Abstract
Any attempt to study the transition from inanimate to animate matter must include a defimition of a living entity and its central attributes. The definition of life used in the present work is based on the idea that the organizational principle, characterizing both past and present living entities, is a feedback system in an adequate geochemical environment and in the context of an appropriate chemical composition. By extending this principle to the molecular level of the transition from inanimate to animate matter, the origin of life is viewed as the establishment of the first “living” entity (or population of “living” entities) characterized by feedback loops and compartmentation and amenable to Darwinian evolution. Thus, the emergence of compartmenttalized, catalyzed, and template-directed feedback loops in an inanimate, fluctuating, and rhythmical environment is identical with the emergence of living entities. It is proposed that, as such, it is also amenable to artificial synthesis in a test-tube.
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Lahav, N. (2004). Evolution and Life’s Emergence under Prebiotic Conditions and in a Test-Tube. In: Wasser, S.P. (eds) Evolutionary Theory and Processes: Modern Horizons. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0443-4_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0443-4_1
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