Faustian Ambitions

While only a total synthesis of an organic compound starting from the elements could serve as a knock-down argument against vitalism, this myth was, as John Brooke and Peter Ramberg have both pointed out, more to 

Whether it be the transgression of the frontier between the natural and the artificial by medieval alchemists, between living and inanimate by their nineteenth-century heirs, or between human and bacteria in the twentieth century, chemistry has challenged the most fundamental classifications that lie behind many of our civilization s social and cultural values. Thus, even before chemistry came to be seen as a threat to the environment, it was already perceived as a threat to the founding principles of human civilization. 

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The Return of Chemistry s Faustian Ambitions The Rise of Chemistry s Philosophical Ambitions... 

More generally, I will try to illustrate the different views on the origin of life and early evolution - notions like determinism and contingency will come into focus. All these scientific views are based on the postulate that life on Earth comes from inanimate matter and a corollary of this postulate is that it might be possible to reconstitute life in the laboratory, at least in some elementary form. The ambition of understanding the prebiotic chemistry leading to the transition to life, and ultimately, to the Faustian dream of making hfe on the workbench, underlies the whole field -and is also the common thread of this book. 

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