Evolutionary Processes

The evolution toward life on earth involved processes occurring in its primeval waters or mud. The examples in the preceding chapter show that evolution toward more and more complex organic molecules under these primal conditions was not only possible but favored. Prigogine et al. (1972a, b) and Nicolis and Prigogine (1977) have speculated on the relevance of dissipative structures to prebiotic evolution. Short-wavelength solar radiation provided a flow of free energy into the original “soup” of inorganic compounds constituting the earth’s primeval seas. This resulted in the continual synthesis of simple carbon-based compounds. These simple compounds would have occasionally joined to form stable molecules of greater complexity.