Nick Lane - Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution

The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution

S et against the consuming blackness of space, the earth is a beguiling blue-green ball. Barely two dozen people have ever experienced the emotion of seeing our planet from the moon and beyond, yet the fragile beauty of the pictures they sent back home is engraved in the minds of a generation. Nothing compares. Petty human squabbles over borders and oil and creed vanish in the knowledge that this living marble surrounded by infinite emptiness is our shared home, and more, a home we share with, and owe to, the most wonderful inventions of life.

Life itself transformed our planet from the battered and fiery rock that once orbited a young star, to the living beacon that is our world seen from space. Life itself turned our planet blue and green, as tiny photosynthetic bacteria cleansed the oceans of air and sea, and filled them with oxygen. Powered by this new and potent source of energy, life erupted. Flowers bloom and beckon, intricate corals hide darting gold fish, vast monsters lurk in black depths, trees reach for the sky, animals buzz and lumber and see. And in the midst of it all, we are moved by the untold mysteries of this creation, we cosmic assemblies of molecules that feel and think and marvel and wonder at how we came to be here.

For the first time in the history of our planet, we know. This is no certain knowledge, no stone tablet of truth, but the ripening fruits of mankinds greatest quest, to know and understand the living world around us and within us. We have understood in outline since Darwin, of course, whose Origin of Species was published 150 years ago. Since Darwin our knowledge of the past has been fleshed out not only with fossils filling in gaps, but with an understanding of the intimate structure of the genean understanding that now underpins every stitch in the rich tapestry of life. And yet it is only in the last decades that we have moved from theory and abstract knowledge to a vibrant and detailed picture of life, written in languages that we have only recently begun to translate, and which hold the keys not only to the living world around us but also to the most remote past.

The story that unfurls is more dramatic, more compelling, more intricate than any creation myth. Yet like any creation myth, it is a tale of transformations, of sudden and spectacular changes, eruptions of innovation that transfigured our planet, overwriting past revolutions with new layers of complexity. The tranquil beauty of our planet from space belies the real history of this place, full of strife and ingenuity and change. How ironic that our own petty squabbles reflect our planets turbulent past, and that we alone, despoilers of the Earth, can rise above it to see the beautiful unity of the whole.

Much of this planetary upheaval was catalysed by two handfuls of evolutionary innovations, inventions that changed the world and ultimately made possible our own lives. I must clarify what I mean by invention, for I dont want to imply a deliberate inventor. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an invention as: The original contrivance or production of a new method or means of doing something, previously unknown; origination, introduction. Evolution has no foresight, and does not plan for the future. There is no inventor, no intelligent design. Nonetheless, natural selection subjects all traits to the most exacting tests, and the best designs win out. It is a natural laboratory that belittles the human theatre, scrutinising trillions of tiny differences simultaneously, each and every generation. Design is all around us, the product of blind but ingenious processes. Evolutionists often talk informally of inventions, and there is no better word to convey the astonishing creativity of nature. To gain an insight into how all this came about is the shared goal of scientists, whatever their religious beliefs, along with anyone else who cares about how we came to be here.

This book is about the greatest inventions of evolution, how each one transformed the living world, and how we humans have learned to read this past with an ingenuity that rivals nature herself. It is a celebration of lifes marvellous inventiveness, and of our own. It is, indeed, the long story of how we came to be herethe milestones along the epic journey from the origin of life to our own lives and deaths. It is a book grand in scope. We shall span the length and breadth of life, from its very origins in deep-sea vents to human consciousness, from tiny bacteria to giant dinosaurs. We shall span the sciences, from geology and chemistry to neuroimaging, from quantum physics to planetary science. And we shall span the range of human achievement, from the most celebrated scientists in history to researchers as yet little known, if destined one day, perhaps, to be famous.

My list of inventions is subjective, of course, and could have been different; but I did apply four criteria which I think restrict the choice considerably to a few seminal events in lifes history.

The first criterion is that the invention had to revolutionise the living world, and so the planet as a whole. I mentioned photosynthesis already, which turned the Earth into the supercharged, oxygen-rich planet we know (without which animals are impossible). Other changes are less obvious, but almost equally pervasive. Two inventions with the most widespread consequences are movement, which allowed animals to range around in search of food, and sight, which transformed the character and behaviour of all living organisms. It may well be that the swift evolution of eyes, some 540 million years ago, contributed in no small measure to the sudden appearance of proper animals in the fossil record, known as the Cambrian explosion. I discuss the Earthmoving consequences of each invention in the introductions to individual chapters.