First reproducing organism.?

Question

Evolution is "the change in the inherited traits of a population from generation to generation" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution). How does evolution account for the earliest functioning reproductive system? It could not have been the result of evolution, for this would entail a previous generation and it would no longer be the first reproductive system. It would have had to be the result of a non-evolutionary process. But that a non-evolutionary process would produce a reproductive, evolving, organism seems odd.

I am an atheist, so please no insults about religious dogma. I completely ignorant of evolution but I feel my question is still a valid one.

Answer 1

Don't worry my atheist friend. You don't need genesis to come up with the first reproducing system (notice I didn't say reproductive system).

The leading idea for early life is based upon RNA polymers. These polymers have been demonstrated to form and be degrated under early earth conditions simulated in a laboratory. This means that RNA was being cycled spontaenously by non-living chemical reactions. As soon as one of these RNAs radomly folded into a configuration that is capable of synthesizing RNA, the race of life was on.

Note that achieving this proto-RNA polymerase confirmation was an EXTREEMLY unlikely event but 1) it had MILLIONS of years to occur and 2) we know it occured becuase we're sitting here.

The next step was to achieve an RNApol that could self-replicate (in cis or trans).

This is an entierly plausible chain of events in which an evolving system could arise spontaneously, representing the very first organism - an RNA virus (sans capsid).

I think you may have been hung up trying to discover how cell based life forms sprung out of nowhere. That would be quite an accomplishment - and it didn't happen. Cellular life arose from non-cellular life (evidenced by the 5 famililes of DNA polymerases). It's easy to hypothesize (AND TEST) about how non-cellular life could begin spontaneously.

Answer 2

michael has provided a typically excellent answer that I can't improve on ... and jon has a good link.

But I will add that your question is absolutely valid. (It is amazing how many people try to wrap abiogenesis and evolution under the same umbrella in order to use the unanswered questions of abiogenesis as some sort of "weakness" in evolution theory.) The theory of evolution answers an ENORMOUS number of questions in biology ... but it was never intended to answer the question of how evolution itself arose. Replication is an absolute requirement for evolution by natural selection. There are many competing theories about how the first replicating chemicals arose ... and none of them have emerged as the dominant theory the way that natural selection has emerged as the dominant (and *extremely* solid) theory of the mechanism of evolution.

There is also some debate between those who think that replication came before metabolism, or metabolism before replication. Most biochemists currently fall in the replication-first camp ... but there are some very good people in the metabolism-first camp.

I highly recommend the cover story in the June edition of Scientific American, which is precisely about this issue (with the typically excellent SciAm explanations and illustrations).

Answer 3

That's under many theories, many of which I am not familiar. It's the idea of saying that life did in fact come from 'non-life,' and this is where the hand waving comes about, and then somebody jumps to the Pre-Cambrian explosion.
The thing is, it is not known exactly how living organisms came to be.
Lightning strikes that just caused by chance, proteins and such to form and 'learn' to self-replicate? And then these enzymes came together, forming larger and larger things until it 'became' an organism?

Answer 4

Here, these people may have further info.

http://www.talkorigins.org ( with other links )

http://accessexcelence.org