Quantum Evolution

Quantum Evolution
Johnjoe MacFadden
ISBN 4 -320-03424-4 (Japanese Transration)

After finishing Dawkins' the Extended Phenotype, I wanted to know more recent results around evolutionary theory and chose the book. Mainly, it's because I studied elementary particle physics when I was a graduate student and felt it's natural taking quantum theory into consideration of origin and evlolution of life.

When I was a high school student, I read Oparin's book which explains an idea that life was created in primodial atomosphere. Here, the first life form must have been a kind of protains with self-reprodusive property.

Here, so far as we know a self-reprodusive protain is composed of at least 20 amino acids, and there are 20 kinds of amino acids. That means there are 20^20 possible combinations, and it's a 26 digits number...
The point is that it's extremely rare for a self-reproducive protain produced by chance.

McFadden tries to solve the problem by using inverse quantum zeno effect, but the idea seems to be very much controversial, and even for me, a bad student of physics, it's unreasonable and Panspermia hypothesis sounds more likely.

Bought on 2008/11/03.