Astronomy Books

When I was growing up, the science of extraterrestrial life was called exobiology. This was a difficult area of research since there was no evidence of any subject matter, and the term fell into disrepute. The modern successor is called astrobiology, which may still not be the best name. Anyhow, the idea is to study the possibility of life out there in all its contexts, to look at both the nature of the universe and how life developed and survives here on Earth to see what might be possible.

This book demonstrates the new approach to a "t." After an introductory chapter that attempts to define life, the second chapter, entitled "Origins of a Habitable Universe," provides the best summary I've ever read of how the universe began and developed in its early stages, leading to how stars form and evolve. The story continues in the third chapter ("Origins of a Habitable Planet"), which covers how the solar system and eventually the Earth formed. The next four chapters start with chemistry and end with biology, going from discussing the basic chemical reactions that might have occurred on the early Earth and trying to work out how this led to life. And, once there was life, how it developed over time into ever more sophisticated and complex creatures, changing its environment along the way, as the invention of photosynthesis led to an atmosphere steeped with caustic oxygen, a nasty substance to early life but essential to the active metabolism of modern animals. The chemistry discussion is the single strongest portion of the book, not too surprising since one of the authors is a chemist.

The final chapters become more topical: extremophiles (life that exists in places you'd think were too nasty to support life), a survey of conceivably habitable areas of our solar system (and beyond), and, finally, the search for extraterrestrial life from the Viking missions (another excellent discussion, this time of the Viking biology experiments and their mixed conclusions) to the Mars meteorite to SETI.

There are maybe half-a-dozen truly great questions in science: How did the universe begin? How did it end? How did life begin? Are we alone? If there's any one science that ties all of these together, it's astrobiology. As our tools grow more sophisticated, and as we grow ever more capable of answering these questions, astrobiology will become ever more significant. Look for headlines worldwide on the day when - as this book predicts - we detect oxygen in the atmosphere of an alien planet, something that (so far as we know) could only be caused by life.

And if you want to be ready for that day, read this book. It covers all the relevant topics in clear and entertaining prose, always remaining comprehensible despite the sometimes arcane issues but never skimping on technical detail. You can read it quickly (as I had to do since it was a library book I'd been slow to get started on) and get the gist of a matter, or take your time to read carefully in order to truly understand what's going on (as I could do only a couple of times).

The copy of this book I have in hand is actually from my local library; however, I want this book by my side for further study and as a reference. I will definitely be buying a copy (if I don't get it for Christmas, that is!). I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in one of the most significant fields of scientific study there is. (Note that I don't give out five stars very often.)

I found this book to be a highly readable, thorough, accurate, well
balanced treatment of a topic that is increasingly capturing the
interest of scientists and anyone curious about their place in the
universe.

Imagine that your best friend were some brilliant world-famous scientist. Now imagine that the two of you were sharing a beer one night, and you carelessly asked the question: "I wonder if there is life elsewhere in the Universe?"

This book would be his answer.

"Astrobiology," by Kevin Plaxco and Michael Gross, is the perfect book for the armchair scientist. It should sit on your bookshelf beside Hawking's "Brief History of Time." It would also be an excellent book for the curious undergraduate.

Plaxco and Gross fill the book with easy, accessible prose, and lots of great science. Best of all, the sidebars, with which the book is liberally sprinkled. They make you feel like you are busy bending an elbow with a scientist that has a wicked sense of humor. After all, how many science books can you think of that use the word `flummoxed'?

If the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" had a chapter on astrobiology, this would be it.

Biology is not complete without the astro-physical environment that produces the sun, the earth and the building blocks of life.
We can never fully understand life and evolution if we don't include the universe.
At bottom it is ecology extended to the cosmic environment.
A huge eye-opener for me was Barrow & Tippler (1994) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.
They showed that my biology training was hopelessly incomplete.
A second eye-opener was Tibor Gánti (2003) The Principles of Life.
For the first time in my life I had the feeling that I truly understood what the essence of life is and what the origin of life problem actually is, despite reading many books about the origin of life.
Now we have the science of astrobiology which combines both the universe as a cradle for life and insights into the nature of life.
I have been looking for some time for a suitable introduction into astrobiology until I found
Kevin Plaxco & Michael Gross (2006) Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction.
It is a very attractive book: a pleasure to read, enthusiastically and fluently written, full of relevant information, not loaded with boring details, the right price (indeed there are far more expensive introductions and textbooks).
Despite being an introduction, it is nourishing and thanks to being an introduction it is very digestible.
The book contains many stimulating thoughts and facts. Kevin Plaxco is a professor of chemistry. I think that chemistry
is the right science here: it is in the position to connect biology and astronomy (physics cannot bridge biology and astronomy because it differs too much from biology).
Michael Gross is a science writer. I suspect that a great part of the attractiveness of this book can be ascribed to him.
In the hands of Plaxco and Gross an otherwise boring table of yields of amino acids in the Miller-Urey experiment
becomes fascinating.
The book is richly illustrated with black and white illustrations and photographs (but fortunately no expensive glossy paper is used) and has many interesting sidebars.
[...].

