ABSTRACT
The laws of physics and chemistry make the chemical evolution of life essentially inevitable when conditions are right. This is relevant to the Autocatalytic Biodiversity Hypothesis (ABH) because this inevitability is a tendency for information to increase. Diversity is a form of information. Precursor chemicals to life were made in space and transported to Earth on meteorites. Experiments indicate life likely started in thermal hot springs. Mixtures of organic compounds in thermal pools undergo repeated cycles of wet, dry, and moist gels, producing large biological molecules. Amino acids, nucleic acid bases, phosphate, glycerol, and a lipid in a small, boiling spring produced primitive “cells” spontaneously. If lipids are present, polymers are encapsulated into microscopic protocells. Protocells undergo natural selection, which might have started when the more robust protocells survived long enough to be transported to other hot springs. The inevitability of life’s evolution in favorable conditions, and the great number of habitable planets beyond our solar system, imply life is common in the Universe. The Information Increase Hypothesis postulates that there is a tendency for information, diversity, and complexity to increase under the right conditions. It incorporates the ABH, which is a subset of it.
