Leslie Orgel

A theoretical chemist, Orgel was fascinated with the origins of life on Earth. Born and educated in England, Orgel spent most of his professional life in the U.S., at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he directed the Chemical Evolution Laboratory. "He would go for the fundamental questions of biology -- why is biology the way it is and how did it get there?" said Scripps biochemist Gerald Joyce. "He's tackled every problem on the origins of life." Orgel was dissatisfied with the theory that DNA was the first repository of genetic information, as it was too complicated to have not evolved from some precursor. He thus came up with the RNA world theory of the origin of life -- that RNA (ribonucleic acid) came first. Later, after deciding that RNA was also too complex, he theorized that RNA wasn't first either, but rather just one step in a long process. He is popularly known for Orgel's Second Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are." Dr. Orgel died in a hospice on October 27 from pancreatic cancer. He was 80. From This is True for 28 October 2007 Suggestions for further reading: The Darwinian Hypothesis by Thomas Henry Huxley Amazon Price:   Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph M. Nesse, George C. Williams Amazon Price: $10.20 Customer Review: A particularly important resource for natural healers, since the Darwinian theories explored in this book go a long way toward explaining how human biology has adapted to natural substances through evolution.   River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life (Science Masters Series) by Richard Dawkins Amazon Price: $10.85 Customer Review: River out of eden is the last of the Dawkins publications I needed to complete my library of this writers books. It turned out to be unavailable in the netherlands so I received it through Amazon. I am a big fan of Dawkins since he explai...   Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior. by Bobbi S. Low Amazon Price: $29.20 Customer Review: Title says it all, really. The only reason I'm not mad about it is because it was so cheap on Amazon. I was also able to sell it back to the book store (for like $1. CHACHING)   A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution, and Cooperation by Peter Singer Amazon Price: $11.20 Customer Review: "In the 20th century the dream of the perfectibility of humankind turned into the nightmares of Stalinist Russia," Singer writes. In the course of this pamphlet, Singer exhorts the Left to wake up. Although Social Darwinism survives only as a s...   Newsfeed display by CaRP

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