I'd heard of the RNA world, but I hadn't realized that there were so many other competing molecules and that the new trend in the field moved on entirely from single biologically known molecules, to mixes of molecules or less 'living' objects. I think it's interesting to see how a scientific field tries different things when they get stuck.

This article is part of a series on the origins of life by Quanta magazine:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/origins-of-life-week/

What is life and the property of being living a subset of? What broader concept consistently generalises life?

Without a determination of whether the above question is meaningful, the field of biology shall have no foundations - George C. Williams

Good article, longish but worth the read.

It is just amazing that while we know the constituents of all earthly matter (made up from the elements of the periodic table) to a high degree of precision we still don't have a definite idea of how they give rise to "Life" (the definition itself is problematic). Molecular systems undergoing chemical processes somehow give rise to "Biology".

As the article says, "Life" needs a "compartment" (i.e. cell) to begin and grow. It must hold 1) a mechanism to store information (for further propagation) 2) a mechanism to generate energy and do work 3) a mechanism to evolve further. variations.

You start with a chemical soup with various elements/molecules/ions in various levels of concentration, provide energy to the system to encourage reactions and see what happens.

Applying "Complex Systems Science" theories tells us that at a certain scale and with right set of conditions a "primordial cell" maybe formed. Note that there might be multiple types of these cells.

Once this happened it started influencing the very chemical reactions in which it could participate using feedback loops i.e. starts exhibiting "functions/behaviours". To understand this part, i found the book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology by Valentino Braitenberg which shows how "complex perceived behaviour" can arise from extremely simple rules, useful - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braitenberg_vehicle

Add "survival of the fittest" over time and you get to where we are today.

And here we are thinking that mind is separate from the biology and chemistry or even the physical world.

> Molecules entangled themselves in self-sustaining, self-reproducing loops.

Now - one can derive to this conclusion, but the problem is: when you make such a statement, it is only speculation. You have to prove it. And nobody has been able to prove that statement so far.

Yes, you can prove that you have the molecules necessary, e. g. under abiotic conditions. But you need to prove it still that this relates to a system where information is stored and transmitted. Which, again, nobody has done so far.

Thus, making such a claim, even if logical (because after all you need to assume that life as such, is also logical, from a scientific point of view), you need to explain it. The article does not explain it. The article does not refer to other articles that explain it either.

> Over time, these systems became more complex.

Ok, that makes sense. Now ... HOW did these systems originate exactly? This is missing. You need to explain the bootstrapping part.

> Life invented new ways to move, and to capture, store, and use energy.

Ok this is getting worse. Now the author injects "Life" here. What is Life? Did it invent anything? How exactly?

Again - we can assume there must be a logical pathway here, if we do not believe in an invisible god writing RNA/DNA, but the article totally dodges that question.

> Through cycles of birth, reproduction, and death;

They seem to refer to a stage where a cell already existed. What about the parts before that point? It is quite easy to go from a cell to anything more complex. The foundation explanation is missing. Even in the RNA world theory.

> Then, at some point, life gained a sense of itself

Now it is getting worse.

> Scientists clashed over which type of molecule — RNA, lipids, proteins, and metabolites are prime suspects

That's not really true. Which theory claims that lipids played a major role and why? I mean, from a simple logical assumption, RNA/DNA is or must be the central part. If an author casually mentions lipids, then I wonder if that author isn't just totally clueless.

> Life’s origins are not purely a chemistry problem. “It’s not a linear reaction. … There’s no single E = mc2 and that’s origin of life’s formula,” said Betül Kaçar, an astrobiologist and evolutionary biologist

I know astrobiologists love to claim life originated from outside Earth. None of them explain how. We can always claim external reasons which can (most likely) never be proven. Or perhaps in the far distant future. I don't buy any of that. I am 100% certain that life originated on Earth, in a logical fashion. Now, the problem still is how to prove that.

> “This is biology; it doesn’t follow any rules. That’s what makes it so sophisticated and exciting.”

Ok, I stopped reading past that point. That article is total gutter trash.

Of course all what you see even on the molecular level, follows certain rules. Anyone not understanding that is not a scientist.