2014/08/22 by Günter Wächtershäuser · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Artificial intelligence #Biology #Computer science #Ecology #Evolutionary biology #Extant taxon #Genetics #Heuristic #Mitochondrial Function and Pathology #Organism #Origins and Evolution of Life #Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms #Reproduction
paper · doi:10.1002/9783527664160.ch1
openalex publication_date 2014/08/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
The problem of early evolution of life is unique and requires its own heuristic. No one has ever spelled out what would or would not have been in the broth and how precisely the organization of life could have come about within such a chaotic situation. This conceptual hodgepodge is overcome by heuristic of convergent back-extrapolation, termed biochemical retrodiction. Biochemical retrodiction suggests chemical experiments and experimental results inform revised retrodictions, and such iterative procedure promises a progressive exploration of the pioneer organism. This chapter uses this methodology for step-by-step reconstruction of the pioneer organism, beginning at the simplest level: the elements of life. Extant organisms reproduce by sequential phases of metabolic reproduction, genetic reproduction, and cellular reproduction. The chapter retrodicts an early stage of life when all reproduction was metabolic reproduction. The genetic machinery works by stochastic variations, which gives the impression of evolution as a directionless, random walk.