RE: Chemical Origin of Life
October 15, 2012 at 12:19 pm
(This post was last modified: October 15, 2012 at 12:30 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(October 15, 2012 at 12:08 pm)Darkstar Wrote: How did species originate? If it means originate as in differentiate from the first species, then okay. If it means how did species originate as in the first species, then it would be referring to the origin of life. The scientifically ignorant assume the latter without actaully doing any research, and then attempt to debate the point, much to the annoyance of those who have heard this countless times (not that this thread is trying to tie evolution into abiogenesis, it was just a thought that occured to me).
You make the unwarrented assumption that neither species nor evolution existed until after what might be termed the first life. This is probably not true.
Life on earth can be biochemically separated into two fundamental division - The Archea and everything else. At cellular level they look similar, functions broadly similarly on a high level, but are incompatible biochemically at the most basic metabolic level. It appears chemically, there is no way for a functioning organism in one division to embark upon the first evolution step to change from one division to another without immediately dying.
This suggest the chemical division in life on earth originated at a part of biochemical speciation process BEFORE the process culmated in life. There were already at least two species of self-contained pre-organisms that didn't possess all the necessary traits and chemical processes needed to actually be true lifes\. But these two species can reproduce and produce chemical inheritence in a way, This then allowed each of these species to individually evolved into true life through additional speciation, and acquisition of additional chemical process needed to be full fledged life, along two different paths. Hence Archea and everything else.
This also shows life didn't appear as a big bang. Not "There be life" and then evolution. Instead, Life itself is a culmination of a long process of complex biochemical evolution. There was evolution first, and somewhere along the way, enough evolution occurred for one of the steps to count as life.
