Darwinian Evolution of Molecules

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. The Dynamic Earth: A Recent Concept Necessary for the Study of the Origin of Life

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 1-11

3. Why Did Life Generate? Why Does Life Evolve? Physical Perspective of the Origin of Life

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 13-29

4. What Is the Ultimate Ancestor? Evidence from Fossils and Gene Analyses

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 31-54

5. “Miller–Urey Experiment” in the Recent Picture of the Early Earth

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 55-73

6. Origin of Organic Molecules and Natural Selection of Bioorganic Molecules

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 75-88

7. Molecular Evolution in Deep Subterranean Regions

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 89-115

8. The Last Stage of Molecular Evolution to the Birth of Life: Individuals, Metabolism, and Heredity

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 117-131

9. Summary: The Evolutionary Phylogenetic Tree of the Earth’s Light Elements

   • Hiromoto Nakazawa

   Pages 133-140

10. Back Matter

    Pages 141-143

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On the basis of thermodynamic considerations and the Earth’s historical processes, this book argues the physical inevitability of life’s generation and evolution, i.e., Why did life generate? Why does life evolve? Following an introduction to the problem, the hypothesis “Darwinian Evolution of Molecules” is proposed, which explains how, when, and where life was instigated through successive chemical reactions and the survival of selected molecules. The individual processes described are all scientifically reasonable, being verifiable by experiment. The hypothesis is supported by extensive reference to the scientific literature published in academic journals, including some experimental reports from the author’s own research group. The readers of this book will learn that the decreasing temperature of the early Earth led to a reduction in its entropy, inducing the Earth’s materials to order, which entailed ordering of the light elements as organic molecules with subsequent further ordering (i.e., evolution) to systems that can be considered alive (i.e., life). Researchers and students, as well as the non-academic audience, interested in the interdisciplinary problem of the origin of life will find suggestions and possible approaches to the scientific and conceptual problems they may be facing.

• Origin and evolution of life
• Thermodynamic aspect of life
• Earth’s historical aspect of life
• Darwinian evolution of molecules
• Entropy of organisms
• Light elements
• historical geology

• National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

  Hiromoto Nakazawa

Hiromoto Nakazawa is an emeritus fellow at the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, and a fellow of the Japan Geoscience Union. He is also a former chairman of The Clay Science Society of Japan (2001–2002).  He devoted most of his research time to X-ray crystallography while at the National Institute for Research in Inorganic Materials (NIRIM), Japan. As a materials scientist, he has been awarded the Crystallographic Society of Japan Prize (1978) for the identification and study of new superstructures of iron sulfides using X-ray diffraction and high-resolution electron microscopy. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon as well as several other prizes for his invention of the scanning X-ray microscope using the X-ray guide tube (2000). His curiosity regarding the origin of life from his student days brought him to the study of clay minerals as materials at the interface between the inorganic and organic realms during his tenure as a managing researcher at NIRIM (1985–2000).  While a professor at Tohoku University, Japan (2001), he commenced his experimental studies of the origin of life together with his students and subsequently proposed a new scenario for the origin of life on the Earth based on their recent results (2006, 2014). In 2011, he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.

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