NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Adam Rutherford's Creation: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself (Current/Penguin, 2013). The preview consists of chapter 3, "Hell on Earth," in which Rutherford describes the early geology of the earth — "a picture of the Hadean earth is crucial to understanding the wild natural laboratory in which life contrived to be born" — and reviews the history of scientific work on the origin of life from Charles Darwin to Stanley Miller — "Miller's iconic experiment follows in the direct scientific lineage of Darwin's warm little pond."
Writing in the Guardian, Nick Lane praised Creation as "a brave and unusual book. Brave in its title and subtitles; unusual in its central conceit. It is two books in one, linked as the twin pillars of creation, natural and manmade — which calls for some delicate juggling of content. It is brave in this content, too: Rutherford is dealing with big questions, and he does not shy away from difficult and at times unfashionable material — from cell theory and entropy to the mechanics of DNA replication. And yet his writing is accessible and clear throughout."