A Rational Cosmology: An Evolutionary Explanation for the Origins of Life

Essay LXX

This is Essay LXX of Mr. Stolyarov's series, "A Rational Cosmology," which seeks to present objective, absolute, rationally grounded views of terms such as universe, matter, volume, space, time, motion, sound, light, forces, fields, and even the higher-order concepts of life, consciousness, and volition. See the index of all the essays in "A Rational Cosmology" here.

Stanley Miller's 1953 experiment demonstrated the possibility of the spontaneous synthesis of amino acids from inorganic compounds. From this discovery, a logically consistent and empirically verifiable evolutionary origin for life itself has been posited.

Through favorable chemical attractions, the amino acids and miscellaneous substances formed in the early atmosphere became arranged into macromolecules, which later aggregated into protobionts, collections of molecules that possessed the peculiar quality of generating copies of themselves.

Some of these early protobionts were molecules of RNA, which, after hundreds of millions of years, became incorporated as a genetic code within the simplest cells of prokaryotic (bacterial) organisms. Hence, over a colossal amount of time, non-life was able to generate life.

These very prokaryotic forebears of higher-order life forms, however, made it difficult for further spontaneous conversion of simple molecules into organic building blocks to occur. Many of them produced oxygen as a byproduct of their photosynthesis, which altered atmosphere composition and caused it to become an oxidizing atmosphere rather than a reducing one (spontaneous reactions are more likely to occur in a reducing atmosphere).

Once life was already in existence, the barriers between it and non-life became more distinct and less prone to transgression, except by modern technology and the minds of those entities who exhibit the highest of the qualities applicable to living beings.