Richard Schiffman at Undark:
Peter Godfrey-Smith does not use the word miracle in the title of his ambitious new book, “Living on Earth: Forest, Corals, Consciousness and the Making of the World,” but there is scarcely a page that does not recount one. His subject is the astounding creativity of life, not just to evolve ever-new forms, but to continually remake the planet that hosts it.
Godfrey-Smith, a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney, moves dizzyingly from the latest developments in neurology to the nature of human language and of consciousness itself. The core story traces life’s epic journey from cyanobacteria, which were amongst the first photosynthesizing plants, to increasingly complex multicellular plants, which contributed to creating an oxygen-rich atmosphere, which in turn paved the way for the evolution of oxygen breathing animals like ourselves.
It is “a history of organisms as causes, rather than evolutionary products,” he writes, presenting “a dynamic picture of the Earth, a picture of an Earth continually changing because of what living things do.”
Homo sapiens, relative latecomers to life’s party, are only the latest in a long line of species that have cleverly engineered the environment to meet their own needs.
More here.
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