Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume 107, October 2024, Pages 54-63
Selection in molecular evolution
David Lynn Abel
The Gene Emergence Project, Proto-BioCybernetics & Proto-Cellular Metabolomics, The Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc., 14005 Youderian Drive, Bowie, MD, 20721-2225, USA
Received 15 February 2023, Revised 29 May 2024, Accepted 29 July 2024, Available online 12 August 2024, Version of Record 12 August 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2024.07.004
Abstract
Evolution requires selection. Molecular/chemical/preDarwinian evolution is no exception. One molecule must be selected over another for molecular evolution to occur and advance. Evolution, however, has no goal. The laws of physics have no utilitarian desire, intent or proficiency. Laws and constraints are blind to “usefulness.” How then were potential multi-step processes anticipated, valued and pursued by inanimate nature? Can orchestration of formal systems be physico-chemically spontaneous? The purely physico-dynamic self-ordering of Chaos Theory and irreversible non-equilibrium thermodynamic “engines of disequilibria conversion” achieve neither orchestration nor formal organization. Natural selection is a passive and after-the-fact-of-life selection. Darwinian selection reduces to the differential survival and reproduction of the fittest already-living organisms. In the case of abiogenesis, selection had to be 1) Active, 2) Pre-Function, and 3) Efficacious. Selection had to take place at the molecular level prior to the existence of non-trivial functional processes. It could not have been passive or secondary. What naturalistic mechanisms might have been at play?
Keywords
Molecular evolution Life origin Abiogenesis Self-organization Emergence Pre-Darwinian evolution Chemical evolution Nonequilibrium thermodynamics Natural selection
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