The cosmos are very perplexing, as well as awe-inspiring, and its wonderful how this book packages this very scientific information in a friendly and approachable way. Many people like myself, who are not scientists but who yearn to learn the basic theories, look up at the night sky and wonder how planets, stars and galaxies came to be and exist. This book is a great Cosmic Companion which guides you through the stars in a comprehesible fashion: although space terminology can get complex, it is easy to follow along with Dr. Odenwald's voice of the book. If you love interesting details about the heavens, then this book is perfect for you: you'll ingest this neat info so quickly, that your mind will be like a miniature black-hole, and the details will be unable to escape from your mind's event horizon. It's a wonderful book that I feel can be used to teach younger students many important and fascinating facts; I say this as an experienced teacher and journalist. It helps us to understand the ever chaotic cosmos a whole lot better.

In his frequently asked questions book, Odenwald doe s an excellent job at answering technical and rather pseudoscience sorts of questions. However, while Odenwald does show he knows what he's talking about, his writing style and organization leave much to be desired.

This reference consists of 365 questions submitted by the public and Odenwald's answers, taken from the author's "Ask the Astronomer" internet website. These questions cover topics from the solar system to galaxies to the Big Bang. The general reader may find this easy to read reference an enjoyable way to learn about these topics.

I am only 11, and I thought this book was very easy to understand, but he kept it interesting. I recomend this to kids my age, as well as adults. (My Gramma found this and liked what it was, so she got it for me.)

This book provides an insider look at the trials, tribulations, successes and failures involved in unmanned space exploration during the 1970s. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in space, project management, policy, technology and history.

Kraemer, the former director of NASA's plantary exploration program, has an easy-reading style, but he doesn't skimp on details. The book is well-organized, discussing each probe and its history in turn. He also provides diagrams and charts, including one very striking and effective 'balanced approach' chart that all program managers should study and modify for their own use. The center section of the hardcover version also includes some beautiful color plates of some of the planets and their moons.

This book will give you an appreciation of the extreme technical, social and political difficulties that need to be overcome to study our solar system in depth. If you liked Donna Shirley's "Managing Martians," you'll like this book as well.

This book provides an insider look at the trials, tribulations, successes and failures involved in unmanned space exploration during the 1970s. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in space, project management, policy, technology and history.

Kraemer, the former director of NASA's plantary exploration program, has an easy-reading style, but he doesn't skimp on details. The book is well-organized, discussing each probe and its history in turn. He also provides diagrams and charts, including one very striking and effective 'balanced approach' chart that all program managers should study and modify for their own use. The center section of the hardcover version also includes some beautiful color plates of some of the planets and their moons.

This book will give you an appreciation of the extreme technical, social and political difficulties that need to be overcome to study our solar system in depth. If you liked Donna Shirley's "Managing Martians," you'll like this book as well.

According to author Robery S. Kraemer they certainly were. He points to several key missions as demonstrations of this fact: Pioneers 10 and 11, Vikings 1 and 2, and Voyagers 1 and 2, as well as a host of other projects begun during the decade. This important recollection explores many of the central themes affecting space science during the latter half of the twentieth century. It describes and analyzes the conduct of NASA's planetary science program throughout the 1970s, enhancing our understanding of the NASA missions to all of the planets of the Solar System save Pluto. Not so much a part of the "new aerospace history" as it is a ringing insider account of the subject, Kraemer's discussion provides the details that only a participant would know about the progress of these important missions.

It is a heroic story in Kraemer's telling, one filled with men and women of good character striving to achieve important objectives. They did not always agree with each other, and competed ferociously for their respective positions, but they all respected each other. The result was astonishing and that alone may have given rise to the belief that the planetary missions executed during the 1970s were the "golden age" of the program.

Although the case may be well made for this assessment at present, and Kraemer makes it well, will that be the conclusion of those one hundred years hence? Will probes sent to the planets serve, something like Columbus did with the Americas, as vanguards of sustained exploration and settlement? Or will they prove to be more like Leif Erickson's voyages, stillborn in the public conception of new lands? No one knows at present but books such as this make a subtle case for many additional voyages of discovery.

