An Analysis of Davies' 'The Origin of Life: When and Where Did it Begin?'

Even though his novel, The Time Machine, may appear to be purely science fiction; HG Wells wrote it with close ties to the ideas of the great scientist of his time, Charles Darwin. Both Wells and Darwin lived in the late Victorian Era, a time of social and scientific growth for the western world. Wells was a very well educated man on the new findings of science and society, especially when it came to Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species. In his book Darwin recorded his theories on, strangely enough, the origin of species: Theories such as; natural selection, the continuous evolution of humans and the dictation of survival by the environment. Throughout Wells novel, the protagonist, The Time Traveler, develops three theories in the people he observes in the future: each of which, directly correlate to one of Darwin's ideas.

alexander oparin started the hypothesis in 1924. Believes that life was started over 3.8 billion to 3.55 billion years ago in a pond or ocean as a result of chemicals combing from the atmosphere. 2 scientist sealed a mixture of water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen in a flask they heated it and simulated lightning, after a week the scientist found blocks of protein in the flask. Protein is a biomolecule that is essential for life.

Throughout time, it has been a mystery where all life on Earth came from. Though many theories have been thought of, none have strong enough evidence to prove their existence. From meteors from outer space, to clay in the earth, some hypotheses are more widely recognized than others, but none are truly correct as far as our knowledge goes.

Out of all of Well’s critiques for evolution, the one I found most compelling was Darwin’s tree of life. It honestly was very hard for me to pick an argument that I thought was compelling, because all of the arguments have far too many holes in them to seem realistic to me. I may have a biased view, since I am a Christian, but this argument of a common ancestor seemed like the most viable of the arguments because I do think that we all come from one ancestor, except, I think we come from Adam. I do think that this argument has the most power to me because of its potential to be true. Although fossil records indicate something more similar to the Cambrian explosion stated in the book, Well’s did admit that he could not prove to Strobel that

The book Evolution of God by author Robert Wright attempts to understand how humanity has created the singular all-powerful God of the Abrahamic religions; namely Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. In his book, he tries to make the point that what people accept as some omnipotent and ephemeral God is really just the evolution of a series of prehistoric beliefs which are no more based in fact than any other religious deities. Robert Wright locates the creation of the Judeo-Christian God with the formulation of other myths and legends. One of the more interesting aspects of Wright's books is the concept of moral progression. In the time of the ancients, strict adherence to the laws of the bible as they were written. As time has progressed and human beings have changed through the progression of time, morality has changed as well. Things which were acceptable in one era are no longer so, such as the marriage of young people in their early teens while other things which were once unacceptable have now gained moral acceptance such as homosexuality and gay rights. In this, Wright poses an interesting point because the God of the Old Testament was an angry and often vengeful deity who punished with impunity and was capable of great acts of terror including flooding the earth and killing nearly every man, woman, and child. The God that people tend to worship in the modern moment is very far removed from his more ancient counterpart.

According to Darwin’s novel book On the Origin of Species, he postulates his own “theory of evolution”. Here, Darwin proposes that natural selection is the driving factor that leads to the evolution of species. Only the fittest and most suitable to adapt to the all-changing environment will survive. This seems counter-intuitive to the fact that it does require more energy to be ambulatory on land rather than being mobile in water. But, the overall evolutionary gain from being mobile on land versus water justifies this expenditure of energy. Three things to be considered adaptations mammals have taken on to support this move from aquatics to land include: body thermoregulation, circulatory system changes, and advancement and complexity of internal

Asteroids and comets are the keys to the formation of life on Earth. According to scientists, comet impacts could have most likely caused amino acids to combine and form the building blocks of life. Chances are that there are comets in other planetary systems that could be doing the same thing right now. It seems impossible for Earth to be the only planet, out of billions, to have life.

