Evolution started even before Life

Natural Selection or Evolution may begin even before Life starts. While investigating the primordial soup on earth before life began, it seems non-living molecules where already "evolving".

When simple molecules combined to form more complex molecules, they sometimes gained an advantage and tended to hang around longer.

One example is the compound of glutamic acid and two glycine molecules. Individually, each of these molecules was easily destroyed by ultraviolet radiation. But put together, they were extremely stable.

Since the more complex molecules could resist destruction by natural forces in their environment, they could go on to form even more complex molecules. These were the building blocks of Life.

www.livescience.com...

The big breakthrough came when molecules started to replicate or make copies of themselves, like RNA or DNA. This, combined with metabolic processes, is what most biologists would call Life.

This idea assumes that for Life to start, one only needs the right amounts of liquid water, organic molecules and energy. This is not a new idea, but it seems to be getting support.

This notion does not involve the idea of God or Panspermia (life brought here on asteroids and comets).

To avoid a religious debate, I would just like to add that "God" may be working behind the scenes anyway and the image of a God pointing a finger to start life may be simplistic.

Hear, hear! Evolution is not a 'thing' that either is or isn't. Evolution is the word for natures most basic formula that just happens because it can not not happen [I hope that makes sense]. There is no choice in evolution, it always finds the most advantageous state in everything by default. It's simple and super effective.
Nice post OP.

Who's to say evolution didn't create life?

Maybe it was just energy, and then the energy evolved into chemical compounds, which further evolved into something...living.

You can't say it didn't happen.

Our definition of life is wrong. There are possibilities that are not considered. Energy can have structure and intelligence can be created by structure. Intelligence that can possibly dwarf anything man can comprehend. I've watched too much twilight zone in my life.

Originally posted by rickymouse
Our definition of life is wrong. There are possibilities that are not considered. Energy can have structure and intelligence can be created by structure. Intelligence that can possibly dwarf anything man can comprehend. I've watched too much twilight zone in my life.

I'd say you pretty much nailed it.

Energy has intelligence. But this can't be true, as it cannot be measured by a science that has only existed for a few hundred years, whereas mankind has existed for thousands as compared to the millions of years Earth has been around, compared to the millenia upon millenia upon millenia the universe has existed?

Yes, we're clearly in the position to determine what is true about reality and what isn't. Nice try, idiots of the world.

Double post.

reply to post by Starchild23


Energy is definitely needed to get this going. It could be lightning or volcanic (surface and underwater). But you still need the other two ingredients for terrestrial life: liquid water and organic molecules.

You might find this interesting as well:

7 Theories on the Origin of Life

reply to post by Nicolas Flamel

Freeman Dyson has an interesting speculative take about prebiotic evolution in Life: What A Concept, the transcript of an Edge colloquium which you can download in PDF form here. Basically, he separates metabolism from reproduction and suggests that the two had separate lines of evolution.

reply to post by rickymouse

Our definition of life is wrong.

I don't think there is any agreed definition of life. It is a question over which there is much controversy.

There are possibilities that are not considered.

You must be unfamiliar with the literature. Some of the possibilities that have been considered will boggle your mind.

Energy can have structure.

When it does, we call it matter.

intelligence can be created by structure.

When it is, we call the structure a sentient being.

Intelligence that can possibly dwarf anything man can comprehend.

There is nothing apprehensible by Man that he cannot comprehend.

I've watched too much twilight zone in my life.

Have to agree with you there.

reply to post by Astyanax
We are only limited by what we think we know. Man thinks he knows things but in essence he has erred. Man will shove what he thinks he knows into the minds of others. I feel it is good to gain knowledge of what others perceive of life to find what we are experiencing here on earth.

Matter is created of energy, matter is held together by the structure of energy. If the source of the structuring energy leaves our body, we start to fall apart. DNA is like an antenna of some sort that attracts energy and causes it to create life. What forms DNA though, the original source of it's creation? I can figure how it thrives but cannot figure how it was created. I can understand how it mutates but it still needs a source. It's somewhere up in the cosmos. The same repetition of shapes is evident at different levels of size from the smallest to the biggest in this Universe, that may be a clue.

Interesting theory, OP.

It would be helpful if there was some evidence of a primordial soup ever having existed.

Evolution cannot have happened before life, unless you are referring to the lay man's term, which means change over time. For biological evolution, life (cells with DNA) must be present, since the mechanism of evolution is genetic mutation sorted by natural selection. Genes can't mutation if they don't exist.

Matter is Energy.

reply to post by Cataclysm
Maybe it should have been called Progresso soup. There's evidence of that existing in my house.

Originally posted by Starchild23

Originally posted by rickymouse
Our definition of life is wrong. There are possibilities that are not considered. Energy can have structure and intelligence can be created by structure. Intelligence that can possibly dwarf anything man can comprehend. I've watched too much twilight zone in my life.

I'd say you pretty much nailed it.

Energy has intelligence. But this can't be true, as it cannot be measured by a science that has only existed for a few hundred years, whereas mankind has existed for thousands as compared to the millions of years Earth has been around, compared to the millenia upon millenia upon millenia the universe has existed?

Yes, we're clearly in the position to determine what is true about reality and what isn't. Nice try, idiots of the world.

edit on CFridayam525251f51America/Chicago24 by Starchild23 because: (no reason given)

Yes. Could this help explain why people have feelings of past lives, dejavu, esp, astral traveling, etc..?
If we are all made up of light particles and everything in the universe is energy, either positive or negative, light or dark, then this could explain how we are all one and can sometimes access "files" of information from the "ether" net.

reply to post by TimesUp
Imformation can be stored in crystals. Nobody can argue that. People may somehow store copies of their memories in crystals they touch. Some people may be able to read this. Others may pull in the knowledge and then recognize things or remember things later that they have never personally experienced.

These people may also be able to tell things about people if they touch them. I think this is known, notice that more and more people wear gloves and no one wants to shake hands. It's not germs people are worried about, it's that others may be able to know their intent. They could use certain formulas of aftershave and colognes to block this too because these can disrupt senses by causing certain hormones to be created.

I have been studying other possible forms of communication for a couple years now off and on.