Abstract
In the beginning, there was the Big Bang. Then the universe inflated, after which there was only hot plasma of quarks and gluons and other relativistic particles. Particle and antiparticle pairs were continuously formed and destroyed in extreme heat. A small excess of quarks and leptons over antiquarks and antileptons resulted in the predominance of matter over antimatter. At about 10-6s, quarks and gluons combined to form baryons such as protons and neutrons. As the temperature dropped with continuing expansion of universe, no new proton-antiproton or neutron-antineutron pairs could be formed, and a mass annihilation of particle and antiparticle occurred. Eventually, about 4.5 billion years ago, a small planet, earth, was formed of cosmic debris circling an insignificant star in the periphery of the milky way galaxy. Replicating cells containing RNA and later DNA arose from a primordial soup. Replication with errors (variation) led to the process of evolution. Evolution and natural selection occurs not only at the level of organisms but also at the level of cells within organisms. In fact, Darwinian principles may be applicable at levels ranging from the quantum to the cosmos.
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Notes
- 1.
The original 1859 full book title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, which was changed to The Origin of Species in the 1872 edition.
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Leigh, H. (2010). Evolution. In: Genes, Memes, Culture, and Mental Illness. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5671-2_7
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