Quantum Evolution: How Physics Weirdest Theory Explains Lifes Biggest Mystery by Johnjoe McFadden

Quantum Evolution: How Physics Weirdest Theory Explains Lifes Biggest Mystery Reviews

• 
  Lisa Taylor

  This book is fucking amazing.
  
  Granted it took me a ridiculous amount of time to read it. But I promise that wasn't because it was bad. It was just so packed full of information, that I wanted to make sure I actually learned it, so I literally had to stop and process every few pages. This book is written so efficiently, almost every sentence gives you some new piece of information. I feel like by reading it I took an entire course in microbiology, an entire course in quantum mechanics (minus the math) and maybe a partial course or online course in thermodynamics.
  
  Now I'm not entirely sure I buy his conclusions at the end. But I can't think of anything that disproves them either. I think this theory needs to be given all due consideration by the scientific community.
  
  Regardless of whether you think he's right, reading this book will give you a solid understanding of the theory of evolution thus far, and what kinds of experiments have been ongoing in an attempt to understand evolution better. You'll get a good idea of the things evolution explains beautifully as well as the holes in evolution that we haven't quite figured out yet, and you'll get a detailed explanation as to how each and every one of these things work, from the most basic cells all the way to complex organisms like people. Seriously, even if he had made no conclusion and just left this to be an informative book, I would have LOVED it because of the thoroughness of his explanation.
  
  Just read it. If you love science, just read it.
• 
  DrosoPHila

  Readers wanting to learn about science and how scientists think would be well advised to bear in mind that this work reflects the author's extremely idiosyncratic views on biology and that a mainstream consensus isn't presented.
  
  I could only find one professional review; that of
  Wallace Arthur in the journal Heredity
  (which can be found here). Arthur concludes that Quantum Evolution "does not work". Otherwise, the book seems to have suffered the indignity of being ignored by the scientific community.
  
  McFadden posits that the scientific theory evolution by natural selection is an insufficient explanation in biology. This is a fallacious argument from incredulity, which he attempts to support by referencing
  Michael Behe's
  Darwin's Black Box. Behe's bizarre views on biology and evolution have been thoroughly discredited elsewhere. Piling more nonsense atop of other nonsense is not the way to do science.
  
  Quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive, deeply mathematical and makes your head hurt. As a scientist, that makes it difficult to explain to a general audience. McFadden isn't a physicist - but Matthew J. Donald, who is -
  describes McFadden's use of quantum mechanics as "deeply flawed". In short, this appears to be classic "quantum woo". If you want a primer on quantum mechanics, look elsewhere.
  
  A common misconception is that science progresses through massive paradigm shifts -- it generally doesn't. Paradigm shifts rarely occur, and if theory A is displaced in favour of theory B, then it's because theory B is largely correct, and is unlikely to be displaced by theory C. McFadden apparently thought that he was creating a "new science of life", yet 15 years after this massively vain overstatement, this remains an obscure work of little to no scientific relevance, in which the author over-reaches himself by making grand claims about areas of science that he doesn't understand.
• 
  Emily Cauduro

  This was a challenging book but definitely worth the patience and effort. I appreciate that the author explained the concepts in a straightforward way but the concepts themselves are still more theoretical and “quantum” then I can get my head around. Lots to think about and very well cited.
• 
  Irena Feng

  This book has an excellent introduction to quantum mechanics and evolution, but begins to lose its legs towards the end when we wander past what is known (at least relatively more so) and enter the realm of guesswork. McFadden makes intriguing points that I'll definitely be thinking about for a while, such as the link between consciousness and synchronization in neuronal firing, or whether consciousness can be said to be the driver of our individual experiences or some byproduct of neuronal computations. However, on the whole, I'm not sold on his exact theory (not that I have a better explanation!).
  
