Abstract
The surrounding world changes slowly, and this is hardly noticeable over a short period. However, over the 4.5 billion years of existence of our planet, it has changed cardinally; Homo sapiens and the noosphere appeared. The English biologist R. Dawkins called this evolution the greatest show on earth. However, the nature of changes is still a great secret and causes debates among scientists of different fields. The author is sure that one of the causes of the existing situation is total rejection or narrow understanding of evolution in nonliving matter by science. There are abiogenic systems on earth, primarily, aquatic, that are capable of continuous and nonlinear evolution. Such dissipative systems develop far from equilibrium. They are irreversible and can accumulate energy or reduce entropy; they receive substance and energy from the external environment and have internal mechanisms of a geologically long evolution with the formation of more complex compounds. Evolution in nonliving matter is close to the evolution of living systems by many of its mechanisms and parameters.
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Original Russian Text © S.L. Shvartsev, 2017, published in Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, 2017, Vol. 87, No. 12, pp. 1091–1100.
Stepan L’vovich Shvartsev, Dr. Sci. (Geol.–Mineral.), is Chief Researcher of the Tomsk Branch of the Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics (IPGG), RAS Siberian Branch, and a Professor of Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU).
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Shvartsev, S.L. Evolution in nonliving matter: Nature, mechanisms, complication, and self-organization. Her. Russ. Acad. Sci. 87, 518–526 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331617050069
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331617050069