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The theory of classical irreversible thermodynamics treats self-assembly under a generalized chemical potential within the framework of dissipative systems. [ 151 ] [ 152 ] [ 153 ] The second law of thermodynamics requires that overall entropy increases, yet life is distinguished by its great degree of organization.
A scenario is a set of related concepts pertinent to the origin of life (abiogenesis), such as the iron-sulfur world. Many alternative abiogenesis scenarios have been proposed by scientists in a variety of fields from the 1950s onwards in an attempt to explain how the complex mechanisms of life could have come into existence. These include ...
Spontaneous generation, the first naturalistic theory of abiogenesis, goes back to Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy, and continued to have support in Western scholarship until the 19th century. [15] The theory held that "lower" animals are generated by decaying organic substances.
From here, is where the study of the origin of life branched. Those who accepted Pasteur's rejection of spontaneous generation began to develop the theory that under (unknown) conditions on a primitive Earth, life must have gradually evolved from organic material. This theory became known as abiogenesis, and is the currently accepted one. On ...
Since then, the primordial soup theory (Oparin–Haldane hypothesis) has become the foundation in the study of abiogenesis. [88] [89] [90] Although Oparin's theory became widely known only after the English version in 1936, Haldane accepted Oparin's originality and said, "I have very little doubt that Professor Oparin has the priority over me ...
According to this theory, living things may come forth from nonliving things in a manner roughly analogous to the "enformation of the female matter by the agency of the male seed" seen in sexual reproduction. [18] Nonliving materials, like the seminal fluid present in sexual generation, contain pneuma (πνεῦμα, "breath"), or "vital heat".
The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. [1] [2] The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi paradox. The ...
One partner of this symbiosis is proposed to be a bacterial cell, and the other an archaeal cell. It is postulated that this symbiotic partnership progressed via the cellular fusion of the partners to generate a chimeric or hybrid cell with a membrane bound internal structure that was the forerunner of the nucleus. The next stage in this scheme ...