In the 1960s Kraemer worked for Ford Motor Co., serving as chief engineer for its Space Systems Division and as a manager of its Lunar and Planetary Programs. In this capacity he learned firsthand of the challenges inherent in planetary science programs. Charting the delicate course between the requirements of the scientists for their instruments and the rigid confines of technological systems managed by engineers, he worked on some of NASA most significant missions of the decade. Kraemer moved to NASA Headquarters in 1967 to work on Mars exploration planning efforts, and throughout the first third of the decade of the 1970s he was Director of Planetary Programs. During this period he shepherded to launch many of the illustrious planetary missions that have given rise to the belief that the 1970s was the "golden age" of planetary science.

Because of this deep background, Kraemer's insider account of planetary science in the 1970s is a welcome addition to the history of space exploration. It compares well to other books relating experiences in space science. That is the reason that I agreed to write an introduction for this book. I recommend it as an engrossing account of an important episode in space exploration history written by the consummate insider.

During the period from 1971 through 1978, NASA launched twelve space probes to explore the planets and the sun and achieved many firsts, such as, the first planetary orbiter, the first planetary lander, the first spacecraft to visit the outer planets and the first spacecraft to use the gravity assist. While a good portion of these stories is presented in the first person, such as the budget battles the author had to fight, this is not his autobiography.

The book is divided into chapters covering each planetary or solar probe and also includes an introductory and closing chapter. Each chapter presents the organization of the spacecraft management team, the determination the science objects, hardware development problems, the budget (and sometimes budget problems), the problems encountered from launch to the arrival, and finally a summary of the important discoveries of each planetary encounter. Each chapter also presents a detailed drawing or two of the spacecraft and a few photographs. Detailed findings from each mission are presented, since these would be books in themselves.

One of the most interesting chapters covers the joint German-US solar probe Helios. This was the first major joint space project. This spacecraft orbited the sun at a distance of less than 30 million miles, which closer to the sun than the planet Mercury and returned valuable data on the nature of the sun.

While I found all the chapters in this book very interesting, I think the final chapter of the book was by far and away the best. The author summarizes what he learned over his many years in the upper management of NASA and his dealings with Congress. In this position, he learned two things. 1) Do not let politics dictate technical decisions and, 2) Do not lie to Congress. These are two concepts that our current NASA administrator should embrace. If he did, I believe more of our country's space projects would funded and succeed.

Una excelente colección de todos los objetos que el cielo puede ofrecer. De lo mejor, tanto para los principiantes como para los más expertos.

Even if these 3 books are a little bit outdated (1983), it is still in irreplaceable source of information on all the celestials beauties to be seen on an amateur telescope

Being an amateur astronomer I bought this and the other two volumes recently and I have found it indispensible. Im writing this review keeping solely the tyro's in mind, since one knowledgeable in astronomy would have already had this book. If you are getting interested in astronomy, this is the book to buy - it will surely deepen your interest. Get the book and take a journey through the starts that Burnham offers you in the first few pages.

There are plenty of astronomy books for amatuers with fantastic photos. And sometimes it can be intimidating to know what to buy. Burnham's book is worth every penny (and it doesnt cost much either). It does not contain colorful photos (though contains plenty of b&w photos taken from Lowell/Palomar and other observatories). All 88 constellations are dealt with in detail. First a list of double stars are given in each constellation followed by details of each bright star (including spectrum analysis for some). The book is set in "type-writer" font, so it gives a special feeling of reading some research paper.

A unique feature of this book, which is probably not found in any other astronomy book I have come sofar, is that, it also contains a perspective of a given constellation or star by several different cultures. Most astronomy books stop with Greek and Roman myths - giving a feeling that no other culture was knowledgeable in astronomy. Coming from Indian background, I found it very intriguing that Burnham mentions several stories and myths from Indian folklore (including those that I heard from my granny!). For eg, Varahamihira (c 100 AD?) in his "Brihat Samhita" compares Ursa Major (aka called "Seven Sages") to string of pearls. I was surprised to see Burnham mention this.

One other way I use the book is to first locate some star in the telescope (by lazily moving it around), notice the color, constellation and other characteristics, then look into the book about the details and compare with what you saw. Thats a fun way of learning.

Though more experienced astronomers would observe that some Burnham's values are of older epoch, this should not really bother a beginner. Burnham has certainly packed a wealth of information into three volumes. Again this is a book that will accompany for life on observing the wonders that are up above the sky.

For the first few months that I owned these books, I went to bed each night reading them. The quantity of information makes these books the most useful astronomy guides (short of a good atlas) I have ever seen, but it is the extra comments (from theological to philosophical to historical) that make them truly wonderful. Much of the information is badly dated, but if I had to recommend one book to someone who loves to look through telescopes, this would be it, hands down.

This book was delivered in excellent condition, and has already proved itself very useful. It is most interesting, provides useful information, and helps to understand the evolution of our solar system using the asteroid pieces fallen on Earth.

