Carnegie Institution for Science, Geophysical Laboratory, 5251 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2017 Dec 28;375(2109). doi: 10.1098/rsta.2016.0353.
Earth's 4.5-billion-year history has witnessed a complex sequence of high-probability chemical and physical processes, as well as 'frozen accidents'. Most models of life's origins similarly invoke a sequence of chemical reactions and molecular self-assemblies in which both necessity and chance play important roles. Recent research adds two important insights into this discussion. First, in the context of chemical reactions, chance versus necessity is an inherently false dichotomy-a range of probabilities exists for many natural events. Second, given the combinatorial richness of early Earth's chemical and physical environments, events in molecular evolution that are unlikely at limited laboratory scales of space and time may, nevertheless, be inevitable on an Earth-like planet at time scales of a billion years.This article is part of the themed issue 'Reconceptualizing the origins of life'.
地球 45 亿年的历史见证了一系列复杂的高概率化学和物理过程，以及“冻结的意外”。大多数生命起源模型同样也援引了一系列化学反应和分子自组装的过程，其中必然性和偶然性都起着重要作用。最近的研究为这一讨论增加了两个重要的见解。首先，在化学反应的背景下，偶然与必然之间是一个内在的错误二分法——许多自然事件都存在一系列的概率。其次，考虑到早期地球化学和物理环境的组合丰富性，在有限的实验室空间和时间尺度上不太可能发生的分子进化事件，然而，在一个类似地球的行星上，在十亿年的时间尺度上，这些事件可能是不可避免的。本文是“重新构想生命起源”主题特刊的一部分。
