During my time at work, my mind often wanders into matters which are very much over my head — evolution, for example.
However, it has occurred to me on various occasions that for life to have evolved from simple single-cellular organisms birthed out of a primordial soup on an ancient Earth, there are a couple hurdles that would have to be jumped for said life to work at all:
The Reproductive Hurdle Let’s assume that a living cell is formed by means of random interactions of primordial matter & energy. If that cell is not formed with the ability to reproduce itself, that particular life is doomed. Cellular division is a seemingly complex process, and even if a “first single-celled life form” managed to form many, many times, how likely is it that one formed with the fully functioning ability to reproduce itself repeatedly? The copying of genetic information, the separation of cellular mass, the closing of the cell wall after division… All of it would need to be present in the first cell for it to prosper, no? This leads me to my second thought…
The Digestive Hurdle If a cell forms with the ability to reproduce but not ingest, it is doomed to duplicate itself into nothingness. So not only must the first cell have been able to reproduce, it must also have had a way to ingest material both for mass and energy. Further, it would have had to have a means to get rid of the waste product, and so some form of excretion system must have been present as well.
Could the first cell have possessed all of those amazing abilities? Presuming evolution to be true, it simply must be concluded that it did, lest the whole theory collapse. However, is it not possible that these hurdles undermine evolutionary theory’s explanation for our origins?
I don’t know. Like I said, evolution is over my head. So I share these ideas with the world, hoping others might enjoy or even refine them. God bless.