| Issue |
BIO Web of Conferences
Volume 4, 2015
ORIGINS – Studies in Biological and Cultural Evolution
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 00002 | |
| Number of page(s) | 8 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/bioconf/20150400002 | |
| Published online | 24 June 2015 | |
Chemical evolution and life
Département de philosophie, Chaire de recherche UQAM en philosophie des sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal, 455 Boulevard René-Lévesque Est, Case postale 8888, succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal (Québec) H3C 3P8, Canada
a Corresponding author: malaterre.christophe@uqam.ca
In research on the origins of life, the concept of “chemical evolution” aims at explaining the transition from non-living matter to living matter. There is however strong disagreement when it comes to defining this concept more precisely, and in particular with reference to a chemical form of Darwinian evolution: for some, chemical evolution is nothing but Darwinian evolution applied to chemical systems before life appeared; yet, for others, it is the type of evolution that happened before natural selection took place, the latter being the birthmark of living systems. In this contribution, I review the arguments defended by each side and show how both views presuppose a dichotomous definition of “life”.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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