![]() ![]() Its offspring faithfully copy the fortuitous error and thereby inherit it. Here, a mutation can give one minuscule knot of organic chemistry the opportunity to replicate more efficiently than its neighbours. ![]() That leads to mutation and the possibility of change, and so to evolution. The replication process is fallible, of course everything is in this world. Imagine life as a manual that includes instructions for replicating itself. We fondly believe there is no reversing that step, however, after a few very basic criteria are satisfied. But what were the chances of success? Hard to say, and the no man’s land between inorganic process and organic existence is a region, not a hard dividing line. ![]() Life sometimes seems destined, to we fortunate ones who live at the far end of time’s telescope. ![]() They’ve been bustling and thriving and dying and trying to outdo one another in a ferocious, invisible war for survival. For almost half the aeons since its formation, this world has known self-replicating organic entities. Ice comes, ice goes the atmosphere for most of this time is a heady mix of chemicals either toxic to life or simply useless to it. Bacteria have been leaching sustenance from strange chemicals in the bowels of the Earth or the depths of the sea. For three billion years the only life here has been microscopic. ![]()
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