A very up-to-date review and very comprehensive. Some parts are for the chemists in the crowd but all-in-all well worth having on your bookshelf.

This is a fantastic reference to meteorites. Large, beautifully bound and with great colour images and illustrations. Norton certainly knows his subject and takes us on a cosmic jouney, from black rocks found in the desert to a time before the formation of the solar system. There is plenty of technical and scientific details to feed the mind of the most educated reader. He explains concepts like radio-isotope dating with a clarity lacking at many eductional institutions today. Highly recommended for all those with an interest in space or astronomy and the growing number of meteorite collectors out there. My only minor criticism is that the font used in the book could have been a little bolder and easier to read for my aging eyes. Norton deserves a 10/10 for this fine effort.

THERE IS NOT MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THIS EXCEPTIONAL BOOK EXCEPT THIS IS AN EXCELLENT IN-DEPTH LOOK AT METEORITES WITH SUPERB COLOR PICTURES. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN METEORITES, ESPECIALLY COLLECTING THEM, YOUR LIBRARY SHOLD NOT BE WITHOUT THIS BOOK.

My first reaction was: ah, gee, just another dumb me down, put me down science popularization?
But in cosmologist terms first : he pays attention to modern mathematics in Chaos and Fractals which puts him ahead of several Cambridge elitists whose books I've read! He seems to be aware that there is nonlinearity in ordinary nature. His language of education seems to be French which might
explain an astrophysicist who is willing to think about fractals in nature?
He has a section:
"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Thought".
The actual quote is:
"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics"
which makes one think he may consider thought and mathematics equivalent?
The neat fractal pictures of a space time at the Planck measure
of length on pages 182-3, make me realize that he may actually have thought about the question of limiting length
in a more than 'ordinary' way?
On "Harmony": one has in music Western 12 note scale harmony, Arab 24 note pentatonic harmony, jazz chord progression harmony and Chinese triad harmony. I'm not sure after reading the book what he means by "Harmony"? But I'm willing to let him promote it over many of the others whose books I've read lately on similar subjects!
He seems willing to consider new ideas.

In the mid 1600's Sir Isaac Newton developed a set of basic rules for how the universe worked. The power of Newton's logic, how simple he made the world look held sway for more than two centuries. Only towards the end of the 1800's did experiments begin to point to cracks in the basic Newtonnian theory.

In 1905 however, the world changed. Einstein published his first paper on relativity. Not long after that came quantuum mechanics. The physics of the twentiety century was to greatly change the view of the world. More complex, true, but also more in tune with the experimental findings.

This book is aimed at the layman and explains these fundamental changes in our view of the world. It also points to some of the unanswered questions that remain. Could it be that we are headed to another great change with a new Newton/Einstein in the wings?

Chaos And Harmony: Perspectives On Scientific Revolutions Of The Twentieth Century by Trinh Xuan Thaun (Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia since 1976) is an exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible in the progression in understanding so many mysteries that engaged the minds and curiosity of so many scientists over recent decades. With the application of modern science, Chaos And Harmony inspects the philosophical and theological implications of astrological and astrophysical breakthroughs and past perceptions. Chaos And Harmony brilliantly explains in an elaborate format the intricacies and answers to many sought questions and misunderstandings, and is to be given high praise strong recommended for students of astrophysics, astrology, as well as readers with an interest in the theological or philosophical perspectives which the sciences may substantially counter and/or support.

Chaos And Harmony: Perspectives On Scientific Revolutions Of The Twentieth Century by Trinh Xuan Thaun (Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia since 1976) is an exploratory study and survey of the extraordinary advancements which modern science has made possible in the progression in understanding so many mysteries that engaged the minds and curiosity of so many scientists over recent decades. With the application of modern science, Chaos And Harmony inspects the philosophical and theological implications of astrological and astrophysical breakthroughs and past perceptions. Chaos And Harmony brilliantly explains in an elaborate format the intricacies and answers to many sought questions and misunderstandings, and is to be given high praise strong recommended for students of astrophysics, astrology, as well as readers with an interest in the theological or philosophical perspectives which the sciences may substantially counter and/or support.

While waiting to go into a banquet at a Secular Humanist conference, a man with the name tag: Daniel Altschuler, Arecibo P.R. caught my interest. Inside we shared a table where he told me of his book and I told him of mine, "Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics". I had copies of mine with me and gave him one but he didn't, so I ordered one from Amazon. It was a propitious encounter indeed; he's very personable and knowledgeable.

