Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life

A G Cairns–Smith 1982 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ix + 477 pp price £15 Genetic Takeover is about the origins of life on earth. It presents a radical new point of view to those of us who have previously held to the chemical evolution theory, in which a 'primeval soup' leads to the formation of elementary biochemicals (as originally put forward by Urey).