This is the exoskeleton of the Platygyra Daedalea, colloquially known as “brain coral” because of its spherical shape and grooved surface. One may be used to seeing coral with long, spindly arms, columns, or even rose-like petals for skeletons. But the brain coral is far less flamboyant. Its deposits of calcium carbonate are unassuming, remarkable only in their eerie similarity to the human cerebrum.

asteroids, meteors, etc, life forms on Earth could have developed as a result of unintentional microorganism contamination. This idea implies that microorganisms can successfully survive in space, and if subjected randomly to ideal conditions evolution can occur. Evidence for this theory is also relatively strong as tests done on the Murchison meteorite which fell near Murchison, Australia in 1969 revealed it contained over 90 different amino acids (among which nineteen are found in Earth life). Although Panspermia does not directly explain the origin of all life (only its distribution) the synthesis of microorganisms in space could also be justified. If certain compounds were subjected to conditions similar to those of the Miller-Urey experiment, ultraviolet light could be substituted for lightning as a chemical reaction

Even though Darwin had very few fossils to work with they were essential to his research and his theories because they explain the history of our planet and what types of organisms lived here throughout all of time (GSA). Fossils show how organisms constantly die and how species never last for that long of a time relative to the world. However they pose the question, if no species survive, why do some look so similar to others? This is where Darwin came in, he took the information the fossils gave him and he came up the theory of evolution. This explained why species seemed to change throughout time, and it also explained why certain species looked slightly different depending on which region in the world they were found in. In the end, all

Once finished looking through the data gathered from the Mars Chromatograph, I concluded that Mars can create life, as the elements needed to form life were present in the data gathered from martian soil testing, and the atmosphere also provided good conditions for life to form. Martian soil is not to be confused with Earth soil, as it is the finer fraction of regolith (layer covering rock) found on Mars’ surface. For life to form, it needs the building blocks CHNOPS, an acronym for carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as they each help characterize cells in different ways. All cells need DNA, a plasma membrane, cytoplasm, and ribosomes to truly be cells. Additionally, even though there are many more chemical

Human evolution has been of interest to people for quite some time. Even though in the publication of 'On The Origin of Species' by Charles Darwin in 1859 human evolution was not specifically mentioned, only that "light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history", Darwin did argue for the evolution of new species from older ones (1). Since then, interest in evolution, and especially human evolution, has been growing. An example of one of the first debates about human evolution is the debate between Thomas Huxley and Richard Owen, in which Huxley believed humans to be descended from apes, while Owen strongly opposed this view (2). Today, discussion about human evolution focuses on whether Homo sapiens have a single origin, the Recent African Origin (RAO) model, or if they originate from multiple regions, the multiregional (MRO) model (3).

I think the RNA world theory, combined with other process, including clay chemistry and deep sea vents activities, is an extremely possible theory for origin of life. With addition of icy chemistry, the RNA world theory may also help us to find life outside Earth. “The RNA world theory is widely accepted by origin-of-life theorist” (Ricardo and Szostak 2009)

One of the main theories is that life started by chemical means in a rock where water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen were all present then with the added effect of lightening simple organic molecules formed the building blocks of life. There was an experiment that was conducted in 1953 by Miller and Urey that supports that the conditions above could stimulate organic compounds to form. *copied “ The Miller-Urey experiment attempts to recreate the chemical conditions of the primitive Earth in the laboratory, and synthesized some of the building blocks of life.

Where did we come from? Even children become struck with the question about the origin of life. As tough as it may be to tell a young child how babies are made, it does not compare to the complexity of explaining how the entire universe began. Every human has a natural desire to discover the truth, but it stands as one of the most controversial subjects. Some philosophical minds, Evolutionists or Darwinists, believe everything started with a “Big Bang” and then began to evolve into the world and life forms we know today. Others, Creationists, believe life and matter has been intelligently designed by a higher power. As I study this topic, I stumble upon more archeological, scientific, and logical evidence supporting the creation of the universe rather than an accidental appearance.