How Life Started by Emergent Chemical Evolution

The amount of carbon dioxide has undoubtedly increased in the last hundred years-thanks to the activities of man. The amazing thing, about this problem, is that the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is just 0.0391% (as of 10/2012). This amazingly small amount of carbon dioxide in the air is enough to cause the acidification of todays oceans. This small acidification of the oceans is still such that it is causing havoc on thousands of coral colonies by bleaching them and keeping millions of plankton from forming complete skeletons. This small amount of carbon dioxide is still large enough to have a major impact on life in the oceans today.  Life is impacted despite being self-contained organisms with membranes; impacted despite having mechanisms to maintain their internal pH; impacted despite there being a fully oxygenated atmosphere. Would it not then stand to reason, that a larger amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on the prebiotic Earth would have had a mu

I once saw a television program about the organisms that live in the oceans. That program reported that the currents of the oceans bring nutrients from other more fruitful parts of the oceans and provides it to life that resides in more barren parts of the oceans. That program also stated that the currents never stop. They are constantly shifting material throughout the oceans. I was also very impressed by how far the currents moved all that material. At the Earth's polar caps the oceans' water is cooled down and then sinks to the sea-floor. Where it would be once again taken by the currents to the equatorial regions delivering oxygen to the sea life there. Where it again loses oxygen, heats up, and rises to the surface of the ocean. Where the water once again is taken by the oceanic currents-all the while regaining oxygen- back to the Polar Regions. And this recycling, the program said, has been going on since the formation of the oceans. Now jump a couple of years later to

Back in 2004 in order to complete my Chemistry Degree, I decided to take an Introduction to Philosophy class. It was here that the professor informed us that one of life's biggest questions, exactly how life had started on Earth, was not yet answered! I was so taken aback by this revelation that I nearly toppled over backwards in my chair. For nearly two decades I was under the mistaken impression that we knew exactly how it all had happened. The reason I was under such an impression was because back in the summer of 1987 I had read the Scientific American book called Molecules to Living Cells. By the end of which, I remember, being very convinced that we already knew exactly how life had started; but then again, I was only seventeen and, I guess, very impressionable. Well that same day in 2004 when I returned home from my philosophy class, I found Molecules to Living Cells and began rereading it. By the time I had read the first quarter of the introduction, I realized that- ye