This book advocates the importance and value of errors for the progress of scientific research! Hans Kricheldorf explains that most of the great scientific achievements are based on an iterative process (an ‘innate self-healing mechanism’): errors are committed, being checked over and over again, through which finally new findings and knowledge can arise. New ideas are often first confronted with refusal. This is so not only in real life, but also in scientific and medical research. The author outlines in this book how great ideas had to ripen over time before winning recognition and being accepted. The book showcases in an entertaining way, but without schadenfreude, that even some of the most famous discoverers may appear in completely different light, when regarding errors they have committed in their work.This book is divided into two parts. The first part creates a fundament for the discussion and understanding by introducing important concepts, terms and definitions, suchas (natural) sciences and scientific research, laws of nature, paradigm shift, and progress (in science). It compares natural sciences with other scientific disciplines, such as historical research or sociology, and examines the question if scientific research can generate knowledge of permanent validity. The second part contains a collection of famous fallacies and errors from medicine, biology, chemistry, physics and geology, and how they were corrected. Readers will be astonished and intrigued what meanders had to be explored in some cases before scientists realized facts, which are today’s standard and state-of-the-art of science and technology. This is an entertaining and amusing, but also highly informative book not only for scientists and specialists, but for everybody interested in science, research, their progress, and their history!

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the hypothesis of chemical evolution that may have led to the origin of life, serving three main purposes: it provides a comprehensive summary of hundreds of chemical experiments and analytical studies from the past 70 years, evaluates their significance in supporting the hypothesis of chemical evolution, and offers a critical review of these experiments and hypotheses. The book is particularly valuable for students, postdocs, and scientists engaged in experimental work in this field. 

This book outlines the latest experimental and theoretical achievements in chemical evolution research, addressing fundamental questions such as “How to define life?” and “Why life by chemical evolution?”. It explores various hypotheses and covers topics like polymerization processes, model syntheses of amino acids, saccharides, and nucleotides, and the chemistry of interstellar clouds and meteorites. In this book, readers will discover a thorough examination of the problem of homochirality and its implications for the origin of life. The book also invites readers to think through critical questions such as the likelihood of life emerging elsewhere in the universe and the role of race­mization in early biochemical processes. 

This volume is an essential resource for researchers and scholars in biochemistry, as­trobiology, and evolutionary biology, as well as students and interested laypersons. Offering valuable insights into the chemical foundations of life, this book appeals to all who are curious about how life began.

This book advocates the importance and value of errors for the progress of scientific research! Hans Kricheldorf explains that most of the great scientific achievements are based on an iterative process (an ‘innate self-healing mechanism’): errors are committed, being checked over and over again, through which finally new findings and knowledge can arise. New ideas are often first confronted with refusal. This is so not only in real life, but also in scientific and medical research. The author outlines in this book how great ideas had to ripen over time before winning recognition and being accepted. The book showcases in an entertaining way, but without schadenfreude, that even some of the most famous discoverers may appear in completely different light, when regarding errors they have committed in their work.This book is divided into two parts. The first part creates a fundament for the discussion and understanding by introducing important concepts, terms and definitions, suchas (natural) sciences and scientific research, laws of nature, paradigm shift, and progress (in science). It compares natural sciences with other scientific disciplines, such as historical research or sociology, and examines the question if scientific research can generate knowledge of permanent validity. The second part contains a collection of famous fallacies and errors from medicine, biology, chemistry, physics and geology, and how they were corrected. Readers will be astonished and intrigued what meanders had to be explored in some cases before scientists realized facts, which are today’s standard and state-of-the-art of science and technology. This is an entertaining and amusing, but also highly informative book not only for scientists and specialists, but for everybody interested in science, research, their progress, and their history!

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the hypothesis of chemical evolution that may have led to the origin of life, serving three main purposes: it provides a comprehensive summary of hundreds of chemical experiments and analytical studies from the past 70 years, evaluates their significance in supporting the hypothesis of chemical evolution, and offers a critical review of these experiments and hypotheses. The book is particularly valuable for students, postdocs, and scientists engaged in experimental work in this field. 

This book outlines the latest experimental and theoretical achievements in chemical evolution research, addressing fundamental questions such as “How to define life?” and “Why life by chemical evolution?”. It explores various hypotheses and covers topics like polymerization processes, model syntheses of amino acids, saccharides, and nucleotides, and the chemistry of interstellar clouds and meteorites. In this book, readers will discover a thorough examination of the problem of homochirality and its implications for the origin of life. The book also invites readers to think through critical questions such as the likelihood of life emerging elsewhere in the universe and the role of race­mization in early biochemical processes. 

This volume is an essential resource for researchers and scholars in biochemistry, as­trobiology, and evolutionary biology, as well as students and interested laypersons. Offering valuable insights into the chemical foundations of life, this book appeals to all who are curious about how life began.