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Thoughts on precellular biological evolution.
I don't know who might be interested in my thoughts about non-cellular evolution, but consider the "life form" described at 7 minutes and 9 seconds into this video. --- Please continue reading this thread...
I don't know who might be interested in my thoughts about non-cellular evolution, but consider the "life form" described at 7 minutes and 9 seconds into this video. --- Please continue reading this thread...
This is actually very close to the way I figure, and have long figured, life most likely evolved back before it was so complex. When I came across this video, it reminded me very much of some of the ways I have envisioned extremely early Earth life based on my understanding.
This example is of course not such simple primitive life, but what I'm talking about is the way its genetic material and byproducts of that genetic material reproduces and interacts without the need to be separated into individual cells.
I don't of course "know" what early Earth life was like, but from what I do know it would be possible for even the simplest RNA based or DNA based life to evolve in such a manor in a complex diversity of self-replication and genetic exchange in combined cooperation & competition.
Such pre-cellular life could easily have continued until one more more forms managed to evolve ways of isolating themselves from the whole, at least partially protecting themselves and some portion of their descendants from losing their newly evolved protective isolation ability.
Of course, experiments have shown that simple forms of prebiotic "cells" can grow and reproduce even without any genetic material at all, so of course I'm not saying reproducing cells couldn't have been around from the start of life or even before abiogenesis.
It seems to me that the evolution of the complex molecular machinery of modern life would have been more likely to have evolved in this sort of everything-goes style biochemical community where nature's experiments could have been shared more freely than in today's common forms.
Such pre-cellular life could have had access to practically endless ways of combining and recombining as those various combinations effectively raced each other to discovery by trial and error of what worked most efficiently and most effectively and what could survive best.
Eventually, some small and fortunate subset of the descendants of what turned out to be most sustainable within such a partially-competitive and partially-cooperative environment would have been around to look back on their possible ancestry and wonder if it had been this way.
Evolution is the accumulation of change. Biological evolution is the accumulation of change in biology. The example shown 7 minutes & 9 seconds into the video at allows & therefore would have allowed biological evolution without individual cells.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
I wrote this in the hopes of starting some discussion among people who find the topic of evolution interesting even beyond the limited scope the evolution of cellular life. I posted my first rendition of it in the Phylogeny Explorer Project group on FaceBook and then revised it.
The revision was meant to become first a thread on Twitter, then the unrolled copy at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1301032221323616257 and then a discussion post on the League of Reason website. In other words, even this discussion starter has evolved to get to this stage.
My first post on the League of Reason website can be found at https://leagueofreason.org.uk/index.php?threads/a-better-election-system-balanced-instant-runoff-normalized-yield.16602/ and is meant for discussion about and related to the concept of a Balanced Instant Runoff Normalized Yield general election. Feel free to check it out and perhaps discuss that topic there.
My second post on the League of Reason website can be found at https://leagueofreason.org.uk/index.php?threads/recommendation-implementing-an-approval-vote-style-peoples-primary.16603/ and is meant for discussion about and related to implementation of an approval vote style People's Primary. Please also feel free to check out that post and join the discussion if you like.
I just posted the latest version version of this on League of Reason at https://leagueofreason.org.uk/index.php?threads/thoughts-and-discussion-about-pre-cellular-biological-evolution.16606/ which I am now mentioning in Twitter, so even now this discussion starter continues to evolve, regardless of whether any further evolution of it shows in that branch of its evolution.
And now, to invite a few people to the discussion that I think might find it interesting enough to have something to say about it. I hope I've chosen well, because Twitter still lacks any way to un-add someone from all branches of a conversation. Let's see how this evolves.
[ @WarrenSm2 @Catheri77148739 @paul_obn @maphosa_thabani @pkhawke @DazKito @kaakMinde @FearTheSphere_ @NoahPaulLeGies @TakeThatEnglish @Race__Realist @asignfromheavan @AprilLigeia @RosaRubicon @Axel_Sharpshire @orna_verum @JimSanoBC79 @ReillyOToole1 @C_82l ]
[ @Da_BuDMaN @RalphScenic @JuicyChuleta @kruzcial @GlenSteen @ashuaurora @stuartburnham2 @OceanKeltoi @ZachsMind @GregCampNC @Aron_Ra @AtyHans @godFreeWorld @crypt_oguru @No2Dogma @Ah_Science @BeejPrice @paulogia0 @JacksonWheat1 @AGTCnews @harryhamilton99 @BradTreais ]
[ @Dragonblaze @ZenaMOBrien @RanWiz @NRA_TacoBowl_MS @HonorGodLife @PaulDOlivier @SamuelSemmens @sallyforthe @JacobDuck @DAccampoFamily @ScientiaPercept @WoopsWoah @MikeBravoYanky @John_W_Marshall @shoba82 @NoScienceDenial @AnjumQaisrani @rkdoctr @RJDownard ]
Please read the thread starting at https://twitter.com/DonaldKronos/status/1301032221323616257 or the unrolled version of it at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1301041158135541760 and consider getting some conversation started with replies starting here.Thanks.
@RichardDawkins --- What do you think of the idea that pre-cellular life could have evolved most of the basic molecular machinery later used by cellular life? Has there been an experiment done to see how simple genomes evolve reproducing without cellular reproduction?
