Abstract
Random chemical reactions in the Earth's primitive hydrosphere could have generated no more than 200 bits of information, whereas the first Darwinian organism must have encoded about a million bits, and therefore could not have arisen by chance. This information gap is bridged by separating reproduction from organism, and postulating a reproductive chemical community that would generate information by proto-Darwinian evolution. The information content of the initial comunity could have been as low as 160 bits, and its evolution might have led to the first Darwinian cell.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Crick, F. H. C., Brenner, S., Klug, A., and Pieczenik, G.: 1976,Origins of Life 7, 389.
Fox, S. W. and Dose, K.: 1972,Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life, W. H. Freeman and Co., Chap. 4.
Hasegawa, M., and Yano, T.:Origins of Life 6, 219.
Margulis, L.: 1970,Origins of Life, Gordon and Breach, New York. p. 311.
Robinson, B. J.: 1976,Proc. Astron. Soc. Aust. 3, 12.
Suess, H. E.: 1975,Origins of Life 6, 9.
Watson, J. D.: 1970–1,Molecular Biology of the Gene, W. A. Benjamin Inc., New York, p. 503.
Watson, J. D.: 1970–2,Molecular Biology of the Gene, W. A. Benjamin Inc., New York, pp. 297 and 368.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Argyle, E. Chance and the origin of life. Origins Life Evol Biosphere 8, 287–298 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00927902
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00927902