Autocatalytic Sets and the Origin of Life

Entropy

Wim Hordijk¹  Jotun Hein¹ 

[1] Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford, UK

关键词: origin of life;    autocatalytic sets;    RAF sets;   

DOI  :  10.3390/e12071733

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The origin of life is one of the most fundamental, but also one of the most difficult problems in science. Despite differences between various proposed scenarios, one common element seems to be the emergence of an autocatalytic set or cycle at some stage. However, there is still disagreement as to how likely it is that such self-sustaining sets could arise “spontaneously”. This disagreement is largely caused by the lack of formal models. Here, we briefly review some of the criticism against and evidence in favor of autocatalytic sets, and then make a case for their plausibility based on a formal framework that was introduced and studied in our previous work.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.