John (Neufeldt),
Actually, a time before the existence of life is what I was referring to with the "chicken before the egg" metaphor.
Inanimate material can be "ordered" by energy such as charge differences between molecules and the attractive quality of Van der Waal forces. Inanimate material can become organized by the existence or creation (by Van der Waal forces) of an electrical dipole. If it possible to organize atoms spontaneously, it should be possible to generate molecules spontaneously. This accepted, it should be possible to believe a relatively complex carbon chain lipid might be an occasional result. If this were the case, since lipid bilayer membranes found in cells will spontaneously organize in the presence of water, a compartmentalized structure (ie: a very rudimentary cell) could result. Compartmentalization allows the organization of chemical reactions toward more increased order in spite of 2nd law of thermodynamic restraints for reasons stated earlier. Such a lipid bi-layer structure would exist in an early atmosphere and, therefore, in the absence of oxygen, it could exist for a relatively long period of time. It would not be subject to oxidation. It is only difficult to believe such a "fortuitious" chain of events could occur because, when discussing these issues, we pay too little attention to the number of years these events had in which to occur.
BENNETT |
