Plato's Revenge

First there was the genetic revolution—the discovery that physical structures in the cell, including DNA and RNA, shape every organism. Now, says evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg, we are overdue for another and more profound revolution. Recent findings reveal that genetic and even epigenetic sources alone cannot account for the rich dynamism of life—not even close. Some other informational source is required.

The idea was anticipated 2,400 years ago in Plato's Timaeus, and periodically revisited in the ensuing centuries. Sidelined by scientific materialism, it is now reasserting itself on the strength of cutting-edge molecular biology, higher mathematics, and commonsense reasoning. In Plato's Revenge, science writer David Klinghoffer takes Sternberg's profound explorations and weaves them into a lively and accessible account of a most remarkable realization: At every moment, we owe our lives to a genome that is more than matter, and to an informational source that is immaterial, transcomputational, and beyond space and time.