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Beginnings of Organic Evolution

In: The Study of Time IV

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  • A. G. Cairns-Smith

Abstract

It is now generally believed that life arose on the Earth spontaneously, that the first systems capable of evolving indefinitely through natural selection were the outcome of normal physico-chemical processes. We may accept this as a reasonable premise without being committed to a more particular set of ideas embodied in the doctrine of chemical evolution. According to this doctrine the physico-chemical processes in question consisted of a preliminary build-up of our biochemicals (amino acids, sugars, and so on) in primordial waters followed by their polymerization and further organization into systems that could eventually reproduce and so become subject to Darwinian selection. This straight line view of the beginnings of organic evolution has been well discussed—for example by Oparin (1957), Calvin (1969), Miller and Orgel (1974) and Dickerson (1978). According to this view organic molecules that lie now at the basis of our biochemistry. Inorganic minerals insofar as they were involved sserved in a secondary role, in providing catalysts for the formation of small organic molecules or surfaces on which these might have been congregated to make their polymerization more likely to occur. Bernal (1951) saw clays in this way—and this been the general view since that time

Suggested Citation

  • A. G. Cairns-Smith, 1981. "Beginnings of Organic Evolution," Springer Books, in: J. T. Fraser & Nathanial Lawrence & David Park (ed.), The Study of Time IV, pages 15-33, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4612-5947-3_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-5947-3_2
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