaning. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Doolittle, R. F. (1994). Convergent evolution: the need to be explicit. Trends in Biochemical Science, 19, 15–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ehrenfreund, P., Glavin, D. P., Botta, O.et al. (2001). Extraterrestrial amino acids in Orgueil and Ivuna: tracing the parent body of CI type carbonaceous chondrites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 98, 2138–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ekers, R. D., Cullers, Kent D., Billingham, J.et al., eds. (2002). SETI 2020. Mountain View, CA: SETI Press.Google Scholar
Harper, E. M., Taylor, J. D. and Crame, J. A., eds. (2000). The evolutionary biology of the Bivalvia. Geological Society Special Publication, 177, 1–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haught, J. F. (1998). Darwin's gift to theology. In Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Russell, R. J., Stoeger, W. R. and Ayala, F. J.. Vatican City State/Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), pp. 393–418.Google Scholar
Henderson, L. J. (1913). The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter. New York: Macmillan. Repr. (1958) Boston, MA: Beacon Press; (1970) Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith.Google Scholar
Hoppe, P., Strebel, R., Eberhadt, P.et al. (1997). Type II supernova matter in a silicon carbide grain from the Murchison meteorite. Science, 272, 1314–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoyle, F. (1975). Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company.Google Scholar
Huey, R., Gilchrist, G., Carlson, M.et al. (2000). Rapid evolution of a geographic cline in size in an introduced fly. Science, 287, 308–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, D. K. and Lindberg, D. R. (1998). Oxygen and evolutionary patterns in the sea: onshore/offshore trends and recent recruitment of deep-sea faunas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, 9396–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paul, John II (1992). Discorso di Giovanni Paolo II alla Pontificia Accademia delle Scienze, L'Osservatore Romano, 1 November, p. 1.Google Scholar
Kerr, R. A. (2002). Winking star unveils planetary birthplace. Science, 296, 2312–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Little, C. T. S., Herrington, R. J., Maslennikov, V. V.et al. (1997). Silurian hydrothermal-vent community from the southern Urals, Russia. Nature, 385, 146–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, C. T. S., Herrington, R. J., Maslennikov, V. V. et al. (1998). The fossil record of hydrothermal vent communities. In Modern Ocean Floor Processes and the Geologic Record, ed. Mills, R. A. and Harrison, K.. London: Geological Society, pp. 259–70.Google Scholar
Losos, J. B., Jackman, T. R., Larson, A.et al. (1998). Contingency and determinism in replicated adaptive radiations of island lizards. Science, 279, 2115–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muñoz Caro, G. M., Meierhenrich, U. J., Schutte, W. A.et al. (2002). Amino acids from ultraviolet irradiation of interstellar ice analogues. Nature, 416, 403–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nigel-Hepper, F. (1982). Kew: Gardens for Science and Pleasure. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Pace, N. R. (2001). The universal nature of biochemistry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 98, 805–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Polkinghorne, J. (1996). Scientists as Theologians. London: SPCK.Google Scholar
Ponnamperuma, C. and Chela-Flores, J., eds. (1993). Chemical Evolution: Origin of Life. Hampton, VA: A. Deepak Publishing.Google Scholar
Rovelli, C. (2000). The century of the incomplete revolution: searching for a general relativistic quantum field theory. Journal of Mathematical Physics, 41, 3776–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, B. (1991). History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Russell, R. J. (1996). Introduction. In Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, 2nd edn., ed. Russell, R. J., Murphy, N. C. and Isham, C. J.. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, pp. 1–31.Google Scholar
Schneider, G., Smith, B. A., Becklin, E. E.et al. (1999). NICMOS imaging of the HR 4796A circumstellar disk. Astrophysical Journal, 513, L1217–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townes, C. H. (1995). Making Waves. Woodbury, NY: American Institute of Physics.Google Scholar
Abbott, Tucker R. (1989). Compendium of Landshells. Melbourne, FL: American Malacologists, Inc.Google Scholar
Tudge, C. (1991). Global Ecology. London: Natural History Museum Publications.Google Scholar
Vogel, G. (1998). For island lizards, history repeats itself. Science, 279, 2043.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yokoyama, R. and Yokoyama, S. (1990). Convergent evolution of the red- and green-like visual pigment genes in fish, Astyanax fasciatus, and humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 87, 9315–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×