  Also, it did take me almost two years of on-and-off reading to eventually finish the book beyond the initial background sections, since the writing did become more and more convoluted as we delved deeper into McFadden's theories. Despite this, he does an impressive job attempting to tie so many subjects together, so overall this book was, at the very least, a thought-provoking read.
• 
  Nicola Michelle

  This book is a fantastic, in depth discussion of the potential routes for the origins and evolution of life through Quantum means. The beginnings of the book gave a wonderful foundation for the history of the emergence of life, the difficulty in defining life and the potential of life in other planets to name a few.
  
  As the book advances it begins to delve deeper into Quantum means and relays them back to life and how it might be implicated in its start up as well as its evolution. It’s written in a very accessible way and helps the reader to understand often difficult concepts, as when it comes to Quantum, nothing is ever straight forward! As a biologist interested in Quantum mechanics, this book was way up my street!
  
  I found the concept of Adaptive Mutations very interesting too and the whole book made me see certain aspects of what I thought I knew, very differently. It was also written in a very well balanced way, to account for the different thoughts or beliefs of the reader when it comes to interpretation of the quantum world, whether you believe in the Many Worlds Theory, Copenhagen interpretation, pilot waves etc..
  
  I also loved the final chapter on the Quantum mind, free will and consciousness and how the Quantum world and our thinking mind, thoughts and brain could be connected.
  
  Overall a brilliant book and one that I will probably come back to and read again!
• 
  Suhas Bhat

  Gives a nice overview of the effect of Quantum Mechanics on how life might have originated hypothetically, explained explicitly in the book!
• 
  Kurtbg

  This is basically a response in support of punctuated equilibrium that proposes a quantum level solution. Some interesting stuff for thought here, but I'm not convinced. What is it? Well, you can have a gene that's turned off or turned on. What's offered here is a third option: turned both on and off, kinda like Schrodinger's cat.
  
  We know that something is or it isn't and that variations happen for a reason. We know that if you bake a cake, you're not going to pull a chocolate mousse out of the oven. The theory puts forth that you could...
  
  The book also covers experiments in which evolution is attempted to be kick-started bu recreating the supposed primordial soup to see what evolves. Well, this experiments haven't worked. I would suspect that having a planet in general perceived status for a few billion years, and then changing would put some real harsh blockers in trying to recreate in an experiment. What we do know, is that life finds a way. What does that mean? It means you have organisms (unicellular and above.) They exist because they have been able to thrive in the current environment. Then there is a trauma - a scarcity of a needed resources which forces the organism to adapt. In this case, we had had anaerobic bacteria partner with aerobic bacteria to survive - when excretes what the other needs in a symbiotic fashion. There is either an inherent (genetic) potential to do so (live) or not (die) which is what we call natural selection. The greater the genetic variability, the greater the likelihood that some genetic strain will be able to adapt and survive.
  
  We've been able to identify and document a few of these iterations. There is some support that it is cyclical, but in the end it still Darwinian in that you must be able to adapt, thrive, and reproduce.
• 
  Arnold Grot

  It was one James Rollin’s recommend readings from his Sigma Series books. More often facts are stranger than fiction.
• 
  Adam

  Containing both an introduction to quantum physics and the probabilistic universe, and McFadden's theory on how quantum theory intersects with evolution, this book is a page by page gasp-a-thon! Do not read this in bed if your partner is trying to sleep. You will find yourself continuously waking him/her up with a "Did you have any idea that ...!"
  
  The crux of of McFadden's theory (as I remember it) is that our bodies themselves act as "observers" of quantum particles (forcing them continuously out of their unknown state), and yet because they are probabilistic and not deterministic, evolutionary changes can be "stored" in those probabilities. This gets around the thorny problem of atomicity in evolution (also known as the "flying dragons" or "what use is an eye halfway through it's evolution" problem.) Factor in the multiverse and a quantum take on Decarte's "I think therefore I am" philosophy and you've got yourself one incredible book.
  
  Read it, and be amazed.
• 
  DJ

  recommended by Zanardi
• 
  Chris

  Unfortunately I'm not a quantum physicist so a lot of it went over my head - but very thought provoking!
• 
  Mike

  Complex theory. Not sure if I believe the claim but great explanation. And it's possible