Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Oct;39(5):395-406.
doi: 10.1007/s11084-009-9172-7. Epub 2009 Jul 25.

Charles Darwin and the origin of life

Juli Peretó  1 , Jeffrey L Bada, Antonio Lazcano
Affiliations

Charles Darwin and the origin of life

Juli Peretó et al. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2009 Oct.

Abstract

When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species 150 years ago he consciously avoided discussing the origin of life. However, analysis of some other texts written by Darwin, and of the correspondence he exchanged with friends and colleagues demonstrates that he took for granted the possibility of a natural emergence of the first life forms. As shown by notes from the pages he excised from his private notebooks, as early as 1837 Darwin was convinced that "the intimate relation of Life with laws of chemical combination, & the universality of latter render spontaneous generation not improbable". Like many of his contemporaries, Darwin rejected the idea that putrefaction of preexisting organic compounds could lead to the appearance of organisms. Although he favored the possibility that life could appear by natural processes from simple inorganic compounds, his reluctance to discuss the issue resulted from his recognition that at the time it was possible to undertake the experimental study of the emergence of life.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. None
    2. Aulie R (1970) Darwin and spontaneous generation. J Amer Sci Affil 22:31–33
    1. None
    2. Bastian HC (1907) The evolution of life. P. Dutton and Co, New York
    1. Bronn HG (1860) [Review of] Ch. Darwin: on the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life (London 1859). Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefaktenkunde:112–116 [Translated in David Hull, 1973. Darwin and His Critics: The Reception of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community. University of Chicago Press, Chicago pp. 120–124]
    1. None
    2. Calvin M (1969) Chemical evolution: Molecular evolution towards the origin of living systems on the Earth and elsewhere. Oxford University Press, New York
    1. None
    2. Crowe MJ (1986) The extraterrestrial life debate 1750–1900: The idea of a plurality of worlds from Kant to Lowell. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Publication types