As part of a larger context, my book devotes only some 40 pages (with no graphics) to the evolution of the Universe, Sun, Earth and Life. Altschuler devotes 240 pages interspersed with many colored photos and drawings. I highly recommend reading his fuller descriptions and explanations from the Big Bang, thru star, planet and asteroid formation, to the emergence of Life and the prospect of our foolish arrogance extinguishing it. I found his book both entertaining and enlightening.

Children Of The Stars: Our Origin, Evolution And Destiny by Daniel R. Altschuler (Director of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center's Arecibo Observatory) is a marvelously presented scientific tour through the mysteries of the cosmos, looking at what science has to say about how we came to be here, and whether we are alone in the universe. Written in plain terms easily accessible to the non-specialist general reader, and illustrated with beautiful color drawings and photographs, Children Of The Stars is a remarkable and enthusiastically recommended vision of galactic enigmas and beyond. Highly recommended for personal, school, and community library astronomy reference collections.

A friend gave me a copy of Altschuler's book "Children of the Stars". Once I started reading it, it dawns on me that this guy can write. It is a bit of a tour de forces on the scientific foundations of the natural world, but written with clarity, a sense of humor and a great deal of passion. His prose is eminently readable, and I swear I sensed some of Gould, Dawkins, and Alan Lightman ability to describe while preserving focus. This is a book for the scientist and the scientist at heart. The author goes from the first few seconds of the universe to the wanders of molecular biology, showing the threads that ties it all into a unified entity, nature.

From the rising of a beautiful sunny summer day, and enjoying life, to looking up at the stars, and seeing them in a different light. This book was very enjoyable. Most books on Astronomy, Evolution, Atmosphere, Geophysics etc. are basically just that, one subject matter and lightly cover over all others. In this book we are first taken on a journey of those that have contributed in most fields of science from the ground up as well as to the extremes of the universe. It brings to
mind the responsibility that all mankind has and how all mankind should have at least a basic knowledge of the sciences. It also becomes apparent that people have become unconcerned or
disinterested in what goes on, on our beautiful planet, and this magnificent universe that we are privileged to be a part of. This book should be read by professionals as well as those who know very little about the sciences. It could very well change peoples mind for the better, and get them interested in real science instead of dwelling on the fictional part of it. Hopefully, after reading this book people will come to realize that they also have a part to play in the world of science. It reminds us that it is time for each one of us to be responsible citizens of the world.

Acclaimed science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov displays his excellent understanding of the physics behind our Universe as he explains the forces that hold the Universe together--and may ultimately tear it apart. From an explanation of the most fundamental forces of nature and their effects, he builds upon the material presented previously to thoroughly explain all known major cosmological phenomena. Interspersed throughout are a bit of anecdotes about scientific history, including how the gravitational constant was determined, how the first quasars and pulsars were discovered, and an introduction to some of astronomy's inside jokes. Very little is left unclear or ignored, and most of what is is that way because it simply was not understood when the book was written (and, in some cases, still is not understood).

The only negative point about this book is that it is, in some ways, very dated. The idea of a closed (and possibly oscillating) Universe that is put forth in the final chapter of the book is no longer in favor in the scientific community, as recent observations (which are widely held to be conclusive) indicate that the expansion of the Universe is not slowing down and may in fact be accelerating. Less outstanding, but much more aggravating, is its use of the obsolete CGS (centimeters-grams-seconds) system of measurement rather than the now-standard MKS (meters-kilograms-seconds) system on which most familiar metric measurements (such as Newtons, Joules, and Watts) are based.

You won't find a better explanation of how the universe began and, using only space, hydrogen, & helium, built everything else from that, alone. This is the simplest, most straight-forward explanation of how gravity can attract enough mass (hydrogen atoms) until the force of gravity crushes those atoms and changes them into heavier atoms in a series of steps that can result in everything from the sequence our sun is undergoing to novas (that create brand-new, extra heavy atoms & blow them out into space to drift, aggregate, and form new stars with planets around them) and - finally - black holes. So simple even a high school student can understand it and then remember the rest of her life. Find this book. Read it. You'll be glad you did. It really is the best of them all.

The universe is a very strange place and to me, the most bizarre objects are black holes. They are things where the gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can move fast enough to get away. While the complete definition of black holes requires a great deal of sophisticated mathematics, the fundamental principles are easy to understand. No one is better at explaining science and in this thorough, non-mathematical explanation of how black holes can exist, Asimov is at his best.

He starts with the basics of escape velocity and then increases the size of the objects until they are large enough to be black. The steps follow in logical order and all are well explained. If you are interested in the physics of black holes, Asimov will teach you.

