Ward/Brownlee - Rare Earth:Why Complex Life is Uncommon...(2000)

Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe
By Peter D. Ward & Donald Brownlee, 2000
ISBN-10: 0387987010
ISBN-13: 978-0387987019
Language: English
Size: 3.51MB, 261 pages

"The sweeping diversity of complex life on Earth, Ward and Brownlee argue, evolved out of an extraordinary set of physical conditions and chance events that would be extremely hard to duplicateΓÇôΓÇôthough not impossible. Many planets throughout the vastness of the Universe may be teeming with microbial life, but advancement beyond this stage is very rare. Everyone with an interest in the possible extent of life in the Universe and the nature of life's evolution on our own planet will be fascinated by Rare Earth. '...likely to cause a revolution in thinking...' The New York Times '...[the book] has hit the world of astrobiologists like a killer asteroid...' Newsday (New York) '...a sobering and valuable perspective...' Science '...a startling new hypothesis...' Library Journal '...Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee offer a powerful argument...' The Economist '...provocative, significant, and sweeping...' Northwest Science & Technology '...a stellar example of clear writing...' American Scientist"

Notes:

- This e-Book is not a repost of an available commercial PDF. Instead, it was lovingly scanned from the original book, OCR'ed, proofread, spellchecked, formatted and PDF'ed by me, which took a couple of weeks. This is because, as far as I know, it has never appeared in eBook form anywhere before this.

- Small caveats: I repaginated the book to fit the page size chosen, and I didn't adjust the page numbers in the index to match... this would have taken days, and who cares: we have Find!

- Note that this is a science book, theologically neutral and devoid of any supernatural implications. While the scientific work of the noted "Intelligent Design" advocate astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez is discussed, this work should not be equated with his book "The Privileged Planet".

- As this is a science book in a rapidly changing field, is almost 14 years old, and isn't available as an eBook, it's time it hit the 'net. In a saner world, it would already be in the public domain.

- There's only a PDF as I find it a pain to convert to other formats... sorry. Feel free of course!