In my youth, I studied biochemistry. I did some early work in evolution and I became enthralled by the mystery of the evolution of life. Eventually, I moved from biochemistry to a career in software development. But I never lost my keen interest in how life evolved. I continued to read on the subject, to download scientific papers, and to ponder this great mystery. I was able to find evidence for a trail of logic that carried right up to the point of life. And there is a lot of material that carries evolution from that point forward. But everything I read left a gap right in the middle at the most important part of the process. And then one day it hit me. I had an idea about how the magic gap could be spanned.

In this blog, I am going to attempt to explain how life could have evolved on earth. It is by necessity a story about chemistry and there is no way to tell the story without talking about chemistry. This blog is intended for technical audiences and, as such, I will not attempt explain biochemical terms. I will also, as much as I can, reference peer reviewed articles that provide the evidence for all aspects of the processes described.

Is the story told here actually the way life evolved? It is unlikely that it is. Is there any evidence to back up the story? Yes there is – a lot of evidence. But, like most things in science, there is also evidence for many alternatives. What I am trying to do here is to tell a compelling story, to stimulate your imagination, and to weave together a collection of isolated facts and experiments to generate a plausible explanation of what might have happened.

I hope you enjoy it.

— Steve Bailey —