By what means could natural selection form the first cell?

[charles brough]

Natural selection as we know it operates on genes, so organic matter would not have been able to evolve the first cell through the natural selection process we are familiar with. However, I propose that a more primitive form of natural selection evolved the first cell.

I suspect that because I found, in my social theory research in “The Last Civilization,” that there is a non-genetic form of natural selection operating in and between societies (social evolution) that passes on traits and which is also done without involving genes.

However, I don't pretend to know how an alternate form of natural selection might work in organic matter. Does anyone else have any idea, someone with more training in chemistry?

Brough,

 

[Grumpy]

charles brough

Before there was biological evolution there had to be some sort of controling molecule, one that at the least had the ability to form, over time, copies of itself(or, reverse copies that could go on to make a copy of the original)from the environment it was in, probably along the lines of the deep sea volcanic vents called Black Smokers. This molecule would have been formed in a kind of chemical evolution and, as unlikely as it is, this would only have to happen once in the trillions of such reactions going on everywhere on Earth at the time.

Grumpy

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

Natural selection as we know it operates on genes,....

Not really. Natural selection operates at the phenotype level, indirectly influencing the passage of genes to subsequent generations.

so organic matter would not have been able to evolve the first cell through the natural selection process we are familiar with.

No, I do not think that’s an accurate summation. It is generally accepted amongst scientists that the precursors to the first cells were self-replicating molecules. The precise nature of these molecules is unknown although the majority view seems to be that they were RNA or RNA-like molecules (the so-called ‘RNA World’ hypothesis). RNA molecules with enzymic activity can catalyse their own replication as well as the formation of peptide bonds, thus paving the way for formation of peptides from amino acids. Seeing as they use themselves as a template, these self-replicating molecules were subject to natural selection processes very similar to those governing the evolution of organisms. Indeed, I have seen biochemists who study self-replicating molecules as a pre-biotic model describe them using natural selection.