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James N. Gardner presents a startling hypothesis
for how our apparent bio-friendly universe began and what
its ultimate destiny will be. Originally presented in peer-reviewed
scientific journals, his radical "Selfish Biocosm"
theory proposes that life and intelligence have not emerged
in a series of random Darwinian accidents, but are essentially
hardwired into the cycle of cosmic creation, evolution,
death, and rebirth. He argues that the destiny of highly
evolved intelligence (perhaps our distant progeny) is to
infuse the entire universe with life, eventually to accomplish
the ultimate feat of cosmic reproduction by spawning one
or more "baby universes," which will themselves
be endowed with life-generating properties.
In this explanation of the role of life
in the cosmos, Gardner presents an eloquent and lucid synthesis
of the most recent advances in physics, cosmology, biology,
biochemistry, astronomy, and complexity theory. These disciplines
find themselves approaching the frontier of what was once
the exclusive province of philosophers and theologians.
Gardner's Selfish Biocosm hypothesis challenges both Darwinists
as well as advocates of intelligent design, and forces us
to reconsider how we ourselves are shaping the future of
life and the cosmos.
James N. Gardner is an accomplished science
essayist and complexity theorist whose peer-reviewed articles
on cosmology and evolution have been published in prestigious
scientific journals. He has written articles for WIRED,
The Wall Street Journal, and Nature Biotechnology.
Gardner is a former U.S. Supreme Court law clerk and a former
Oregon state senator. He currently reviews science books
for The Sunday Oregonian.
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