Ebook: Beginnings of Cellular Life: Metabolism Recapitulates Biogenesis

In this book, Harold Morowitz presents a new theory on the origin of life on Earth four billion years ago. Morowitz postulates that the first step toward the origin of life was the spontaneous condensation of amphiphilic molecules to form vesicles or protocells. This hypothesis provides a framework for reexamining the emergence of cellularity. Morowitz further proposes that core metabolic processes have not changed for some 3.8 billion years, so we can use a study of modern biochemistry to advance our knowledge about the chemical processes of the earliest protocells. Morowitz views origin of life issues from the persepective of certain constructs in the philosophy of science that provide guideposts to formulating and assessing hypotheses