[dnautics]

It's not the events themselves that are underestimated- it's the details.

Do the books specifically address using water as a reductant? My experience is that not even scientists in the field (I worked at reprogramming hydrogen-producing enzymes) have a full appreciation of how bizzare that is.

[lumpypua]

My chemistry background is pretty weak so I don't know if it touches the specific points you're curious about, but there's a pretty extensive discussion of electron transport and what all the mechanisms we see in the world today tell us about how life began to harness it. He ends up using the discussion to make the argument that all life in the universe likely uses redox chemistry for energy. Made sense to me anyway.

[dnautics]

> He ends up using the discussion to make the argument that all life in the universe likely uses redox chemistry for energy.

If that's the conclusion, it's trivially true, since basically you can assign a redox value to every chemical transformation using the nernst equation.

The interesting thing is that IMO the resistance to the conceptual framework behind the way that the mitochondrion works was because it was hard for biochemists to picture the proton motive force (concentration gradient) as a redox potential (it truly is one) because it seemed more physics-ey than biochemistry-ey. Peter Mitchell cleared that up amidst quite a bit of controversy. He had to go to the lengths of setting up an independent research institute to get the work done.

[areyousure]

You should read the book and tell us whether it lives up to your standards. If so, then we know that the book is a particularly valuable contribution.