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104Evolution at the Origins of Life?Life 14 (2). 2024.The role of evolutionary theory at the origin of life is an extensively debated topic. The origin and early development of life is usually separated into a prebiotic phase and a protocellular phase, ultimately leading to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Most likely, the Last Universal Common Ancestor was subject to Darwinian evolution, but the question remains to what extent Darwinian evolution applies to the prebiotic and protocellular phases. In this review, we reflect on the current status…Read more
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43Scientific progress, normative discussions, and the pragmatic account of definitions of lifeSynthese 201 (4): 1-20. 2023.Discussions on the status of definitions of life have long been dominated by a position known as definitional pessimism. Per the definitional pessimist, there is no point in trying to define life. This claim is defended in different ways, but one of the shared assumptions of all definitional pessimists is that our attempts to define life are attempts to provide a list of all necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as alive. In other words, a definition of life is a strict, des…Read more
Ludo L.J. Schoenmakers
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
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Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition ResearchPost-doctoral Fellow
Nijmegen, GE, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
General Philosophy of Science |
Philosophy of Biology |