Asimov handily explains the workings of the Universe to his point in time (roughly 1986). He organizes the book logically, beginning with basic concepts such as mass and the simple structures of matter, and finishing with the complete cycle of stellar evolution. He explains the birth and death of stars and includes exciting descriptions of the many different forms that stars can take: yellow suns, blue giants, red giants, white dwarves, novas, supernovas, neutron stars, pulsars, and finally black holes. The Collapsing Universe inspired and helped with several of my college compositions and is truly a model of unbeatable descriptions of science writing. A must for anyone interested in studying astronomy for the first time.

If u really love astronomy, astrophyscis, it is a must have!! All of the words from astro, u can find them all in this book with a detail description but in easy english. It is a book that can make u become a astro-expert and also a best reminder for ur knowledge. Really great!!

THis is an excellent dictionary - if you wan to put things like that - of Astrophysics and Physics as well. I found this book really helpful and quite interesting because it give us a good historical account as well a good introduction/revision to some fine subjects related to these areas.

I have recently purchased this book and was dissapointed at first due to it being more of a hypertext based reference, how mistaken I was, the explanations of the terminology are well written and very informative even to a lay man like me. I now have an incredible interest in other related topics thanks to this book and now intend to persue those with vigour. A great book for anybody, you do not need to be a science boffin to comprehend this masterpiece.

this one slipped under my radar. i didn't see it anywhere. but it's all here, everything you need and written in that agreeable style that a bestseller like john gribbin is known for. forgive the cover. if you have any interest in space, you need a copy of this on your shelf.

As I prepared a review of this book for a science journal, I checked amazon to sample what others readers say. To my surprise, no readers have recorded their views. So I shall scribble a few words in the hope of drawing attention to this worthy study.

Palmer's controlling idea is that discoveries and conceptual innovation in the four fields covered point to a new theory of evolution in which natural selection will be reinterpreted or replaced by self-organization theory. The vacant space that the new theory will occupy is the gaping hole currently separating population genetics and molecular biology. He suggests that self-organization theory, a.k.a. non-linear dynamics, a.k.a. chaos theory, is the candidate for linking physico-chemical processes with molecular biology and organism behaviour. (The author, an enzyme biologist, is well positioned to sense this vacant space). The four fields covered are planetary science, geology, paleontology, and evolution theory. The uniting empirical theme is catastrophes of climatic and extra-terrestrial origin. The unifying conceptual theme is provided by the capacity of non-linear dynamics to combine equilibrium behaviour with many kinds of sudden shifts in system dynamics. These shifts are `catastrophes', be they microscopic or galactic.

When evolutionary theory took shape, its advocates had no inking of the mathematics of chaos theory. But they were aware of evidence for geophysical and biotic catastrophes, viz, apparent mass extinctions revealed by drastic discontinuities in biota between contiguous geological strata. The evidence was explained away as mere appearance and was replaced by the twin doctrines of Uniformitarianism and Gradualism. Uniformitarianism interpreted the vast changes in the elevation and subsidence as due to very slow processes, like erosion, acting over very long periods. Admittedly catastrophic events (volcanoes and earthquakes) were trivialized as local events with no geophysical implications. Similarly, the hundreds of meteors that illuminate the skies annually were dismissed as inconsequential (when they were acknowledged at all). The planetary system was taken to be the paradigm of orderly uniform process governed by natural laws. This was an erroneous interpretation of Newton's theory. Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbit of the planets, and the gravitational explanation of their position and orbits implied the possibility of cometary impacts on Earth and other planets. Indeed Newton believed that such impacts had occurred. The first asteroid was discovered in 1801; a century later, about 500 had been discovered and it was known that tons of cosmic dust settle on Earth each year. In 1908 an asteroid explosion over Siberia visited ruin on an area the size of Belgium. This wake-up call was ignored. The Uniformitarian creed began to unravel only in 1980 when Nobel physicist Luis Alvarez proposed that 65 million years ago a ten kilometre diameter asteroid impact caused the K-T boundary mass extinction. Today, many heated words later, we know that there are billions, perhaps trillions, of asteroids and comets in the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud. They constitute the solar system as a cosmic shooting gallery. Not only have they bombarded all the planets and their satellites, but they also bombard one another. Hundreds of meteorites reach the Earth annually. Strikes large enough to produce effects on a global scale occur about every million years. The lunar surface is exemplary of the density of impacts that the Earth has received. They number in the thousands; some craters are 3200 kilometers diameter. So much for the irenic Newtonian universe. But there is more. Life on Earth is also subject to the effects of coroneal mass ejections, solar flares, tectonic movements, flood basalt volcanoes, super nova explosions, polar reversals, and the Earth's variable declination on its rotational axis, any of which may have catastrophic effects, and some of which have very likely had such effects.

