The problem of the origin of life

In a previous post titled Paul Davies, popularizer of science, I mentioned the two hard problems of modern science, so called because after several centuries trying to solve them, and although considerable progress has been made, the solution to these problems seems to recede further as we move forward, a paradigmatic case of the horizon effect, which I discussed in another post in this blog with the same title. These problems are: on the one hand, the origin of life, and on the other, the origin of free will, which is sometimes identified with the problem of consciousness, although they are not exactly the same, but are closely related. In this post, I will discuss the first problem. The next post will deal with the second.

The problem of the origin of life is not scientific. It is historical. Happened only once in the history of our planet, and is impossible to reproduce, so it is beyond the reach of experimental science. Even if we were able to create synthetic life (not to be confused with artificial life, a branch of computer science), we would not know if that method of generating life was the same as what took place shortly after the origin of the Earth.

The origin of eukaryotes

John Maynard Smith

As I have said several times in this blog, the theory of evolution is now well established. However, it is far from explaining everything. Many mysteries still remain. I listed some of them in a previous post. A book by J. Maynard Smith and E. Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution (Oxford University Press, 1995), describes them in more detail.

One of these problems refers to the changes of level that have taken place in the history of life, which I made the central idea of ​​my book The Fifth Level of Evolution. As its title implies, during evolution, things have not happened in an orderly or stable manner. At various points, there were changes of state (similar to those in physics) where evolution passed a critical point that made it possible to reach higher levels and opened up huge new fields in the configuration space. These points are the following:

What is the theory of evolution?

Tree of Life

The theory of evolution, in its current form, asserts that the transformation of species (the evolution of life) depends on five factors:

1.      Spontaneous variations in the genome (mutations, genetic recombination, and other events that modify the genome).

2.      Spontaneous variations in the environment. This factor is often overlooked, as the environment is usually quite stable, although sudden changes sometimes occur that can have huge consequences.

3.      Inheritance, through which the variations that occur as a result of the first factor are passed on to offspring and are subject to the action of natural selection.

4.      Natural selection, which means that those individuals whose genome is best adapted to the environment will leave more offspring (at least statistically).

5.      The basic laws of the universe, which are currently represented by quantum theory and the theory of relativity.