moedavid, Darwininan evolution is relevant from the moment you have anything that replicates itself - any of the hypothesized simpler replicators would have been subject to the same process of selection-by-survival that drives the evolution of modern life forms.
It's a mistake to look at modern bacteria as if they were the first life on Earth. A modern bacterium is the product of billions of years of evolutionary refinement, and the short lifespans of many bacteria mean that they can cram more evolutionary iterations into that time than more long-lived org... (read more)
moedavid, Darwininan evolution is relevant from the moment you have anything that replicates itself - any of the hypothesized simpler replicators would have been subject to the same process of selection-by-survival that drives the evolution of modern life forms.
It's a mistake to look at modern bacteria as if they were the first life on Earth. A modern bacterium is the product of billions of years of evolutionary refinement, and the short lifespans of many bacteria mean that they can cram more evolutionary iterations into that time than more long-lived org... (read more)