Rare earth : why complex life is uncommon in the universe / Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-317) and index.

Introduction: The Astrobiology Revolution and the Rare Earth Hypothesis -- Dead Zones of the Universe -- Rare Earth Factors -- 1. Why Life Might Be Widespread in the Universe -- 2. Habitable Zones of the Universe -- 3. Building a Habitable Earth -- 4. Life's First Appearance on Earth -- 5. How to Build Animals -- 6. Snowball Earth -- 7. The Enigma of the Cambrian Explosion -- 8. Mass Extinctions and the Rare Earth Hypothesis -- 9. The Surprising Importance of Plate Tectonics -- 10. The Moon, Jupiter, and Life on Earth -- 11. Testing the Rare Earth Hypotheses -- 12. Assessing the Odds -- 13. Messengers from the Stars.

"With a new preface and updated throughout, this first paperback edition of Ward and Brownlee's ground-breaking and controversial Rare Earth marshals data from geology, astronomy, and biology to put forth a radical hypothesis: While primitive organisms such as microbes are very likely abundant across the galaxies, advanced life, depending as it does on a myriad of special circumstances, is altogether another story. In a thought-provoking departure from the widely held view that there must be countless civilizations of intelligent beings out there, Ward and Brownlee suggest that multicellular life-forms, let alone life-forms with whom we'd be able to communicate, must be exceedingly rare."--BOOK JACKET.