A Brief History of Creation (50 page)

Score, Roberta, 211, 213

Sea of Tranquility, 186, 187

Sedgwick, Rev. Adam:

and Cambrian period, 160

and Copley Medal, 130

and Crosse, 89–90

and Darwin, 93, 95, 107, 130

and geology, 94

and Paley, 105

Vestiges
reviewed by, 89–90, 107

self-replication, 166, 245, 248–49, 250

Seneca the Younger, 31

Shakespeare, William, 13–14, 30, 119

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 76–77, 78–79

Frankenstein
, xi, 76n, 77, 79

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 29, 76–77, 78

silkworms, disease of, 137

Simplicius, 8

Singer, George, 86

single-celled organisms, xvii, 38, 40, 42, 229

16S RNA genes, 230

Smith, Adam, 67

Smithsonian National Museum, 211–12

solar system:

exploration of, 183–84, 254

formation of, 147, 220

life elsewhere in, 221

Sorbonne, scientific soirées at, 117–19, 126, 128, 253, 254

soul, 82, 104

Soviet Union:

and Cold War, 180–82,
181
, 271n

genetics in, 166–70, 269n

Moscow conference, 180–82

October Revolution, 156–57, 183

Sputnik launched by, 181, 183

space:

concept of, 220

origin of life in, 184–85, 187, 193, 219–21

space exploration, 183–84, 254;
see also
NASA

Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 69–70, 71, 258

Spanish Civil War, 152–53

species, gradations within, 60

Spiegelman, Sol, 230, 247–48

“Spiegelman's monsters,” 248, 250

Spinoza, Baruch, 28, 29, 31

spiritualism, 115

spirituality, 28

spontaneous generation, xvii

Aristotle on, 10–11, 13, 18, 20, 133, 134, 141, 144

assumptions disproved, 164, 257

Bastian on, 133–35, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143–44, 148

Buffon and Needham's studies of, 56–60,
57
, 71–72

and Cohn's spores, 144

of “eels,” 50–51, 56, 69

and
élan vital,
81, 82

and electricity, 75, 76, 79

experimentation to disprove theory of, 22–23,
22
, 44, 143–44, 148, 153, 175, 217, 273n

experimentation to prove theory of, 75, 134–35, 137

first creatures emerging via, 115–16, 119, 123, 141

Lamarck on, 104, 120

life created in laboratory, 76

of microbes, 40, 112

Pasteur on, 118–19, 120, 126, 128–29,
129
, 134, 148, 217, 253, 257, 268n

Priestly on, 102–3

recipes based on, 21

transmutation, 77–78, 88, 113, 114

Stalin, Joseph, 167–68

Stokes, Pringle, 93, 100

Strick, James,
Sparks of Life,
268n

stromatolites, 224,
225

sun:

age of, 158

ultraviolet radiation from, 165, 175, 223

sundial, invention of, 6

superbugs, 236

superstition, 67, 255

and Voltaire, 49, 61, 65, 66, 71

Swammerdam, Jan, 23

Swift, Jonathan, 38, 61

synthetic life-forms, 246–50

Synthia (first artificial organism), 247

Szostak, Jack, 244–50

telescope, 31

Teller, Edward, 173–74, 271n

Tertullian, 12

Tetrahymena thermophila,
243–45,
243

Thales (philosopher), 5, 12, 81, 82

cosmology of, 6–7

Theophrastus (Tyrtamus), 8, 9

thermodynamics, laws of, 158

Thirty Years' War, 27

Thomas, Lewis,
The Medusa and the Snail,
186

Thomas, Shirley, 270n

Timiryazev, Kliment, 155–56

transformationism, 103

transmutation:

and C. Darwin, 97, 102, 103, 106, 110

and E. Darwin, 77–78, 102, 103

and evolution theory, 78, 88, 97, 102–3, 106, 110, 113

Lamarckian, 88, 97, 110, 116, 134, 168

and spontaneous generation, 77–78, 86, 113, 114

tree, records of growth, 20

tree of life:

Aristotle, 10

Chambers,
233

Darwin, 228–29,
233

phylogenetic, 228,
233

Woese, 227, 229, 231–33,
233
, 236–38

Trembley, Abraham:

Memoires pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de polypes d'eau douce,
55

polyps (hydras), 54–56,
55
, 60

trigonometry, discovery of, 5

Truman, Harry S., 271n

Turing, Alan, 206

Tyndall, John, 138–39, 142–44

tyndallization, 144

ultraviolet radiation, 165, 175, 223

University of Chicago, 172, 173–74, 178, 184, 195

University of Queensland, 221–22

Urey, Harold, 173, 251

Miller-Urey experiment, 175–80, 182, 184, 185, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 245

and NASA exobiology program, 191, 218

and Orgueil meteorite, 218

US Geological Survey (USGS), 162–63

Ussher, James,
Annals of the Old Testament,
146, 147, 158

Uwins, Philippa, 222

Vavilov, Nikolai, 152, 168

Venter, Craig, 246–47, 253

recipe for a cell, 260

Vermeer, Jan, 29

The Girl with the Pearl Earring,
28

Victoria, queen of England, 88

Viking
missions, 185, 213, 220

Virgil, 19

viruses, 166, 202, 218–19, 226, 274n

Vishniac, Wolf, 184–85

vitalism, 81–83, 84, 124, 128–29, 253, 254

vitamin A, 197

Volta, Alessandro, 81

Voltaire, 28, 60–66, 82, 146

and Buffon, 60–61, 66

death of, 71

Dialogues d'Évhémère,
70–71

Dictionnaire philosophique,
45–48, 65

and du Châtelet, 61–63, 71

Elements of Newton's Philosophy,
63

essay on miracles, 48–49

and Maupertuis, 63–65, 66

and Needham, 48–49, 60, 64, 65, 66, 69–71, 263n

and religion, 65–66, 67, 105

Wächtershäuser, Günter, 237–38

Walcott, Charles Doolittle, 161–63,
162
, 213

Wald, George, 257

Wallace, Alfred Russel, 108–9, 114, 115, 132, 135, 161

Warren, Earl, 173

water:

as essence of all matter, 6–7

essential for life, 213

Watson, James:

and DNA structure, 200–204,
205
, 226

and genetics, 241

sexism of, 203–4n

The Double Helix,
200, 203

Wedgwood, Josiah, 93, 101

Weeks, William, 88

wheat, Needham's experiments on, 50–51, 58

Wickramasinghe, Chandra, 218, 219, 220

wife beating, as crime, 29

Wilberforce, Bishop Samuel, 131

Wilkins, Maurice, 203, 204

William of Orange, 50

William the Silent, 50

Wimmer, Eckard, 246, 247

witchcraft, 28

Woese, Carl, 225–27, 229–38, 247

and archaea, 231–32

and genetic code, 226–27, 239, 241

and LUCA, 225

and RNA,
232

tree of life, 227, 229, 231–33,
233
, 236–38

Woesian revolution, 231–33

Wöhler, Friedrich, 82–83n

Wollstonecraft, Mary [Shelley], 76–77, 78–79

World War I, 141–42

Wren, Christopher, 35, 36

X Club, 129–30, 132, 138, 139

X-rays, discovery of, 201

yeast cells, 125–26

Yellowstone National Park, 237

Zare, Richard, 214

Zoological Society of London, 100

Zuckerkandl, Emile, 229

zymotic theory, 137, 138

Copyright © 2016 by Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves II

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