Formation of Scientific Concepts on the origin of Life
Section 1.3. After a long historical period of the mankind’s development
characterized by mythical and religious ideas on how life has cropped up
and after proving the fallacy of the viewpoint of spontaneous generated life
in the conditions of the already existing organised living matter, the solution
of the problem of life origins and evolution has in itself gained scientific
grounds. A strong boost in that direction was produced by two great events
in science: 1) the success of the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler (1828)
who synthesized the first organic compound out of inorganic elements
identified as urea (H₂N—CO—NH₂), up to that point considered impossible;
2) the publication of Charles Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species” (1859)
which caused a revolution in science and dealt a crucial blow on the
metaphysical concepts of the invariability of species.
The problem has been set in right and the difficulties in its clarification
have become obvious. For a certain period of time (almost a century) the
opinion that this problem is frame insoluble has had prevalence. Darwin
himself has deliberately avoided the problem of the origins and organization
of living matter being very well aware of the great difficulties its eventual
clarification would be meeting. But as a man of genius he had given it a
thought. In a letter to his friend J. D. Hooker he had written:
“…A great deal of time will pass before we ourselves would be able to
observe how some mucus or protoplasm or something of this kind engenders
a living entity. I, however, have always regretted the fact that have walked in
the rut and have used the term “creation” taken from the Bible, as a result from
certain absolutely unclear processes “and everything emerged”. To dwell at
present upon the origin of life is simply incongruous. It would have been
equally successful to talk about the origin of matter” (29th March, 1863).
In another letter Darwin had shared his thoughts on the emergence of
living organisms in the presence of already existing ones:
“It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living
organism are now present which could ever have been present. But if (and
oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts
of ammonia and phosphoric acid salts, light, heat, electricity, etc. present,
that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more
complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly
devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living
creatures were formed” (1871). (see F. Darwin, 1887).
During this period of relative restraint towards finding a solution to the
problem, science went on developing. Mankind has entered the XX century.
Not only physics and chemistry but cytology, biochemistry and molecular
biology developed rapidly. The cell has become the object of interest for
many researchers. Its protoplasm with its inherent capacity for growth and