I really like books that expose holes in scientific knowledge. Books that attempt to fill in those holes with conjecture based on observation are even better. T

I really like books that expose holes in scientific knowledge. Books that attempt to fill in those holes with conjecture based on observation are even better. This book does both very well. However, I did notice some glaring factual errors relating to chemistry (my speciality). Chapter 2 includes the passage: > Second, and more telling, a major distinction between bacterial and archaeal membranes seems to be purely random - bacteria use one stereoisomer (mirror form) of glycerol, while archaea use the other. ... This is false. Glycerol is achiral - devoid of stereochemistry. It is its own mirror form. What Lane may be talking about is lipid hydrolysis, in which functionality at one of the two prochiral oxygens of a lipid is cleaved preferentially, but I haven't followed up on this yet. Either way, Lane spins a scenario where the two main groups of organisms make two different kinds of glycerol. This simply can't be true. This isn't merely a minor technical error. Enantiomeric purity and the same configuration of amino acids has been a hot topic in the origin of life because the kind of scenarios that are supported there are quite different than if various species used mixtures of amino acid stereoisomers or different pure isomers.