19 THE RISE OF LIFE
teresting c the cell has no purpose.
As t Paul Davies puts it, “If everyty of molecules ever arise in t place?” It is rats inyour kitc togeto a cake—but a cake t couldmoreover divide is little t is also little and it.
So s for all ty? ell, one possibility is t perisn’t quite—not quite—so first it seems. take teins. t t ein c assemble all at once? if, in t slot macion, some of t if, in oteins didn’t suddenly burst intobeing, but evolved .
Imagine if you took all ts t make up a tainer er, gave it a vigorous stir, andout stepped a completed person. t ’s essentially ionists) argue proteinsspontaneously formed all at once. t—t c ive selection processt alloo assemble in cer a time bumped into some oterand in so doing “discovered” some additional improvement.
Cions of t associated ually somet may be beyond us to cook tanley Miller and t readily enougs of molecules in nature get togeto formlong cantly assemble to form starcals can do anumber of lifelike te, respond to environmental stimuli, take on a patternedcomplexity. tself, of course, but trate repeatedly tcomplexity is a natural, spontaneous, entirely commonplace event. t be agreat deal of life in t large, but tage of ordered self-assembly, ineverytransfixing symmetry of snoo turn.
So poural impulse to assemble t many scientists no lifemay be more inevitable t it is, in t andNobel laureate Cian de Duve, “an obligatory manifestation of matter, bound to arisee.” De Duve t it likely