Lifson S
Biophys Chem. 1987 May 9;26(2-3):303-11. doi: 10.1016/0301-4622(87)80031-5.
Two fundamental properties of animate matter, specific complexity and purposeful organization (teleonomy), are traced to their origin, applying Eigen's theory of self-organization of matter. Template-replicating copolymers possess the three dynamic properties that are essential for prebiotic evolution: autocatalysis, diversification and selection. By autocatalysis, even a single microscopic molecule replicates exponentially to macroscopic quantities. By diversification, it extends to a divergent distribution of such molecules. By selection, the distribution converges to a 'quasi-species' that possesses properties like 'survival' and 'adaptation' to its environment. These are teleonomic properties that evolved from a nonteleonomic distribution by selection. Alternating divergent and convergent courses of chemical evolution lead such distributions to ever-growing complexity, including mutual catalytic interactions between the template-replicating copolymers and their chemical environment. Thus, chemical evolution may have started from even a single step, a de novo synthesis of a template-replicating copolymer, and arrived at a primordial living cell, just as biological evolution has started from a primordial cell and arrived at the biological world of today.
运用艾根的物质自组织理论，将有生命物质的两个基本特性，即特定复杂性和目的性组织（目的性）追溯至其起源。模板复制共聚物具有益生元进化所必需的三种动态特性：自催化、多样化和选择。通过自催化，即使是单个微观分子也能呈指数级复制成宏观数量。通过多样化，它扩展到此类分子的发散分布。通过选择，分布收敛到具有“生存”和“适应”其环境等特性的“准种”。这些是通过选择从非目的性分布进化而来的目的性特性。化学进化中交替出现的发散和收敛过程导致这种分布变得日益复杂，包括模板复制共聚物与其化学环境之间的相互催化相互作用。因此，化学进化可能甚至从单个步骤，即模板复制共聚物的从头合成开始，进而形成原始活细胞，就如同生物进化从原始细胞开始并发展到当今的生物世界一样。
