Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-445) and indexes

The Cambridge Sandwich -- Looking tor Easter Island -- Inherency: where is the ground plan in evolution? -- The navigation of protein hyperspace -- The game of life -- Eerie perfection -- Finding Easter Island -- Can we break the great code? -- The ground floor -- DNA: the strangest of all molecules? -- Universal goo: life as a cosmic principle? -- A Martini the size of the Pacific -- Goo from the sky -- Back to deep space -- A life-saving rain? -- The origin of life: straining the soup or our -- Credulity? -- Finding its path -- Problems with experiments -- On the flat -- Back to the test tube -- A sceptic's charter -- Uniquely lucky? The strangeness of Earth -- The shattered orb -- Battering the Earth -- The Mars express -- Making the Solar System -- Rare Moon -- Just the right size -- Jupiter and the comets -- Just the right place -- A cosmic fluke? -- Converging on the extreme -- Universal chlorophyll? -- The wheels of life? -- Fortean bladders -- A silken convergence -- Matrices and skeletons -- Play it again! -- Attacking convergence -- Convergence: on the ground, above the ground, under the ground -- Seeing convergence -- A balancing act -- Returning the gaze -- Eyes of an alien? -- Clarity and colour vision -- Universal rhodopsin -- Smelling convergence -- The echo of convergence -- Shocking convergence -- Hearing convergence -- Thinking convergence -- Alien convergences? -- Down in the farm -- Military convergence -- Convergent complexities -- Hearts and minds -- Honorary mammals -- Giving birth to convergence -- Warming to convergence, singing of convergence, chewing convergence -- The non-prevalence of humanoids? -- Interstellar nervous systems? -- The conceptualizing pancake -- The bricks and mortar of life -- Genes and networks -- Jack, the railway baboon -- Giant brains -- Grasping convergence -- Converging on the humanoid -- Converging on the ultimate -- Evolution bound: the ubiquity of convergence -- Ubiquitous convergence -- Respiratory convergence -- Freezing convergence, photosynthetic convergence -- The molecules converge -- Convergence and evolution -- Converging trends -- A possible research programme -- Towards a theology of evolution -- An evolutionary embedment -- Darwin's priesthood -- Heresy! Heresy -- Genetic fundamentalism -- A path to recovery? -- Convereine on convergence -- Last word

"In this extraordinarily wide-ranging book Simon Conway Morris takes us on a tour of life that encompasses both classic examples of convergence, such as the camera-eyes of octopus and human, and remarkable new work that shows, for example, how ants have developed agriculture independently of us. Embedded in the evolutionary process are both latent inevitabilities and pathways that will be repeatedly explored. Underpinned by DNA, the weirdest molecule in the Universe, guided by a genetic code of staggering effectiveness, the tape of life will in time navigate to such biological properties as advanced sensory systems, intelligence, complex societies, tool-making and culture. So if these are all evolutionary inevitabilities, where are our counterparts across the Galaxy? The tape of life can run only on a suitable planet, and here it turns out that such Earth-like planets may be much rarer than is hoped. Inevitable humans, yes, but in a lonely Universe."--Jacket