Rethinking Abiogenesis: Part II, Life as a Simplification of the Nonliving Universe

In Part I, we argued that it may be useful, even important, to perceive the origin of life as a seamlessly continuous (and arguably incomplete) process, rather than any specific point in time or evolutionary history.1 Here we challenge another widespread assumption: that abiogenesis involves some sort of increase in complexity. Instead, we argue that in at least some useful ways, natural selection can be viewed as a process that simplifies the nonliving universe, yielding organisms that are increasingly efficient in processing energy and genomes that capture only a fraction of the information available in the broader environmental context. We show how this view of "life as simplification" connects with our previous argument for abiogenesis as a seamlessly continuous process in time: anything we consider alive makes sense only in the context of, and in relationship to, neighboring points in time and space. Overlooking this context tempts unproductive questions, such as how could something nonliving move toward the complexity of life? Seen in context, life's complexity merely reflects the greater complexity of the surrounding universe. This shift in perspective opens productive scientific and theological reflections that include conceptions of "order out of chaos."