Rick B. (bup) - , reviewed on 7/1/2013 + 166 more book reviews

A really engaging book, but the most frustrating part is it didn't explain why the snowball period 590 million years ago (assuming it existed, which the book does a good job of convincing you) would have led to such a proliferation of complex life.

Yes, environmental stress leads to new species. But after the thesis given in the first chapter, that this was the catalyst that led single-celled life, which had been quite content for 2.5 billion years, to suddenly go multi-cellular and all specialization cells working together, I think we're owed more.

Wouldn't multi-cellular life with specialization have always worked better? In a late chapter, we're also given evidence that a snowball-earth period happened 2 billion years ago, with the really weak "maybe life wasn't developed enough to get multicellular then." If it's a eukariotic cell, with a nucleus and RNA and stuff, what other magic level is there between that and a multi-celled organism?

Ultimately, it feels like there's a real coincidence of events here that pro-snowballers (that sounds dirty, doesn't it?) figure must have been more than a coincidence.

Still, the geology is interesting, and the process through which this hypothesis (that there even was a period during which the whole earth was freezing) slowly gained traction, makes a good read.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details