Skip to main content
Log in

Are the different hypotheses on the emergence of life as different as they seem?

  • Published:
Biology and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper calls attention to a philosophical presupposition, coined here “the continuity thesis” which underlies and unites the different, often conflicting, hypotheses in the origin of life field. This presupposition, a necessary condition for any scientific investigation of the origin of life problem, has two components. First, it contends that there is no unbridgeable gap between inorganic matter and life. Second, it regards the emergence of life as a highly probable process. Examining several current origin-of-life theories. I indicate the implicit or explicit role played by the “continuity thesis” in each of them. In addition, I identify the rivals of the “thesis” within the scientific community — “the almost miracle camp.” Though adopting the anti-vitalistic aspect of the “continuity thesis”, this camp regards the emergence of life as involving highly improbable events. Since it seems that the chemistry of the prebiotic stages and of molecular self-organization processes rules out the possibility that life is the result of a “happy accident,” I claim that the “almost miracle” view implies in fact, a creationist position.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bartel, D. P. and J. W. Szostak: 1993, “Isolation of new ribozymes from a large pool of random sequences”,Science 261, 1411–1418.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernal, J. D.: 1965, Discussion, in S. W. Fox (ed.),The Origin of Prebiological Systems and of their Molecular Matrices, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bresch, C., H. Neisert, and D. Harnasch: 1980, “Hypercycles, parasites and packages”,Journal of Theoretical Biology 85, 399–405.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cairns-Smith, A. G.: 1985,Seven Clues to the Origin of Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crick, F.: 1981,Life Itself, Simon and Schuster, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crick, F. and L. Orgel: 1973, “Directed Panspermia”,Icarus 19, 341–346.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R.: 1988,The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Books, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Duve, Christian: 1991,Blueprint for a Cell, Neil Patterson Publishers, North Carolina.

    Google Scholar 

  • Depew, D. J. and B. H. Weber: 1988, “Consequences of Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics for the Darwinian Tradition”, in B. H. Weber, D. J. Depew, and J. D. Smith (eds.),Entropy, Information, and Evolution, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 317–354.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyson, Freeman: 1985,Origins of Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eigen, Manfred: 1971, “Self-organization of matter and the evolution of biological macromolecules”,Naturwissenschaften 58, 465–523.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eigen, Manfred: 1992,Steps Towards Life, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eigen, Manfred: 1993, “Viral Quasispecies”,Scientific American (July), 42–49.

  • Eigen, Manfred and Peter Schuster: 1977, “The Hypercycle, Part A: The emergence of the hypercycle”,Naturwissenschaften 64, 541–565.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eigen, Manfred and Peter Schuster: 1978, “The Hypercycle, Part C: The realistic hypercycle”,Naturwissenschaften 65, 341–369.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eigen, M., W. Gardiner, P. Schuster, and R. Winkler-Oswatitsch: 1981, “The Origin of Genetic Information”,Scientific American 244 (4, 78–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farley, John: 1974,The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, S. W.: 1980, “Life from an orderly cosmos”,Naturwissenschaften 67, 576–581.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, S. W.: 1984, “Proteinoid Experiments and Evolutionary Theory”, in M. W. Ho and P. T. Saunders (eds.),Beyond Neo-Darwinism, Academic Press, London, pp. 15–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, S. W. and K. Dose: 1972,Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life, W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gesteland, R. F. and J. F. Atkins (eds.): 1993,The RNA World, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring harbor, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldlanskii, V. L., and V. V. Kuzmin: 1989, “Spontaneous breaking of mirror symmetry in nature and the origin of life”,Sov. Phys. Usp. 32, 1–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gould, S. J.: 1989,Wonderful Life, W. W. Norton & Company, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gribbin, J.: 1993, InThe Beginning, Little, Brown and Company, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haldane, J. S.: 1921 [1913],Mechanism, Life and Personality, John Murray, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haldane, J. B. S.: 1967 [1929], “The Origin of Life”, Appendix in J. D. Bernal, 1967,The Origin of Life, Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, London, pp. 242–249.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoyle, F. and N. C. Wickramasinghe: 1981,Evolution from Space, Dent & Sons, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoyle, F. and N. C. Wickramasinghe: 1993,Our Place in the Cosmos, J. M. Dent, London.

  • Hull, D. L.: 1988, “Introduction”, in B. H. Weber, D. J. Depew, and J. D. Smith (eds.),Entropy, Information, and Evolution, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 1–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joyce, G. F.: 1989, “RNA evolution and the origins of life”,Nature 338 217–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamminga, H.: 1982, “Life from space — a history of panspermia”,Vistas in Astronomy 26 67–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamminga, H.: 1986, “The protoplasm and the gene”, in A. G. Cairns-Smith and H. Hartman (eds.),Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life, Cambridge University press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I.: 1987 [1790].Critique of Judgment, trans. W. S. Pluhar, Hackett, Indianapolis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kauffman, S. A.: 1991, “Antichaos and Adaptation”,Scientific American (August), 78–84.

  • Kauffman, S. A.: 1993,The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keosian, John: 1974, “Life's Beginnings — origin or evolution”,Origins of Life 5: 285–293.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimura, M.: 1983,The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Küppers, Bern-Olaf: 1990,Information and the Origin of Life, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehninger, Albert L.: 1970,Biochemistry, Worth Publishers, Inc., New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith, J.: 1986,The Problems of Biology, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayr, Ernst: 1974, “Teleological and teleonomic, a new analysis”,Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14, 91–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayr, Ernst: 1982,The Growth of Biological Thought, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monod, Jacques: 1974,Chance and Necessity, Fontana Books, Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mora, P. T.: 1965, “The folly of probability,” in S. W. Fox (ed.),The Origin of Prebiological Systems, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morowitz, H. J.: 1992,Beginnings of Cellular Life, Yale University Press, New Haven.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oparin, A. I.: 1961 [1938],The Origin of Life, trans. S. Morgolis, Macmillan, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oparin, A. I.: 1967,Genesis and Evolutionary Development of Life, trans. E. Maas, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oparin, A. I.: 1972, “Forward”, in S. W. Fox and K. Dose,Molecular Evolution, W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orgel, L. E.: 1968, “Evolution of the genetic apparatus”,Journal of Molecular Biology 38, 381–393.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, Karl: 1974, “Reduction and the incompleteness of science”, in F. Ayala and T. Dobzhansky (eds.),Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, University of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, Karl: 1982,The open universe: an argument for indeterminism, Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa, N. J.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rood, R. T. and J. S. Trefil: 1981,Are We Alone? Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, Robert: 1986,Origins, Bantam Books, Toronto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toulmin, S. and J. Goodfield: 1982 [1962],The Architecture of Matter, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waldrop, M. M.: 1990, “Spontaneous order, evolution and life”,Science 247, 1543–1545.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, B. H., D. J. Depew, and J. D. Smith (eds.), 1988,Entropy, Information, and Evolution, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, B. H., D. J. Depew, C. Dyke, S. N. Salthe, E. D. Schneider, R. E. Ulanowitz, and J. S. Wicken: 1989, “Evolution in thermodynamic perspective: an ecological approach”,Biology & Philosophy 4, 373–406.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, A. M. and N. Maizels: 1991, “The genomic tag model for the origin of protein synthesis”, in S. Osawa and T. Honjo (eds.),Evolution of Life, Springer Verlag, Tokyo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wicken, J.: 1987,Evolution, Thermodynamics and Information, Oxford University Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fry, I. Are the different hypotheses on the emergence of life as different as they seem?. Biol Philos 10, 389–417 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00857591

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00857591

Key words

Navigation