Chance and Necessity in the Evolution of Matter to Life: A Comprehensive Hypothesis

Abstract

Specialists in several branches of life sciences are trying to solve, piece by piece, the immensely complex puzzle of the origin of life. Some parts of the puzzle seem to appear with a rather high degree of clarity, while others remain totally obscure. We cannot be sure that life emerged only on our Earth, but we believe that the presence of large amounts of water in its liquid state is absolutely essential for the emergence and evolution of living matter. We can also assume that the latter exploits everywhere the same light elements, mainly C, H, O, N, S, and P, and somehow manipulates the same simple monomeric and polymeric organic compounds, such as alpha-amino acids, carbohydrates, nucleic bases, and surface-active carboxylic acids. The author contributes to the field by stating that all fundamental particles of our matter are “homochiral” and predominantly produce in an absolute asymmetric synthesis amino acids of L-configuration and carbohydrates of D-series. Another important point is that free atmospheric oxygen mainly stems from the photolysis of water molecules by cosmic irradiation and is not necessarily bound to living organisms on the planet.

Possibility of chiral recognition by adsorption on enantiomorphous crystals: the impact of crystal surface polarity

“…A critical analysis of the terrestrial and extraterrestrial theories on the chirality of life 1,[4][5][6][7][8][9] has shown that, in all cases, various assumptions do not provide a key link in solving the challenge of homochirality, i.e., how to achieve a total shift in the chiral balance to obtain enantiopure biopolymers.…”