Audiobook of A World from Dust

Authors

Ben McFarland, Seattle Pacific UniversityFollow

Files

Description

A World From Dust is a popular science book about the chemical sequence behind the evolution of creation.

It’s about how geology, biology, and chemistry worked together over billions of years, providing a hidden order under the random flow of genes and lava and water.

It’s about the chemical job that each element takes up in life, and how that job is predictable from its place on the periodic table.

It can be told as the story of many elements: how iron and sulfur gave a spark of life; how manganese was a key for oxygen; and how copper and zinc formed the basis for your immune system and growth patterns.

It can be told as the story of one element: the story of how oxygen was hidden from life, then killed life, then gave new energy and new shapes for life to become more complex than before.

It’s also about how, if we rewound and replayed the “tape of life”, what we would “hear” in evolution would be much the same the second time around. It’s about how, at certain levels, life is predictable and ordered — and at other levels, it’s not.

To use big words, it’s about chemistry, convergence, and contingency. To use little words (that are probably better), it’s about fate and free will.

The book is written by Ben McFarland and illustrated by Gala Bent and Mary Anderson. Audiobook produced by Seattle Pacific University's department of Educational Technology and Media.

Publication Date

2018

Publisher

Seattle Pacific University

Funder

Institute for Academic Innovation, Seattle Pacific University

Grant

Innovation Seed Grant

City

Seattle

Keywords

chemistry, convergence, contingency, fate, free will, periodic table, elements, evolution

Disciplines

Biochemistry | Biology | Chemistry | Environmental Chemistry | Evolution

Comments

Additional information and resources available at http://www.benmcfarland.com/.

Copyright Status

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/

Additional Rights Information

Audiobook copyright Ben McFarland 2018. Permission is granted to download and use audiobook for non-commercial uses. For permissions, please contact Ben McFarland. Print book copyright Ben McFarland 2016

Recommended Citation

McFarland, Ben, "Audiobook of A World from Dust" (2018). Faculty Open Access Books. 1.
https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/open_books/1