States of Origin: Influences on Research Into the Origins of Life
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You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright Influences on Research into the Origins of Life. Idan Ben-Barak Unit for the History and Philosophy of Science Faculty of Science The University of Sydney A thesis submitted to the University of Sydney as fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Declaration I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a University or other institute of higher learning. Idan Ben-Barak, 29 September 2014 Acknowledgements I would like to convey my deepest appreciation to my supervisor Professor Paul Griffiths for his professionalism, scholarship, breadth of knowledge, good humour and astonishing patience. My only regret is that I could not have benefitted more from his guidance throughout the process of researching and writing this PhD thesis. I would also like to thank Professors Ofer Gal and Hans Pols, Dr Karola Stotz, and all staff and fellow students at the Unit for the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) at the University of Sydney. They have all shown me kindness and support far beyond what I could have expected. Further thanks goes out to the examiners of this thesis for their excellent comments. Finally, my thanks to my wife, Tamar, for her undying support throughout the period of writing this thesis. Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................................1 I.a. Motivation ....................................................................................................................................2 I.b. Aims..............................................................................................................................................3 I.b.1 Delegate theories......................................................................................................................5 I.b.2 Chance and necessity................................................................................................................6 I.b.3 Definitions: life, abiogenesis, Origin-of-Life, exobiology and Astrobiology..............................9 I.b.3.1 Definition of life...................................................................................................................9 I.b.3.2 Abiogenesis........................................................................................................................12 I.b.3.3 Origin-of-Life, exobiology and Astrobiology......................................................................13 I.b.4 The role of biological discovery in the Origin-of-Life questions .............................................13 I.b.5. The utility of in silico modelling in Abiogenesis studies.........................................................15 I.b.6.The Origin-of-Life research community..................................................................................15 I.c. Scope...........................................................................................................................................18 I.d. Form ...........................................................................................................................................20 Chapter1: Origin-of-Life views from antiquity to 1959........................................................................23 1.1. The Origin of the Origin: Origin-of-Life “Prehistory”.................................................................23 1.1.a. The Vitalism vs. Mechanism Debate.....................................................................................25 1.1.b. Spontaneous Generation - Introduction...............................................................................27 1.1.c. Spontaneous Generation: Early History................................................................................28 1.1.d. Spontaneous Generation: Preformation, Pre-existence, Problems and Epigenesis.............29 1.1.e. Spontaneous Generation Contested.....................................................................................33 1.1.f. Spontaneous Generation after Pasteur.................................................................................36 1.1.g. Spontaneous Generation in the 20th century ......................................................................37 1.1.h. Evolution...............................................................................................................................38 1.1.i. Darwinism and Spontaneous Generation..............................................................................40 1.1.j. Thomas Henry Huxley, Protoplasm and Bathybius................................................................40 1.1.k. Chemical Evolution................................................................................................................42 1.1.m. Genetics in the origin of life.................................................................................................46 1.2. Colloidal chemistry and Oparin .................................................................................................49 1.2.a. Colloidal chemistry................................................................................................................49 1.2.b. Oparin ...................................................................................................................................51 1.2.c. Oparin’s legacy ......................................................................................................................56 1.3. 1953-1959: Prebiotic Chemistry................................................................................................58 1.3.a. The Miller-Urey experiments................................................................................................60 1.3.a.1. Precursors to the Miller-Urey experiments.....................................................................60 1.3.a.2. The Miller-Urey experiments’ effect ...............................................................................63 1.3.a.3. After the Miller-Urey experiments..................................................................................63 1.3.a.4. The Chicken-and-egg problem ........................................................................................65 1.3.b. NASA .....................................................................................................................................70 1.3.b.1. Funding of Origin-of-Life research ..................................................................................70 1.3.b.2 NASA’s origin and its uptake of Origin-of-Life research...................................................72 Appendix 1....................................................................................................................................76 Chapter2: 1959-1968: Meteors, Minimal cells and outer worlds........................................................77 2.1. The NASA Agenda......................................................................................................................77 2.2. Sidney Fox – a commitment to a ‘proteins-first’ origin of life...................................................80 2.3. Oró and Kimball – nucleic acid synthesis ..................................................................................86 2.4. Molecular Biology: Knowledge, Tools and Techniques.............................................................89 2.5. RNA, the first ‘RNA World’ hypotheses, and ‘evolution in a test tube’ ....................................91 2.6. Mycoplasma and the first steps in the ‘minimal cell’ concept..................................................96 2.7. Meteorites.................................................................................................................................99 2.7.a. The Murchison meteorite .....................................................................................................99 2.7.b. Earlier meteorites ...............................................................................................................100 2.7.c. The ALH84001meteorite and