Emeritus of Biomedical Sciences, At the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, USA.
Prog Biophys Mol Biol. 2024 Nov;193:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2024.08.003. Epub 2024 Aug 15.
The origin of life and its evolution are generally taught as occurring by abiogenesis and gene-centric neo-Darwinism. Significant biological evolutionary changes are preserved and given direction (descent with modification) by Darwin's (Spencer's) natural selection by survival of the fittest. Only survival of the fittest (adapted/broadened) is available to provide a 'naturalistic' direction to prefer one outcome/reaction over another for abiogenesis. Thus, assembly of first life must reach some threshold (the first minimal cell) before 'survival of the fittest' (the only naturalistic explanation available) can function as Darwin proposed for biological change. We propose the novel concept that the requirement for co-origination of vitamins with enzymes is a fundamental, but overlooked, problem that survival of the fittest (even broadly redefined beyond Darwin) cannot reasonably overcome. We support this conclusion with probability calculations. We focus on the stage of evolution involving the transition from non-life to the first, minimal living cell. We show that co-origination of required biochemical processes makes the origin of life probabilistically absurdly improbable even when all assumptions are chosen to unreasonably favor evolutionary theories.
生命的起源及其进化通常被教授为通过非生物起源和以基因为中心的新达尔文主义发生的。显著的生物进化变化由达尔文（斯宾塞）的自然选择通过适者生存来保存和赋予方向（修正后的衍化）。只有适者生存（适应性更强/更广泛）才能为非生物起源提供一种“自然主义”的方向，使一种结果/反应优先于另一种结果/反应。因此，第一生命的组装必须达到某个阈值（第一个最小细胞），然后“适者生存”（唯一可用的自然主义解释）才能像达尔文提出的生物变化那样发挥作用。我们提出了一个新颖的概念，即维生素与酶的共同起源是一个基本但被忽视的问题，即使将适者生存（甚至在达尔文的基础上进行广泛重新定义）也无法合理克服。我们用概率计算来支持这一结论。我们关注的是从非生命到第一个最小活细胞的进化阶段。我们表明，即使所有假设都被选择来不合理地支持进化理论，所需生化过程的共同起源也使得生命的起源在概率上荒谬地不可能。
