Isn’t it the case that the chance of a transition from molecules to life – in the theory of evolution – is just as (un)probable as the chance that a god or however you like, was the trigger? How can we make that beginning of life falsifiable?

Corey Houghton
By Corey Houghton
Questions and Answers

First of all, I am by no means a creationist or anything, I believe that the theory of evolution today provides the best explanation for a large number of processes that we can observe today. What I do question is about the testability/falsifiability of the theory, at least if what I say below falls under the theory of evolution. I find that a bit difficult, especially at the very beginning. Namely the fact that a cell would suddenly have arisen from the primordial soup on earth. The chance that a semipermeable membrane was suddenly formed, containing at least a sequence of nucleic acids that could be transcribed in a certain way into left-handed amino acids and had a mechanism for replication seems very small to me. I therefore think it is a very bold statement to say that this ever happened. I would like this to be falsifiable, to be able to imitate it under controlled lab conditions. Although I am an atheist, at this point in time the odds seem to me that this transition from molecules to life was just as likely as if a god or whatever you want to call it was the trigger.

So my question is: is this transition from non-living to living part of the modern theory of evolution and if so, what arguments are there to justify this statement?

Asker: sara, 22 years

Answer

It is indeed very difficult to test such a hypothesis because the hypothetical events you are talking about have taken place over a very long period of time and you cannot just simulate them in laboratory conditions (because the researcher’s lifespan is too limited!).

However, most parts of the scenario can be simulated in experimental conditions:

1) RNA nucleotides can arise spontaneously from simple (inorganic) molecules that can be assumed to be present in the still-dead primordial soup; this was obtained in vitro by imitating that primordial soup

2) certain RNA molecules can copy themselves and this is promoted (catalyzed) by clay particles
3) certain RNA molecules can catalyze their own replication, protein synthesis or other functions
4) when simple phospholipids are mixed with water, they form a kind of membrane that delimits an interior space
5) When certain RNA molecules, or RNA and clay particles, are mixed with phospholipids and water, membrane-bound vesicles are formed in which RNA can replicate…

In this way one can arrive at a kind of simple cells in which RNA contains the hereditary information and is also responsible for a primitive metabolism. Of course, RNA can also code for proteins, which in a next phase enable more complex metabolism, etc. DNA could have been created from RNA, and that’s how we started.

That this hypothetical scenario could have taken place in the then young ocean a few billion years ago is indeed part of the modern theory of evolution. It seems to me that a “divine hypothesis” is completely untestable.

Answered by

Prof. dr. dr. Luc Bouwens

Biomedical Sciences

Isn’t it the case that the chance of a transition from molecules to life – in the theory of evolution – is just as (un)probable as the chance that a god or however you like, was the trigger? How can we make that beginning of life falsifiable?

Free University of Brussels
Avenue de la Plein 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/

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