Abstract
Origin of life research is one of the greatest scientific frontiers of mankind. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain how life began. Although different hypotheses emphasize different initial phenomena, all of them agree around one important concept: at some point, along with the chain of events toward life, Darwinian evolution emerged. There is no consensus, however, how this occurred. Frequently, the mechanism leading to Darwinian evolution is not addressed and it is assumed that this problem could be solved later, with experimental proof of the hypothesis. Here, the author first defines the minimum components required for Darwinian evolution and then from this standpoint, analyzes some of the hypotheses for the origin of life. Distinctive features of Darwinian evolution and life rooted in the interaction between information and its corresponding structure/function are then reviewed. Due to the obligatory dependency of the information and structure subject to Darwinian evolution, these components must be locked in their origin. One of the most distinctive characteristics of Darwinian evolution in comparison with all other processes is the establishment of a fundamentally new level of matter capable of evolving and adapting. Therefore, the initiation of Darwinian evolution is the “point of no return” after which life begins. In summary: a definition and a mechanism for Darwinian evolution are provided together with a critical analysis of some of the hypotheses for the origin of life.
Highlights
What distinguishes a living entity from matter that is not alive? How did life originate?These questions have accompanied us through human history
An obvious question is “What are the critical steps for living matter to emerge?” The formation of RNA and peptides depends on the previous steps of the prebiotic synthesis of nucleotides and amino acids
To find a boundary between chemistry and biology if we look at all the events leading up to Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA)? According to Jack Szostak and other leading scientists, this question is not in the scope of origin of life research since it does not provide the basis for associated experiments and eliminates the need to define a transition from chemistry to biology [4,5]
Summary
What distinguishes a living entity from matter that is not alive? How did life originate?. The establishment of heredity defines the emergence of adaptation and diversification toward more complex structures, i.e., Darwinian evolution. Once Darwinian evolution is established, new forms and structures could be synthesized at a higher rate due to the existence of the mechanism of heredity. From this perspective, the initiation of Darwinian evolution defines a “point of no return”. The initiation of Darwinian evolution defines a “point of no return” Before this moment, any polymer complex would be assembled and disassembled throughout every cycle of events with the same probability. Important conclusions will be presented which may be useful to anyone in the field of origin of life research
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