Here Be Dragons

Introduction
V* At the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, California,
Duane Gish struggles to demonstrate the literal truth of the
story told in Genesis: The universe was created in a week of divine
labor, a week that ended with God's masterpiece, the creature
made in his own image—Man.
Vc A few miles away, at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies,
chemist Leslie Orgel has a good idea of what God was up
against. After a lifetime of trying, Orgel hasn't succeeded in creating
anything remotely living. But he has spawned a student
who claims it can be done. Within two years.
•>'* From the lifeless salt flats of Death Valley, planetary scientist
Chris McKay digs up a spoonful of—life! McKay is impatient to
try his prospecting skills on Mars.
Vc At the summit of Palomar Mountain, in the shadow of the mighty
Hale telescope, Ben Lane fiddles with a Tinkertoy contraption of
mirrors, lasers, and miniature railways. He is a junior member of
a team of scientists who plan to scale up this "optical interferometer"
and put it into orbit around the Sun. With it, they hope to see
planets around distant stars, and maybe to find life on them.