Origin of life theories

So I finally got around to reading Frankenstein, and I'm a ways into it, and it's gotten me interested in the origin of life. Apparently no one has any firm idea how life 'happened', as it were.

I'm reading the abiogenesis article on Wikipedia (in before "Wikipedia can be changed by anyone, it's totally false!", it's reliable enough for me.), and the only guy that had any clue what was going on was Alexander Oparin.

Now, I'm no scientist, but it seems completely mind-boggling to me that simple molecules could spontaneously become autonomous due to the chemical properties of their constituent atoms.

Any intelligent anons care to spread the intelligence, or can recommend any reading other than Wikipedia to try to comprehend this concept?

Get it? If no conflict is made than that which is unified becomes its parts and the creativity that it was ceases to be. So what conflicts with amino acids? What creativity comes of that unity? What conflicts with this unity?
etc, etc, et al, ad infinitum. Life; always in motion, always in conflict, always in flux.

The elements including water had changed from their basic elemental forms into amino acids.

oh dear, this board...


OP, perhaps you should search PubMed for the phrase "RNA World."  The consensus belief is that RNA-based organisms were the first to appear.  Many ribozymes that have been selected for allow complex chemical reactions, supporting the notion that a life form completely composed of RNA could exist.

That being said, how nucleotides were so abundant for these things to appear is still a mystery.  The reducing atmosphere would be essential, as an oxidizing atmosphere would not allow these complex organic molecules to form on their own (they would be oxidized and destroyed in an oxidizing atmosphere).