Chemical Origin of Life

[Darkstar]

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 chemically incompatible biochemically at a basic 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 two species of self-contained pre-organisms that didn't quite fulfil all the requirements of life. These two species then each individually evolved into true life through additional speciation along two different trees.

Thus speciation not only explains why there are so many different form of life, it may in fact be a characteristic of the chemical process that led to the origin of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea#Ori..._evolution

I'm not sure how you are saying speciation led to the origin of life. It says [in the link] that it is believed that Archea are one of the three domains, which speciated off from the first cells. It doesn't have anything to do with how the first cells originated, but with what happened immediately afterward.