The planetary science here adumbrated is largely the product of new data gathering technologies associated with satellite probes and telescopes. It's a whole new world, significantly discontinuous with pre-1970 astronomy. The Uniformitarian conception assumed by Nineteenth Century evolution theory wasn't consistent even with the astronomy of that time, as I have mentioned. Today it is merely quaint, except that it is also a monument to the power and persistence of well-intentioned scientific error. The error meant is not, of course, the failure of earlier generations to know only what posterity would discover, but the claim of dogmatic certainty for theory that was heavily compromised by discordant facts and inconsistency.

The locus of this controversy is the `Darwin wars' that erupted when some paleontologists (S.J. Gould, Niles Eldredge, Steven Stanley, David Raup, David Jablonki) blew the whistle on Gradualism, substituting a Punctuated Equilibrium pattern instead. The neo-Darwinian orthodoxy initially opposed the alternative hypothesis as gross error. But then, when mass extinctions were accepted (repugnant to orthodoxy because they imply catastrophic causation), and the sudden origin of many new phyla in short times was confirmed, neo-Darwinians changed their tune: the heretics are now denounced for perpetrating the calumny that Gradualist theory ever denied the punctuation pattern! Protest as they might, nothing in standard theory explains highly variable evolutionary rates, the variation being, at one end, stasis over hundreds of millions of years, and at the other, a profusion of new phyla in short bursts (the Cambrian `big bang' is the classic example). Gradualist theory was formulated in the absence of knowledge of variation and only some glimmerings about what made orthogenesis work. It would thus be a stroke of extraordinary good luck if the proposed mechanism of change, natural selection, turned out to be right. When the Nineteen Century closed, Darwinians were in a frantic chase-fruitless as it turned out-for a slam dunk proof of the evolution of a single species. When the Twentieth Century closed, neo-Darwinians were in damage control to salvage the one and only slam dunk proof of evolution, industrial melanism, from dismissal on the grounds of tampered evidence. The use-by date of natural selection is long over due. Palmer's study assists recognizing that fact, and points the way to new theory.

"Anyone in the business of teaching evolution will find it a useful resource, especially for its extensive referencing..."

As I prepared a review of this book for a science journal, I checked amazon to sample what others readers say. To my surprise, no readers have recorded their views. So I shall scribble a few words in the hope of drawing attention to this worthy study.

Palmer's controlling idea is that discoveries and conceptual innovation in the four fields covered point to a new theory of evolution in which natural selection will be reinterpreted or replaced by self-organization theory. The vacant space that the new theory will occupy is the gaping hole currently separating population genetics and molecular biology. He suggests that self-organization theory, a.k.a. non-linear dynamics, a.k.a. chaos theory, is the candidate for linking physico-chemical processes with molecular biology and organism behaviour. (The author, an enzyme biologist, is well positioned to sense this vacant space). The four fields covered are planetary science, geology, paleontology, and evolution theory. The uniting empirical theme is catastrophes of climatic and extra-terrestrial origin. The unifying conceptual theme is provided by the capacity of non-linear dynamics to combine equilibrium behaviour with many kinds of sudden shifts in system dynamics. These shifts are 'catastrophies', be they microscopic or galactic.

When evolutionary theory took shape, its advocates had no inking of the mathematics of chaos theory. But they were aware of evidence for geophysical and biotic catastrophes, viz, apparent mass extinctions revealed by drastic discontinuities in biota between contiguous geological strata. The evidence was explained away as mere appearance and was replaced by the twin doctrines of Uniformitarianism and Gradualism. Uniformitarianism interpreted the vast changes in the elevation and subsidence as due to very slow processes, like erosion, acting over very long periods. Admittedly catastrophic events (volcanoes and earthquakes) were trivialized as local events with no geophysical implications. Similarly, the hundreds of meteors that illuminate the skies annually were dismissed as inconsequential (when they were acknowledged at all). The planetary system was taken to be the paradigm of orderly uniform process governed by natural laws. This was an erroneous interpretation of Newton's theory. Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbit of the planets, and the gravitational explanation of their position and orbits implied the possibility of cometary impacts on Earth and other planets. Indeed Newton believed that such impacts had occurred. The first asteroid was discovered in 1801; a century later, about 500 had been discovered and it was known that tons of cosmic dust settle on Earth each year. In 1908 an asteroid explosion over Siberia visited ruin on an area the size of Belgium. This wake-up call was ignored. The Uniformitarian creed began to unravel only in 1980 when Nobel physicist Luis Alvarez proposed that 65 million years ago a ten kilometre diameter asteroid impact caused the K-T boundary mass extinction. Today, many heated words later, we know that there are billions, perhaps trillions, of asteroids and comets in the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud. They constitute the solar system as a cosmic shooting gallery. Not only have they bombarded all the planets and their satellites, but they also bombard one another. Hundreds of meteorites reach the Earth annually. Strikes large enough to produce effects on a global scale occur about every million years. The lunar surface is exemplary of the density of impacts that the Earth has received. They number in the thousands; some craters are 3200 kilometers diameter. So much for the irenic Newtonian universe. But there is more. Life on Earth is also subject to the effects of coroneal mass ejections, solar flares, tectonic movements, flood basalt volcanoes, super nova explosions, polar reversals, and the Earth's variable declination on its rotational axis, any of which may have catastrophic effects, and some of which have very likely had such effects.

