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If you are asking whether or not I think that life originated by atoms randomly bumping together at the correct time and in the correct configuration, then no, I don't think that. I think the origin of life was a chemical and physical process - a set of chemical reactions building up in...

Can you provide me with some documentary evidence of that assertion? It must still matter, because scientists continue to research the topic. For example some of the latest results:- Heat flux across an open pore enables the continuous replication and selection of oligonucleotides towards...

Indeed. Far-from-equilibrium phenomena, such as living organisms, behave well within the laws of thermodynamics, even when they are evolving.

I wouldn't expect the theory of evolution to explain the origin of life, anymore than I would expect meteorological theory to explain the origin of the earth's atmosphere or germ theory to explain the origin of germs. ToE explains what happened to life after it got going, just as...

Is self-organization an alternative to natural selection?

 The authors note that some researchers see self-organization as an alternative to natural selection, thereby driving a very different evolutionary process to that generally envisaged by the mainstream of researchers...

Biological examples of self-organization In the section with the above mentioned title, the authors begin with two simple examples of self-organization. The first is the formation of the tobacco mosaic virus and the second is the formation of microtubules. With the tobacco mosaic virus...

Why isn't it? What makes you imply that the concept of self-organisation is incompatible with evolutionary biology, specifically natural selection?

Having described self-organisation, and introduced dissipative structures which, for their maintenance, require a continual flow-though of energy, the authors turn their attention to:- The Cell: The functional unit of biology

 It’s here that the article begins to get really...

Thanks for the link Resha. That is neat. Oddly, your specific link did not work for me, but I tracked the title of the paper down, Googled it and got a link to another copy of the article which did work. For anyone interested the title is "A Self-reproducing Analogue".

Well, the holidays are over and it’s back to reality. Get your violins out and give me a white handkerchief. :cry: Having provided a bit of a background and introduction to evolution and the idea of self-organization, Johnson and Lam then describe the process in more detail...

A brief historical preface In a subsection of their introduction with the above mentioned title, the authors describe why there might be a clash of perspectives within the study of evolution. Evolution by natural selection is one of biology’s best supported theories. However, the theory...

I found this a fascinating piece about scientists who confront controversy when dealing with the public (and even colleagues):- 

Outreach: Speak up for science It begins thus:-

 


 The last lines of the article sound a warning for those who...

Before they discuss self-organization and its relationship to evolution, the paper has three sections - an introduction, a historical preface and a description of evolutionary biology as it is today, focusing mainly on selection. Introduction Here Johnson and Lam note that a diverse group...

Yes. I found all these papers in the scientific literature. In actuality, I found one or two which, once I started reading, found myself being forced to the reference section to locate even more papers which were cited and looked to be very interesting. The second paper I linked to is...

I don't think that it has replaced religion. Maybe it's been one of several forces that has weakened the appeal of religion. Last year, New Scientist ran a series of articles about the decline of religion. It's conclusion was not so much that atheism (in that case) was replacing...

Whiskey, I think.

The abstract of the first paper linked to in the OP reads as follows:-
 The authors are summarizing their paper as follows:-

 1. Some folk see self-organization as an alternative to natural selection as a generator of new functionality in biological systems as those...

The second paper in the OP explains it as follows. Orthodoxy tends to see the cell as a factory with lots of little machines inside of it. These little machines do things in the same kind of way that our machines do things. They use levers, gears, and other mechanical things to move around...

I’ve come across a series of fascinating articles which to an extent looks at evolution in a different way, and most certainly looks at the cell and cellular processes in a new way.

 The articles deal with a process familiar to physicists, called...

And oldie and a goldie.