EUGENE KOONIN (b. 1956 - ) is a Senior Investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.

The Logic of Chance : The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution
by Eugene V. Koonin
Pearson Education Inc. / FT Press Science, 2012
 

The Logic of Chance gives a 'post-modern' update of evolutionary theory emphasizing the 'plurality of pattern and processes' in evolution and that evolution works through 'tinkering'. This book is particularly interesting with regard to the power of analyzing genetic databases. Anyone interested in understanding how using bioinformatics approaches to study the origin of life will be well served by this readable book. I for one particularly enjoyed the chapters on the Virus World and origin of cells, including the origin of the universal translation machinery (the RNA world), and the link between the domain of life specific origin of (and thus non universal) DNA replication mechanisms and cell membranes.

January 5, 2013 /  © 2013 Lukas K. Buehler / go back to Book Review Home