The planetary science here adumbrated is largely the product of new data gathering technologies associated with satellite probes and telescopes. It's a whole new world, significantly discontinuous with pre-1970 astronomy. The Uniformitarian conception assumed by Nineteenth Century evolution theory wasn't consistent even with the astronomy of that time, as I have mentioned. Today it is merely quaint, except that it is also a monument to the power and persistence of well-intentioned scientific error. The error meant is not, of course, the failure of earlier generations to know only what posterity would discover, but the claim of dogmatic certainty for theory that was heavily compromised by discordant facts and inconsistency.

The locus of this controversy is the 'Darwin wars' that erupted when some paleontologists (S.J. Gould, Niles Eldredge, Steven Stanley, David Raup, David Jablonki) blew the whistle on Gradualism, substituting a Punctuated Equilibrium pattern instead. The neo-Darwinian orthodoxy initially opposed the alternative hypothesis as gross error. But then, when mass extinctions were accepted (repugnant to orthodoxy because they imply catastrophic causation), and the sudden origin of many new phyla in short times was confirmed, neo-Darwinians changed their tune: the heretics are now denounced for perpetrating the calumny that Gradualist theory ever denied the punctuation pattern! Protest as they might, nothing in standard theory explains highly variable evolutionary rates, the variation being, at one end, stasis over hundreds of millions of years, and at the other, a profusion of new phyla in short bursts (the Cambrian 'big bang' is the classic example). Gradualist theory was formulated in the absence of knowledge of variation and only some glimmerings about what made orthogenesis work. It would thus be a stroke of extraordinary good luck if the proposed mechanism of change, natural selection, turned out to be right. When the Nineteen Century closed, Darwinians were in a frantic chase-fruitless as it turned out-for a slam dunk proof of the evolution of a single species. When the Twentieth Century closed, neo-Darwinians were in damage control to salvage the one and only slam dunk proof of evolution, industrial melanism, from dismissal on the grounds of tampered evidence. The use-by date of natural selection is long past. Palmer's study assists recognizing that fact, and points the way to new theory.

It's hard to know where to begin when confronted with this outstanding tome. Trevor Palmer has no theological axe to grind ("Then, as now, there were religious fundamentalists whose minds were closed to scientific argument . . . " p. 82), but I find he's saying exactly what creation scientists are saying - albeit indirectly. Indeed, he states on p. xi, ". . . the Modern Synthesis, if not actually wrong, is far from complete" and a few lines later admits that natural selection is mainly a stabilizing factor, not involved in "driving evolution forward" - this from a man who was an undergrad at the same Cambridge College (Christ's) as Charles Darwin! Palmer realizes he may be giving us non-Darwinists too much ammo, so he places his faith in 'self-organization' - although he admits it's "still lacking an experimental basis" p. 283.
The crux of Palmer's book is that Earth's history is indeed a record of massive catastrophic events (e.g. Table 4.1). He takes the reader through the history of scientific thought prior to Darwin where most naturalists believed in the Flood - on through the Dark Ages of uniformitarianism (and all its hybrids), to the present age of neo-catastrophism, being careful to distance this movement from Bible-believing scientists, ". . . 20th century catastrophism is no longer handicapped (or at least, not to anything like the same extent as once was the case) by supposed associations with unscientific [sic] dogmatism" p. 342.
Palmer bashes other critics of macroevolution, fellow Britishers Francis Hitching and Richard Milton, and then pretty much goes on to say what they have been saying in their books.
His section on "human evolution" (The Erratic Descent of Man) and origin of life review are themselves worth the price of the book, and his reference section is incredible.
Here's what I find so refreshing with what atheist Palmer is saying- he has reviewed neo-Darwinism (gradualism) and uniformitarianism and found them lacking. The reasons and scientific evidences he gives are exactly what creation scientists have been saying for many decades. Palmer and others state there was a series of mass extinctions (section 4.5). This was secular heresy 3 decades ago - you didn't dare tell a geologist this! Meanwhile creationists have been saying there was one massive Extinction Event (Genesis 6 - 9). Slowly but surely geologists are coming - screaming and kicking - to a biblical view of earth history, and they are doing so because of the scientific evidence, not in spite of it. Palmer's book is an expensive must for the creation activist.