Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth

Book of the month: October 2024. Read and reviewed by Matthew Martin. ★★★★★

Andrew Knoll is an absolute powerhouse of research and the generation of 'firsts' in Precambrian Palaeontology. This book delves deep into the Precambrian: into the parts that undergraduate degree simply gloss over. A lifetime of study at Harvard and similarly lofty institutions gives Knoll an insight into the very origins of life and this book is so well written that it is accessible by specialists and non-specialists in equal measure.

He addresses two of the biggest questions of biology and palaeontology—how did life begin and why was there an explosion of life forms at the start of the Cambrian Era. His evenhanded explanations draw heavily from the work he, his graduate students and his collaborators from around the world have performed. Unlike other recent offerings (e.g., Snowball Earth by Gabrielle Walker and In the Blink of an Eye by Andrew Parker), Knoll is not uncomfortable with taking a middle ground, claiming that conclusive answers are not yet within our grasp.

He constructs a case for the importance of "permissive ecology," a situation in which "life and environment evolved together, each influencing the other in building the biosphere we inhabit today." Recognising that his view is neither as flashy nor as controversial as others, he says, "The absence of a definitive punch line may disappoint some readers, but as a paleontologist, it is why I get up in the morning."

I for one was bowled over by some of the revelations in this book and can state categorically that even without a punch line, this book is anything but disappointing.